CENSUS OF TREES: As necessary as human census, and they are doing it with GPS/GIS Technologies

With the occurrences of illegal cutting of trees unceremoniously increasing day by day, it becomes very necessary, at least, to have a scientific count or census of trees, at least in India where the forest area is on decline. By saying 'scientific', I mean that tools of latest technology, i.e. GPS/GIS to be used in order that the data could be collected less error-prone and be with more and more informative fields.

The organization that is working in this direction is 'Terracon Ecotech" of Mumbai (Maharashtra), and projects as having been done by this organization are highly commendable. In fact, Terracon and its associates is the single largest tree Census conducting organization in the country with the highest number of projects successfully completed. They have incorporated tree inventory/ census with the most modern gadgets such as GIS & GPS, which makes the results more accurate. Each project involves physical survey and recording of individual trees in the defined area with relevant details such as latitude and longitude, botanical name, common name, approx age, height, girth, canopy etc. The Partial List of such commenced and / or completed projects (as on 01.01.2010) may be seen at http://www.terraconindia.com/projects-completed.htm

The credit goes to Dr. Ramesh Madav, Chairman, Enbitech and CEO of Terracon Ecotech Pvt Ltd, who have successfully tested the most modern Tree Census Methods, using GPS and GIS. This was for the first time in India that such sophisticated technology was used on such a grand scale. Having completed Tree Census for Municipal Corporations of Thane, Nanded, Mira Bhayendar, Kalyan Dombivali, Navi Mumbai, Nashik and Greater Mumbai, Dr. Madav has become synonymous with Tree Census in India. {Source: http://hamaraphotos.com/news/business/dr-ramesh-madav-successfully-tests-gpsgis-enabled-tree-census.html}

Another organization involved in these activites and doing commendably is The Morton Arboretum  http://www.mortonarb.org/tree-census.html.