By Our Staff Reporter
Dehradun, 22 Apr: Forest Ecology and Climate Change Division and ENVIS RP on forestry and forest related livelihoods of Forest Research Institute, jointly celebrated Earth Day here, today. Director General Indian Council of Forestry Research & Education (ICFRE) Arun Singh Rawat was the Chief Guest.
Dr VP Panwar welcomed the participants and discussed in detail the events for Earth Day. Director, FRI, Dr Renu Singh stated that Earth Day reminds of the responsibilities to work on saving the planet. Earth Day is an alarm which constantly reminds about global warming. The temperature rise has led to substantial climatic changes and global disasters. Due to many issues like pollution, global warming and deforestation, Earth is suffering. Earth Day enables people to understand these problems and motivates them to protect the planet from further harm and danger.
DG Arun Singh Rawat stated that the official theme for 2022 is ‘Invest In Our Planet’ and features five primary programmes: The Great Global Cleanup, Sustainable Fashion, Climate and Environmental Literacy, Canopy Project, Food and Environment, and the Global Earth Challenge. The main problem is garbage disposal and environment clean-up. He reminded that, in the FRI campus, many cleanliness drives are undertaken. He also emphasised on use of natural fibre for clothing as synthetic clothing too pollutes the environment. He advocated that climate and environment education should be imparted with strong civic education, so people can understand human influence on climate and climate influence on humans. He emphasised on planting more trees.
An invited lecture on ‘Saving the planet agro-ecosystem’ was delivered by Dr Anurag Saxena, Principal Scientist (ICAR-NDRI). He stated that everybody wants to live in a safe world and discussed various geographical features that make it beautiful. On the other hand, the world is in danger because pollution remains a massive challenge as pollutants, chemicals, domestic and industrial waste is added on large scale. He discussed global warming as its impacts are of an unusually long term character. He mentioned the Green Revolution and its impact, as most areas brought under agriculture was at the cost of forests. To increase crop productivity, indiscriminate use of fertilizers and pesticides was done, which had detrimental effect on human health. He told the gathering about various approaches to reducing CO2 emission. He also advocated organic farming. Natural farming had benefits like reduced cost of cultivation, rejuvenation of farm lands, etc.
A declamation competition among FRI Deemed to be university post graduate students on “One Earth One Planet” was also organised. Piyush Chawada bagged first prize, followed by Anushreeta Dutta and Jopi Bomjem, respectively.
