SUSTAINABILITY WAS the key objective of initiating the ‘Plant a Million Trees’ campaign in Gurgaon. The campaign that kick started on August 4 2011 primarily aims at rehabilitating the Aravali Biodiversity Park, which for over two decades was a mining ground and was denuded off its native species of flora, will finally regain its long lost glory over a period of a decade, more or less.

With the stakeholders in this drive being the government, corporations, RWAs and residents and villages, the entire planning spanned up to two months, and aimed at covering more than 3,500 acres across the Millennium City. With special emphasis being laid on the Aravali Biodiversity Park, adjacent Guru Dronacharya metro station, the seeds of the native flora will be acquired from places falling under the Aravali region, which include central India as well as Rajasthan. The initial 50 species of the saplings will be further augmented by another 250.

Since, with passage of time, these seeds are reckoned to be extinct, 75 new seed types will be acquired from Delhi/NCR whereas other 25 will be used from select nurseries. The prima facie objective of revamping the Aravali Biodiversity Park is to turn it into a micro habitat. For that, the core team behind the campaign roped in a well reckoned environmentalist named

 

 

who carries the tag of being one of the pivotal contributors in sustaining the Nizamuddin Micro Habitat in Delhi. Vijay is one amongst those fortunate ones who has had the opportunity of working with the famed Indian filmmaker and environmentalist Pradip Krishen.

 

 

Assisting the core team in its endeavours, Vijay said that since the Biodiversity Park was for decades being mined and exploited - a lot of emphasis is also being laid on the scientific research and development so as to turn it into a micro habitat.