Mumbai's biodiversity gets a boost this Van Mahotsav

The annual celebration of Van Mahotsav, popularly known as Forest Day, starts today and will continue for a week across the nation. The intention of this annual celebration is to improve the green cover, especially in unforested areas. Started in 1950 by the Ministry of Agriculture, this year the forest department has announced to plant three crore saplings across Maharashtra. As part of the tree plantation happening today, the forest department will be joined by citizen groups, individuals, NGOs and nature lovers in conducting plantation drives, giving a boost to the movement.  

Encouraging the masses

Dr. Subhajit Mukherjee, an environmentalist and a volunteer, who has been assisting the forest department in the Van Mahotsav celebrations this year, is also encouraging people to come forward and participate in tree plantation drives across the city. Mukherjee shares, “I have been requesting people to join this movement as it is essential to increase the green cover of the city and by doing it on this occasion, the participants will also receive a certificate. This is not just about planting trees but also ensuring that they survive.”

The plan is to plant 5,000 trees at Sanjay Gandhi National Park today from 8 a.m. till the end of the day. Similarly, there are 27 confirmed locations in Mumbai where volunteers will be planting trees; even jawans from CRPF, SRPF and Mumbai police will be planting trees in forested and unforested areas. In all, with the assistance of the forest department, 20,000 citizens will be involved in planting trees and increasing the green cover.

Going local

Mukherjee elucidates, “We are promoting native saplings, forest trees, medicinal trees and flowering trees as we need to grow more local trees and increase the biodiversity.” Trees like Chickoo, Peepal, Jamun, Ashok, Gulmohar and other native plants are being chosen for these plantations. This Van Mahotsav, the thought is not just to plant trees but also to ensure that they are adopted by the volunteers and taken care of until they mature.

Special mention: Gifting trees              

RUR Greenlife Pvt. Ltd.’s ‘Go Green Grows Trees' Campaign (a two-month long one) was initiated under their programme 'Go Green with Tetra' in collaboration with Tetra Pak India, Sahakari Bhandar and Reliance Fresh. As part of this, for every 500 Tetra Pak cartons collected in last 2 months, 1 tree was donated to their committed recyclers (schools, offices and societies) who were willing to adopt them. So far, 100 trees have been gifted.