Guwahati: The Assam forest department signed a memorandum of understanding with Isha Foundation of Sadhguru Jaggi Basudev on Monday to increase the state's green cover and tackle erosion.

Principal chief conservator of forests, Assam, Bikash Brahma, and Swami Nischala of Isha Foundation signed the memorandum in the presence of chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal and the Sadhguru at Srimanta Sankaradeva Kalakshetra at Panjabari here.

Sonowal said Isha Foundation, which gained entry in Guinness World Records for the plantation of the maximum number of saplings in a day, will provide technical help in planting trees on both sides of rivers to accomplish the state government's target of making Assam a pollution-free state.

"Erosion because of loss of green cover has emerged as a big problem as it wreaks havoc in the state. Plantation of trees for treating the catchment areas of our rivers can help us check erosion. So we approached Isha Foundation for technical support. We have set a target of planting 10 crore saplings in 2017, of which 1.42 crore saplings have already been planted. Isha Foundation will help the forest department plant saplings on both sides of our rivers," Sonowal said.

The project, River Rejuvenation and Conservation, aims to increase forest cover to check the erosion caused by the Brahmaputra, the Barak and their 121 tributaries in the long run. The state has lost more than four lakh hectares of land since 1950 to erosion, particularly during the monsoon.

The State of Forest Report, 2015, released by the Forest Survey of India under the Union ministry for environment, forests and climate change says Assam has lost 48 square km of green cover since 2013.

Encroachment on forest land, biotic pressure, rotational felling in tea gardens and shifting cultivation were found to be the major causes for loss of green cover. Jorhat, Kokrajhar and Sonitpur have lost maximum green cover, the reports says.

The Sadhguru said apart from planting trees, a policy should be adopted to make ecological restoration a part of any development project.

"Glaciers are the source of less than four per cent of our water and the rest is forest. So we have to restore our forest cover and increase organic content of our land to prevent our land from becoming deserts, as is happening in parts of rural Haryana, Punjab, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra," the Sadhguru said.