Thinning green canopy

The city kid, in his quest for knowledge, innocently puts forth a volley of questions: What is a forest? How does it look? Is it similar to the one shown in the National Geographic Channel? To him, the knowledge on forest is confined to the dictionary meaning of a large area of land thickly covered with

trees and bushes. He is unexposed to Mother Earth's soft brown

blanket of mud, the lush greenery, the chirping of birds, the shady trees, in short, the serene solace of a forest.

Observing the World Forestry Day on March 21 seems more of a fad than a sincere effort to preserve our fragile planet and ecosystems, resources and natural processes that bind us all together.

It is to protect the acres of pristine wilderness, to promote ecological value, to preserve forests, to save trees from being felled and to inculcate in human beings the awareness of our fauna and flora, that this day is being observed the world over.

The forest cover of Kerala is largely spread over the Western Ghats. Acclaimed by the World Scientific Community as one of the world's 18 biological Hot Spots, it is considered to be a repository of endemic, endangered and rare flora and fauna.

But in reality, the recorded forest area is 11,125.29 sq km (around 28.90 per cent) of which the effective forest area is only 9400 sq km.

The policy of the Kerala Government is to conserve this rich natural heritage for the generations to come. A Forest Management Information System is being developed to establish a computer network linking the forest head quarters to all circles and divisions.

Indian Ecological Development Project at Thekkady has been accepted as a model at the national level. A new programme, Primary Environmental Care, intended to improve the environment of the urban areas has been launched in an effort to envisage the spirit of the people to put in their best for environmental care.

In the words of the noted environmentalist, Mr.M.K.Prasad, we tend to focus more on the World Environment Day falling on June 5th and the Wildlife Week during October. Enough is not being done on the World Forest Day.

As part of making the city more verdant, certain areas could be identified and the people residing in those areas must come up with the desire and determination to take care of the saplings and shrubs planted in their vicinity.

This way there is more of public participation and responsibility instilled in them to make their locale an enviable green spectacle. If one of the neighbourhoods initiates such a programme, others are sure to take up the cue and greenery will reign supreme. Reasons attributed to the decreasing forest cover are several, like faulty agricultural and irrigation practices, faulty road building on fragile hill slopes and other environmentally unfriendly practices. The other factors are the extreme pressure of a fast growing population on forests for firewood, fodder, timber and other forest products, urbanisation and industrialisation.

The planting of saplings is not the only answer to greening. Adequate care has to be taken to water and manure them, besides pruning and upkeep.

Even though the mushrooming of apartments is comparatively a recent development in the city, a tree fencing could be created around each of these apartments. With a bit of maintenance it could be both instrumental and ornamental in nature.