Definitions

(1) In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires,-

(a) ‘appointed day’ in relation to any area means the date notified under sub-section (3) of section 1;

(aa) "Head of the Karnataka Forest Department" means the officer holding such designated post as may be notified by the State Government from time to time.

(b) ‘local authority’ means a Municipal Corporation, or a Municipal Council or a Town Panchayat or a Taluk Panchayat;

(c) ‘preservation of trees’ means, maintenance and protection of trees to encourage normal growth and prevent damage or cutting or felling and includes planting of new trees and transplanting trees;

(d) ‘relevant Act’ means the enactment under which a local authority is constituted;

(e) ‘rural area’ means an area and of the kind specified in Schedules I and II;

(f) ‘to fell a tree’ means severing the trunk from the roots, uprooting the tree and includes burning or cutting or girdling or applying arboricides to a tree to cause substantial damage thereto or destruction thereof;

(g) ‘tree’ means any woody plant whose branches spring from and are supported upon a trunk or body and which trunk or body is not less than five and a half centimeters in diameter and not less than one meter in height from the ground level and includes palms, bamboos, stumps brushwood, canes and seedlings of such tree but does not include sandal and rosewood trees;

(h) ‘Tree Officer’ means a Forest Officer appointed as such by the the Head of the Karnataka Forest Department for the purposes of this Act;

(i) ‘urban area’ means an area comprising a larger urban area, smaller urban area or a transitional area;

(j) ‘wood lot’ means any piece of land of which trees form the main crop, the average number of such trees in each hectare being not less than twenty-five.

(2) Words and expressions used herein but not defined shall have the meanings assigned to them in the relevant Act.