Forests and environment minister debiprasad mishra plants a sapling near the chandaka-dampara wildlife sanctuary. Telegraph picture

Bhubaneswar, June 5: Chandaka-Dampara Wildlife Sanctuary started a plantation programme near its boundary today to mark World Environment Day. Authorities planted 500 banyan and peepal saplings.

The saplings will provide enough fodder to elephants in the sanctuary. This apart, the saplings will also act as a barrier and prevent the elephants from intruding into city limits.

In the past, there have been many instances where elephants either came out of the forests or formed a congregation along its border, which is just beside the Rental Colony-Kalinga Studio Road, a major thoroughfare on the city outskirts.

While forests and environment minister Debiprasad Mishra inaugurated the programme by planting a banyan sapling, senior forest department officials, including secretary of the department, Arabinda Behera, also participated in the programme.

Mishra said: “While the extra foliage on the city-border of the sanctuary will contribute towards providing quality fodder to the elephant herds, it will also work as a barrier so that the jumbos will no more be interested to come to the road crossing the solar-powered fencing inside the sanctuary. Once the fodder of the animals are there, they will be less-tempted to venture into human habitation.”

The forests and environment secretary said: “The planting of both Ficus bengalensis (banyan) and Ficus religiosa (peepal) will also add to the green cover in the area, which is predominantly rich with various types of bamboos, which are also favourite fodder for the elephants.”

“The banyan and peepal trees are not only treated as fodders for the elephants, they are also very important for their cooling effect in the environment due to rich canopy cover. These trees also have religious importance. Similar plantation programmes of the Ficus species will also be taken in other parts of the state,” said principal chief conservator of forests (wildlife), Priyanath Padhi.

Divisional forest officer, Chandaka-Dampara Sanctuary, Akshaya Kumar Patnaik said: “The two species of plants are famous for the canopy cover as on an average they spread more than five times than the other tree species. Even as per mythological belief, when people marry trees to have rains, the banyan (Bara in Oriya) and peepal (Aswastha in Oriya) trees are needed.”

The sanctuary, which comes under Bharatpur forest range, lies in a transition zone where elephants have crossed the road to enter human habitations in the past. A herd of 13 elephants were seen near the boundary of the sanctuary on January 10.

The presence of the elephants on the fringe area of the sanctuary limits also frightened residents of the Rental Colony, Jagannath Vihar, Baramunda, Bharatpur, Jokalandi, the Regional Plant Resource Centre (RPRC) and Ekamravilla.

Last year, a herd of elephants remained sheltered on the RPRC premises, prompting the authorities to issue a notice for the public not to venture inside the park area. The RPRC authorities had to upgrade their solar-powered fencing system to keep the elephant herds at a safe distance.