World Environment day

5th June is World Environment Day, the United Nations principal vehicle for encouraging worldwide awareness and action for the protection of our environment. Since four decades, World Environment Day has been celebrated to raise awareness and drive change.

The theme for 2017 World Environment Day is ‘Connecting People to Nature – in the city, on the land, from the equator to the poles‘. Planting more and more trees is the best way to achieve this goal.

Inspiration from Japan:

During World War II, Japan, not having coal mines or mineral fuels, resorted to cutting down trees on a large scale to fuel its war machines. The result was devastating floods and rapid soil erosion.

After the war, the Japanese started vigorous campaigns to plant trees, and it is this that saved them from total and final disaster.

Every school and college were assigned a piece of land to be developed into a tree farm on which they planted fruit bearing trees. The income from these farms covered most of their schooling costs.

Would it be possible to implement such a productive and fruitful long-term policy in our towns and cities, where some schools lack even so much as a playground?

Trees for enlightening human senses:

Nothing delights the heart and refreshes the mind more than viewing an expanse of land covered with greenery, or merely being amidst the fresh and crisp foliage of varying shades. The magic of spring, with its riot of vibrant colour and sweet fragrances, incites the sense of sight and smell.

Trees for a sustainable economy:

No tree displays its flower without the promise of fruit. All the fruits, rubber, vegetable oils, spices, coffee, cocoa, chocolate, resin, turpentine, cork, essential oils, resins, and gums, etc. come from trees.

Unquestionably timber and its products are important, and increasingly so because irreplaceable fossil fuels are being used at an alarming rate.

Trees have therefore become very crucial to our existence- they are valuable for being renewable sources of carbon and fuel, and as natural converters of carbon dioxide to oxygen.
Trees and Spirituality:

Human beings cannot live by woods and fruits alone, and trees do not minister only to our bodily needs; they have a vital part to play in our spiritual well-beings as well. Deified and worshipped since prehistoric times, as guardians of the dead and protectors of the living, revered through the ages as links with the past and the present, trees have a special place in human affections not enjoyed by many other living things.

The very size of some trees inspires in us an awe unmatched by other creations. With size comes a variety of shapes and colours- from green to gold, spring blossoms of every hue, summer greenery of great variety, and autumn tints of yellow, red and rust.

An ancient tradition that continues to linger today is the sacred groves. Groves are groups of trees that were worshipped as animist deities, for the original inhabitants of our country. Though they knew no botany or ecology as we understand it today, did not from the empirical knowledge that these green deities protected them, providing shelter and food, medicine, fire, innumerable other means of sustenance.

Trees for a better environment:

As catalysts in nature’s anti-pollution squad, trees cleanse the air, alleviate dust content, and absorb moisture. They play the role of cooling agents, as anyone who has spent a burning hot summer afternoon in a forest rather than city would testify. They act as buffers against noise and pollutants.

Besides functioning as natural screens between tightly built housing, trees soften the stark contours of harsh concrete structures, making urban settlements more habitable for us. Above all else, a tree is beautiful to look at and have around. More trees attract more butterflies and bees and insects, squirrels and birds that cheer us with their melodious songs. 

Happy world environment day!