The government, in its annual policies and programmes, has declared the upcoming decade—2014- 2023—as the ‘forest decade’ in a bid to bring noticeable improvements in urban and rural greenery, and to enhance existing green patches through plantation, conservation and building of public parks.

The Ministry of Forests and Soil Conservation has adopted a national campaign with the slogan, ‘One Household One Tree, One Village One Forest and One Town One Park’ for this purpose.

According to Annapurna Nanda Das, joint-secretary at the ministry, the government has given top priority to efforts aimed at improving green cover across the country with active participation of stakeholders—communities and local government bodies. He said the participation of private sector, development partners and organisations involved in environment and forestry sectors would be encouraged to promote greening.

“The Forest Decade coincides with the United Nations Decade on Biodiversity. Protecting forests not only means maintaining greenery but also preserving valuable biodiversity to mitigate the negative consequences of climate change,” said Das.

The major programmes include promoting private forestry schemes, massive tree plantation on open spaces and fallow lands in villages, towns and municipalities, and creation of public spaces wherever necessary to boost urban greenery.

"We are also working to promote incentive-based forest conservation to help people realise how they can benefit from it,” say officials.

According to reports, the country witnessed deforestation and forest degradation at an alarming rate in the last few years, prompting the government to come up with measures such as launching the ambitious national priority project called ‘Rastrapati Chure Conservation Programme’ in 2010.

Nepal faced worst deforestation in the past three decades, according to a government report released in 2010. At present, forests make up 39.6 percent of the country’s total area and the national policy is for maintaining it at 40 percent.