Friday, 18 February 2022 | PNS | Dehradun
An agreement was signed between the Himachal Pradesh Forest Department and Forest Research Institute (FRI) Dehradun for the transfer of the technology to extract natural fibre from pine needles. The agreement was signed at a workshop on the utilisation of pine needles as a source of natural fibre organised at Nahan on Thursday by the Himachal Pradesh Forest Department in collaboration with the FRI.
The Chemistry and Bioprospecting Division of FRI has developed a facile and eco-friendly technique to extract natural fibre from pine needles. The technique is simple, cost-effective and does not demand large space, energy, instrumentation, etc. This makes it replicable on pilot scale and easy to use in remote areas having abundant pine needles.
The technology is being adopted in the State of HP for the first time. An agreement was signed for technology transfer between the Himachal Pradesh Forest Department and FRI. The agreement was signed by the HP principal chief conservator of forests (HoFF) Ajay Srivastava and the FRI director Arun Singh Rawat who is also the director general of the Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education (ICFRE).
In Himachal Pradesh, an area of about 1,25,885 hectares is estimated to be covered with Chir pine forests. About 1.2 tonnes of pine needles are shed per hectare of pine forest annually between April and June every year. These pine needles are highly combustible and cause devastating forest fires during the summer season causing loss to timber, resin, plantations, wildlife and biodiversity causing extensive tangible and intangible losses. The department incurs expenditure of crores of rupees on forest fire prevention and control measures. According to officials, on the one hand, adoption of this technology will help prevent forest fires while on the other hand it will also generate livelihood options at the local level from the locally available abundant bioresource. Successful implementation of this technology would involve community participation in a big way. Himachal Pradesh has a policy on collection and removal of pine needles from the forest that also envisages investment subsidy on pine needle-based industries.Speaking on the occasion Srivastava expressed hope that adoption of this technology will curb the summer forest fire menace in the state in near future. He said that in a state where about 90 per cent of the population is rural, this technology offers an option for income generation using a bioresource that was so far considered a waste. The fibre isolated from the pine needles can be spun into handloom cloth and several products like mats, carpets and ropes among others can be spun with it. Rawat congratulated the Himachal Pradesh Forest Department for adopting this technology and emphasised that the adoption of innovations will be highly useful for better utilisation of bioresource and livelihood generation. In recent years FRI has developed many processes which can be adopted by Himachal Pradesh Forest Department and other State Forest Departments. The preparation of natural fiber from combustible pine needles is one of the innovative examples, he added.
