HOW TO BE A SUPERHERO?
Now that I have your attention, I would like to talk about deforestation and its statistics, how it’s costing your life, emotions of trees ,as well as how to be a superhero by rescuing trees and forests. Apparently by the time you finish reading this article you are all set to be a superhero.
According to Global Forest Watch, due to unprecedented rates of deforestation in Karnataka, we have lost 200 kha of forest land from 2000 to 2020. This year alone from 25th of February to 4thof march 2024 there were 1,578 deforestation alerts reported in Karnataka and loss of 19 ha of tree covered area. Where as in India, there were 8,736 deforestation alerts from 26th of February to 4th of march 2024, covering total area of 103 ha. On an average globally 2,400 trees are being cut every minute. Isn’t this bothering you yet? Well what if I said, in the near future not your grandchildren or your children but you will have to pay price for fresh air . I guess you might be a little vexed now.
Forests are home to incredible amounts of biodiversity of different species of plants and animals. They play a vital role in regulation of water cycle, climate and soil moisture. They avoid the risk of flooding and erosion. Forests and trees act as carbon sink that is they take in all our emitted carbon from various sources. The trees usually store this carbon in their tissues. They not only store carbon but are capable of absorbing various pollutants such as heavy metals, particulate matters , gaseous pollutants , VOC’s and substantially more, in their gracious bodies.
When we cut down trees there is colossal amount of damage done to biological beings as well as to our natural resources. The air we breathe, water we drink, food we eat gets filled with ghostly pollutants, waiting to bring on deadly diseases such as cancers, respiratory diseases, allergies, hypertension, pre-mature death, infertility, heart diseases, neurological disorders and all the unutterable kinds of diseases.
Although all of this might be true, have you ever thought, what kind of pain the tree feels when we chop her down? What kind of grievance her bosom friends feel? Sometimes they mourn so badly that they die of loneliness. Yes indeed this is true!!! In the book “The Hidden Life Of Trees” [introduced by ]Pradip Krishen mentions that during the construction of Wildlife Institute of India [WII] in Dehradun in 1980’s they had to cut down sal forest, so as to establish WII. Serially , one after the other sal trees became isolated and started to die . This was clearly due to the fact that they had lost communication with the rest of their group. A tree is not just capable of experiencing loneliness, but all the states of NAVARASA and probably beyond the realm of our imagination. This is one of the gazillion reasons why we need to show compassion to them.
Here are few things you could do to become a superhero:
- 1. Plant more trees in your surroundings:
People usually do not want to plant trees close to their home fearing that the roots would heave the foundations. for this we could consider trees that have non invasive roots such as Ficus tree, Ashoka tree, Rosemary tree, Golden Shower tree and Parijat tree. All of these trees contain shallow roots and does not affect the foundation additionally they can soundproof buildings.
- 2. Pick and drop the seeds:
When you see seeds of trees fallen on ground collect them and dispose them in where ever you go. Probably one might sprout out of 10 disposals or even 20. Usually you would find abundant of seeds under red sandalwood trees and pongamia trees. Next time you see them pick a few in your hands.
- 3. Learn and teach:
By putting in efforts towards learning about the importance of reforestation, afforestation and about trees in our surrounding we could build a better environment and spreading this knowledge can be a boon to our environment, society mainly our health.
- 4. Choose sustainable practices :
Sustainability is all about using the resources in such a way that we save a little for our future generation. This is because it is easy to plant trees in places of the destroyed ones, but for well establishment a forest community it takes more than a century. Therefore utilizing resource [ for instance small acts like denying the use of tissue paper ] wisely is important to save some for our future generation.
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