Tag Archives: Earth Day

Environment & Forest, India

Earth Day April 22: Shivaliks can be a green oasis with fruit trees

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Maj Gen Goverdhan Singh Jamwal (Retd)

Photo by KOUSTABH BISWAS on Pexels.com

On this Earth Day let’s pledge to grow more trees. We are lucky to have Shivaliks  which have over 130 Centimetres rainfall every year but the entire rainfall water flows down across the International border within 2 to 3 hours.

Shivaliks can be a green Oasis with fruit trees, herbal plants and particularly, many organic crops. We have 1 crore market in Mata Vaishno Devi and lot of land and unemployed youth waiting to harvest rainwater in the Watershed mode by gully plugging, check dams and small water bodies. 

It can be a money spinner for Jammu and can make us economically viable. Infact this is the answer to all our problems viz-a-vis Jammu and Kashmir.

With the technologies now available we can transform the Shivaliks into a green paradise to support the entire population by growing Desi Mangos, summer Apples, Apricots and Plums.

On COVID situation
Considering the oxygen supply problem in the country and the fact that the incidents of Covid are on the increase, it would be wise for the Jammu and Kashmir Union Territory Government to  make some provisions about oxygen in advance before it is too late.

It is also time our various Trusts and religious and social organisations like the Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Trust and Auqaf and also Gurdwaras and maybe other religious organisations and Sabhas must  start keeping stock of the oxygen cylinders and if need be support by creating extra beds in the hospitals and dispensaries.

There is a vast scope for expansion of facilities by  these institutions which must be made use of and action initiated before it is too late as it’s happening in Delhi and other places.

Gen Goverdhan Singh Jamwal is President j&k Paryavaran Sanstha.

India

At a crossroads: The World digitally observes Earth Day 2020

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Guru Chahal

Today, 22 April , is celebrated the world over as Earth Day. It is an annual event held to demonstrate support for environmental protection. First celebrated in 1970, this year marks its 50th anniversary. How ironical indeed that this important landmark is being observed digitally because of the global lockdown due to Covid-19!

Yes, it’s Earth Day today but Planet Earth is in jeopardy. Our environment is not protected; it is polluted, and how! Our cities are choking with diesel fumes; our factories and offices are spewing carbon emissions; our rivers are filthy; our water bodies are drying; our seas are plastic-ridden; our forest-lands are depleting; old trees are being cut in cities to widen roads and build apartment blocks; our countryside too is being laid bare of trees to link cities and mofussil towns with multi-lane toll roads; our agricultural lands are increasingly being turned into suburban colonies to house the ever-increasing numbers; our hills have been ruthlessly mined and cut through in the name of development; our hill-towns are not worth visiting anymore because of their unplanned growth, traffic snarls and civic apathy; and even our mountain peaks, including the lofty Everest, have become rubbish dumps.

Yamuna River in New Delhi before COVID-19 lockdown

What is the fallout of our mindless actions? Because of the paucity of clean air in our cities and even in rural areas, respiratory diseases are afflicting large numbers; and because of deforestation, carbon emissions are not being neutralised, exponentially adding to the polluted environment. Our rivers, held sacred for millennia, are no more the lifelines they used to be because of excessive damming, and factory-waste flowing into them all along their route. Birds, butterflies and bees whose role is so very pivotal in our food-chain, are fast disappearing because their habitats are being destroyed. In the big oceans, hundreds of species are dying due to ingesting plastic waste and oil spillages. In the agricultural sector, increasing use of pesticides and weed-killing agents like Roundup have done incalculable damage already, depleting the land of its natural minerals. In our food-chain, the seasonality factor has been systematically destroyed. What was available only in summer or winter is now abundantly available all year round. All sorts of hybrid stuff, chemically-treated to give it increased shelf-life is there for you to pick up anytime you want. Who cares if it does not taste as it used to and has little nutrition value!

So here we are (kind of ) celebrating the Earth Day in the time of Coronavirus. Has Nature issued a warning to us all? Have we been served a notice to clean up our act or else? Draw your own conclusions.

And just FYI, the Tulip Gardens in Srinagar are in full bloom but there’s no one to see them!

Happy Earth Day!

Environment, Environment & Forest, Forest, Wildlife

Earth Day 2015: Let us pledge to save the Tiger, Natural Resources and Biodiversity

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Newsroom24x7 Exclusive

Today, on Earth Day, Newsroom24x7 joins the global environmental movement that began in 1970 to express concern about increasing threats to Mother Earth and put environmental concerns in focus.

A number of risks and practices are threatening our forests, wildlife, wetlands and the environment. These are:

– Disintegration of natural habitats and the remaining forest corridors due to rapid development and human pressure.
– Pollution due to the reckless dumping and disposal of waste and the destruction of the ecosystem and the threat to aquatic and avian species.
– Destruction of natural habitats because of unlawful mining, logging of timber, grazing, man-made forest fires, large-scale commercial exploitation of minor forest produce, use of chemical pesticides, and fishing practices.

vanishing-stripes-1vanishing-stripes-2To mark Earth Day 2015, we are joining hands with CREW† and once again placing in the public domain two reports Vanishing Stripes (1999) and Vanishing Stripes-II (2000) [released by Crew (Crusade for revival of Environment and wildlife)] to issue the firm warning that Tiger’s survival is threatened by poaching and loss of prey-base. These reports rang the warning bells by underscoring the gravity of the problem. They drew the attention of the entire world to the fact that tiger is threatened and is on the verge of extinction in one of its most fantastic habitats – the Central Indian Highlands.

Today, It is a pity and such shame for humanity the way the tiger population has been dwindling. Poachers have kept striking at will. The tiger habitat has been methodically encroached – an activity diabolically supported by politicians to win votes and stay riveted to power. Whatever remains of the tiger habitat is being plundered by the mining mafia and illegal fellers or else the so called stakeholders who are robbing the forests and the entire biodiversity base through reckless grazing and minor forest produce collection. Let us go back a few years. In 2009 Panna Tiger Reserve, not far from Bandhavgarh where this sordid killing of a tiger cub took place last week, all the tigers had been eliminated. After a few years of relocating and breeding under controlled conditions Panna is again boasting of tiger numbers. At least I am not proud of Panna. I am not interested in authorities flaunting tiger numbers because what is required is protection of forests and their corridors to such an extent that there is no man animal conflict and tigers are left with the necessary privacy and prey base to ensure they breed and thrive in their natural surrounding.     Read More…

There has been a shocking case of poaching of a tiger cub in the farmhouse of Madhya Pradesh Assembly Deputy Speaker Rajendra Singh adjoining Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve in Madhya Pradesh.’

The body of the tiger cub was found hanging in a noose at the farm house of the Deputy Speaker . The farm-house in question is on the periphery of the core area of Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve. Read more…  

While the proposal of Rio Tinto Exploration India Private Limited for prospecting of diamond in 2329.75 hectare of forest land located in Buxwaha range of Chhatarpur district in Madhya Pradesh is pending with the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change on the issue of “compliance”, recent investigations by Newsroom24x7 have revealed that the TOR (terms of reference) issued to Rio Tinto Exploration India Private Limited, the Indian subsidiary of diamond giant Rio Tinto, by Government of India Ministry of Environment & Forests (MoEF) and the proposal for Bunder Diamond Mine in Chattarpur district of Madhya Pradesh submitted in April 2012, have already thrown up questions that remain unanswered in the public domain. These relate to gaping gaps with relation to impact on environment, wildlife, flora and fauna and lives of the stakeholders. Read More…

†CREW is a society registered in 1997 under the Society Registration Act 1973 of the Central Indian State of Madhya Pradesh. It is Central India’s primary Centre for policy and enforcement regarding conservation and management of natural resources, wildlife and biodiversity. CREW uses digital media for wider dissemination of knowledge and information relating to natural environment and factors threatening environmental balance. Crew launched a major awareness campaign in central India with its documentary “water Birds of Bhopal” shot mainly around Van Vihar National Park and the Upper Lake in Bhopal, the capital of the central Indian State of Madhya Pradesh. Upper Lake is part of a huge wetland recognized by the Ramsar Convention as an important wetland site.