AGREED Foundation Punjab organises debate on “World Forestry Day”

Ferozepur, March 21, 2013: The history of exploitation and destruction of forests in India goes back to the British period when the forests wealth was consumed for commercial gains. The trend continued even after independence and the forests were used not for imperative economic growth but for other various reasons. The denudation of forest land, however, had now slowed down in recent years despite human and commercial pressures due to efforts made by various agencies. 

AGREED Foundation Punjab, a state level NGO committed for the development of environment and education organised a debate on World Forestry Day in which the members of the Foundation, environment lovers and students participated in good numbers.

Speaking on the occasion, Dr. Satinder Singh, President of Agreed Foundation said, “March 21 reminds us of our own wrongdoings and how we can still reverse the situation by protecting forests. Several initiatives are taken on this day. Tree saplings are planted, awareness campaigns are conducted and environmental agencies run promotional drives” 

He further said, “The biggest demand of the time is to make the pollution free environment in which the forest and trees can play a major role as forest and human-being have close relation with each other.  But due to ruthlessly cutting of trees have disturbed the balance of the environment”.

Lalit Kumar, another keynote speaker and environment lover said, “The forests are ‘green gold’ of any state and the life is not possible without this. The World Forestry Day is being celebrated since 1971 all over the world on  March 21 with a motive to create awareness among the people and the importance of the forests. Deforestation will severely affect our future generations. The adverse effects are already visible in form of global warming. Icebergs are melting and average sea level is rising. Many coastal cities are on verge of vanishing from the face of earth in coming decades. The situation is really alarming and World Forestry Day reminds us of protecting the entire complex, living community of forests. Because of exploitation of forests, they are loosening the soil which in turn is eroding the upper layer of fertile earth. This will lead to uncontrolled rain, flood and agricultural production. 

Lalit Kumar further said, “There are drastic changes in the environment due to deforestation as at certain places there are floods and some of the cities flood affected.  During the last ten years, the area of flood affected has doubled from 2 to 4 crore acres. At this stage, it is the duty of every person to come forward for planting of maximum trees.  At the same time, the NGOs should also undertake constructive projects, celebrate forest days, plant trees and this should not be a show off, rather take care of the planted trees”.

On this occasion, Gucharan Singh, Dinesh Sharma, District Information Officer, Darshan Lal Sharma, Deepak Sharma, Lalit Kumar also showed their concern over the alarming situation of polluted environment and decreasing the forestry and appealed to the people to come forward to plant the maximum trees to save the future generation.