‘Forests
& their Conservation’
The sheer of
the Countries ever increasing population has led to the fire, the axe, the
plough and now the bulldozer and the Chain saw, being used to turn vast areas
of great jungles to barren dusty tracks of wasteland.’
The precious gifts of nature have been
bestowed upon us and we have yielded a bounteous resource from nature. A mass
of green foliage, a Greenfield site, sides fringed with lush greenery have
today become the victims for man’s greediness.
Rapid industrialization, unscrupulous
explosion of population leading to random deforestation that scare us stiff
into dwindling rainfall, frequent occurrence of different natural catastrophes,
depletion in ground water level,
appearance of inclement, diabolical and abysmal weather, destruction of fertile
regions of the countries, indiscriminate erosion of soil, imbalanced Eco-system
so forth and on. The earth is now in
jeopardy for a large scale destruction of forest. Immense wealth and riches are
yielded by them- food, fuel, shed, shelter, precious herbs, medicinal plants,
oxygen, varied materials for industries, and articles for living. ‘An area
devoid of forests will go barren and turnout to be a desert in course of time.’
Rapid destruction of forests is today
causing the extinction of wild life at a fast rate. India is a unique land
which is a habitat of the endangered species. India has an amazing richness of
almost 350 mammals species and 1200 species of birds in nearly 2100 forms and
30,000 known species of insects (at
a conservative estimate). The forest biodiversity is noteworthy. A lot of
plants have become extinct and the animals are greatly endangered.
Deforestation has an adverse effect on man-land ratio in the countries. With
1.5 percent of world’s population and only 2.4 percent land area, the per capi
The growing problem of soil erosion, water logging, salinity and
alkalinity represent mismanagement of soil resources. Consequently land
degradation has serious economic and ecological implications for a country like
India with a predominantly rural population and agricultural economy. The
nutrient loss caused by erosion is very much costly. Increased siltation of
dams and reservoirs reduce their effective life span besides adversely
affecting aquatic productivity. Soil erosion and lack of planning is becoming a
cause of frequent floods which are resulting in massive loss of human, plant
and animal life.
Friends, now the time has come; we must get united together for the
forests and stand against the destruction of the trees, plants and forests that
are being cut off ruthlessly. Today’s ‘Live and Let Live’ slogan must not be
just the burden of mouth but be a chorus tone. Let us stop the injustice done
on the forests. Let our globe be an illusion of the heaven.
Now who will not respond to such entreaties? Planting a sapling is not a
temporary pleasure. A single tree is enough to support the lives of 2 human
beings. Cutting down a single tree is a costly matter; a man needs about
550 liters of pure oxygen per day. A 2.75 l of
oxygen cylinder is 97.82 US Dollars i.e. Rs. 6,500. That means a man consumes
about 19,565 US Dollars i.e. Rs. 13,00,000 of oxygen per day. Isn't it costly?
A report says that one tree gives service for about 50 years, and the service
is given of an amount of 537941.26 US Dollars i.e. Rs. 3, 55, 13,000 and this
is all free, given to us by one tree! Then what would be the service amount of
those thousands of trees, which are being cut down every day? A lot! This is
today’s condition. ‘So friends, awake, arise and be ambitious of doing our
Mother Earth some good .
-Devadripta Sahadeo Jadhav.
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