Reforestation Through Micropropagation
The forests account for 29-34% of the land area on earth, on world-wide basis, and for 19.52% (62.20 million ha) of the land area in India, where only 10.88% (35.79 million ha) is covered by closed forests. While on the one hand, forests are a source of goods and services (including firewood, fodder, pulp, and fibre industries), they also maintain climatic stability and conserve water and soil.

Today, there is a widening gap between the supply and demand of forest based materials, and the forests are being denuded leading to degeneration of environment in a variety of ways. It has also been shown that the degraded lands can be effectively used and restored by planting forests using trees of wide adaptability and high productivity.

It is estimated that in the year 1990, 500 million plants of diverse nature were produced in 60 countries. In New Zealand, large number of micropropagated plantlets of radiata pine (Pinus radiata) were used for reforestation, and it is estimated that as many as two miIlion plantlets were in the field in 1992. During 1992-2002, increasing number of plants must have been produced through micropropagation and used for reforestation in different countries.

In India also, with the support from Department of Biotechnology (DBT), a number of forest trees were used successfully for micropropagation under two Tissue Culture Pilot Plant (TCPP) facilities that were initiated, one at TERI, New Delhi and the other at NCL Pune. Nearly 60 lakh plantlets were produced and field planted over an area of 6000 hectares. Some of the trees, which were used in these pilot projects included the following: Alnus spp., bamboo, teak, poplar, Prosopis, Capparis, canes (Calamus), neem and Eucalyptus spp.