The spokesman said the land "currently has little ecological or landscape value".

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Ecological studies on the restoration of degraded forest land, the conservation of medicinal plants and their sustainable harvesting are being conducted at Achanakmar-Amarkantak.

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The producers argue that the engineered traits such as resistance to certain brands of herbicide or types of insects and virus actually do ecological good by reducing chemical use and improving yields so that less land needs to go under the plough.

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They calculated that the "ecological footprint" of the final was 3, 051 football pitches - which relates to the amount of land that would have to be cultivated to match the amount of energy used on the day.

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