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9 AM, 21st March 2008, CMH Road, Bangalore. To reinforce March
21st as ‘World Forestry Day’.
Background
Losing life is the biggest fear every human being lives with. We
may avoid facing it, we may delay it through medicines, we may
even insure ourselves for the eventuality, but deep inside we all
know that “The End” is inevitable. And we hold on to life as long
as possible.
Now, what about trees? Don’t they have life? Isn’t it equally
sacred? We don’t even give a second thought when it comes to
killing trees.
Despite the buzzword of global warming all around us, especially
in elite social circles, nothing productive has been done. In fact
we didn’t notice a single cry of protest against the recent
massacre that happened at Bangalore City. Almost 1500 trees were
chopped in no time in the name of widening roads and improving
traffic mobility or should we say on the name of ‘progress and
development’?
Anyone who’s lived in Bangalore and loved the Bangalore of old
cannot bear to see such felling. For the sake of progress
sometimes chopping trees is inevitable but there are ways to
reduce the damage such as transplantation, planting more saplings
etc. It’s important that all concerned citizens come together and
raise consciousness in society about the importance of trees for
our life and take action against it.
“We decided to shake the apathy. Common people need to realize
that trees are as close to us, as our own family members. A
concerned citizen should fight against killing trees and work
towards getting them transplanted elsewhere, in case re-location
is inevitable” says Mr. Govardhan, Administrator and Trustee,
Bangalore Environment Trust.
The Objective
We as Bangalore Enviornment Trust wanted to shake up the
concerned/ unconcerned masses, emotionally. And sensitize them
of trees as ‘living beings’, as alive as our own family member.
This was important as they were already aware of all the
devastating environmental consequences this felling could lead to.
The Idea
Rudalis are professional mourners hailing from a unique community
in Rajasthan, India. There was a time when they were supposed to
maintain the mourning mood till all the family members arrived to
pay their homage to the departed soul of a very dear one.
Only this time they wailed and bawled to mourn the death of a
‘tree’. This created immense curiosity amongst the passers-by.
Members of the general public were handed over a “obituary note’
from the tree as he thanked every passer-by for attending his
funeral. Interested citizens were handed over a ‘sapling’ with a
customized message which further reinforced trees as living
beings.
The message was simple: “The killing won’t stop, until you see
it as killing.”
Some Statistics
Every day at least 80,000 acres of forest vanish from Earth. The
Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations show
that the rates of deforestation has increased by 8.5% from
2000-2005 compared during the 1990s. FAO has approximated that
about 10.4 million hectares of tropical forest have been
permanently destroyed from 2000-2005 compared to 10.14 million
hectares in the period of 1990-2000.
Every day, hundreds of trees are cut down. They are the lungs
to our planet.
How about transplanting/ planting some for a change? |
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