Forest for our future

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Ranjan K Baruah

06 June, 2011

World Environment Day (WED) is observed around the world on June 5. This started since 1972 after the Stockholm summit on environment and development. It's a day that brings issues on environment under the microscope.

LIKE PREVIOUS years, this year also people around the world are observing world environment day. Different individuals and organisations and even government officials are doing some activities and events to generate awareness and take action to protect the planet. 2011 has been declared by the United Nations as the International Year of Forests. World Environment Day this year will reinforce this global concern with the official tagline - 'Forests: Nature at Your Service'.

Apart from concerned individuals and organisations, this time Hollywood and Bollywood celebrities are also seen in the celebration of WED. Bollywood's Priyanka Chopra and Rahul Bose, as well as Chinese actress Li Bingbing and entrepreneur Wang Shi, are joining supermodel Gisele Bündchen and actor Don Cheadle.

The theme of this year’s Environment Day provides a very good opportunity for people to think about the Indian forest, which is degrading over the years. Our forest covers have been rapidly degraded and forests have been cut in the name of development and we have not been able to regenerate forest cover as we need healthy environment. Forests are dwindling in more or less all over India. For the first time India is the global host of United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) WED 2011. Celebrating the theme ‘Forests: Nature at Your Service’ World Environment Day 2011 highlights the vital need of conserving the forests and promoting a more sustainable relationship with nature.

If we look at some of the eco sensitive zone of the country, then we find that percentage wise north east has more forest cover than other zones such as coastal or Western Ghats. The forest area in eco sensitive zone or in other parts of the country is a must for sustainable future. WED give us an opportunity to focus on it and especially as it is happening in India we can expect that apart from civil society organisations, the government will have good forest policies that will allow growth and at the same time increase in forest cover in the country.