UN agency appreciates UP's record breaking plantation drive

Lucknow, Aug 7 (UNI) The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has acknowledged the efforts of the Uttar Pradesh government by planting 1 crore saplings on a single day and has termed the effort as a world record.

The UNEP in its oficial website (www.unep.org) has appreciated UP's record breaking effort which was made possible with the help of government institutions and the common man alike.

On July 31, nearly six lakh volunteers across the state managed to plant around 1.5 crore saplings.

According to the web site, the project was meant to raise awareness among the residents of the state towards the importance of tree-planting and the vital role of trees in correcting ecological imbalances, removing the environmental pollution and increasing tree cover.

The saplings were planted by school children, the local population, farmers, industrial units, government departments and the forest department. The object of the exercise was to make tree plantation a participatory activity with people from a vast cross-section of the society planting saplings at 9,320 different sites across seventy districts of the state, the UNEP has acknowledged.

''Of these 43.72 per cent are farmers' sites, 9.14 per cent forest department sites, 38.01 per cent education institutions' sites, 6.33 per cent other government departments' sites and rest sites are of other institutions,'' the UNEP said.

The activities in all the sites have been photographed and will be authenticated by the forest department. For this 18,640 independent authenticators have been mobilised. The entire campaign was controlled from the capital of the state.

The pits for planting were dug in advance and the plants to be planted were transported to the sites in one go on 31 July 2007. The entire activity was carefully sequenced and detailed guidelines were prepared in form of a booklet and widely circulated.

''In India, 31 July was an auspicious day as it represented the first day of Shrawan, according to the Hindu calendar. The exercise gave a boost to the Billion Tree Campaign. Organisers also recalled that the theme of World Environment Day 2007 was ''Melting Ice: A Hot Topic'' and the Forest Department of Uttar Pradesh will also help to address the issues of global warming, expansion of tree cover and carbon sequestration,'' the website informed.

There was large scale participation by many citizens and institutions through contributions in cash and kind for meeting the cost of plants, their transportation and payment of photographers. In many places the officers/staff of the forest department have voluntarily donated a day of salary for this purpose.

UNI