Trees are the lungs of our very unique planet, Earth in the sense that they filter the Carbon dioxide from the air and give out life-sustaining Oxygen. However, ever since the industrial revolution in the early 19th century the climate of the earth has increased by an average of 1 ℃ due to increase in the amount of Carbon Dioxide. Human activities like overpopulation and modernisation also lead to large scale cutting down of forests. Deforestation has been a major issue threatening the quality of life as well as the survival of quite many animal and plant species.
The world as a whole has been looking at ways and means to increase the forest cover and try to contain and slow down the climate change.
On 12 December, 2015, UNFCCC member countries reached an agreement to combat the ongoing climate change and to reduce the increasing temperature on the Earth.
Accordingly, India was a party to the legally binding international treaty on climate change. India has pledged to bring 12% of its landmass under forest cover to bring its total to 29% of forested area or more specifically 235 million acres.Concrete steps were taken by almost all the States with Uttar Pradesh managing to reach the topmost position worldwide by planting 50 million saplings in a single day which was a Guiness Book record.
The saplings were planted across forests, roadways, railway tracks etc. The plant species numbered to 80 with the number of volunteers at a massive 8 lakh people.
Here are a few facts on the Guiness record set by India with regard to a massive reforestation drive in accordance with the 2015 Paris Climate Change Agreement.
When - 11 July 2016
Number of Trees - 50,414,058
Where - State of Uttar Pradesh, India
Number of Locations - 6146
Locations - Railway tracks, road side, public places and publicly owned forests
Number of Volunteers - 8,00,000
Number of Species - 80
Time Period - 24 hours
Amount - 6 billion USD
"The world has realized that serious efforts are needed to reduce carbon emissions to mitigate the effects of global climate change," Akhilesh Yadav, Uttar Pradesh ( U.P )Chief Minister said in a statement to the press.
The Department of Forest and Wildlife, Uttar Pradesh Government has taken measures to keep a watch and thereby reduce the loss of the saplings as previously it had been observed that almost 40 % of such saplings perish within a few years of plantation.
The volunteers include citizens from all the strata of society, right from farmers, laborers, villages, students, government officials to housewives, teachers, professionals.
Since the year 1990, about 420 hectares of forests have been cut down for human needs like agriculture, industries and more importantly for meeting the housing demands of the growing population. However, reforestation initiatives like the one in U.P. are bringing relief and results with the deforestation rate taking from 16 million hectares every year in the 1990 - 2000 decade to 10 million hectares per year in the years 2015 - 2016.
The above record broke the previous one held by Pakistan of planting 8,47,275 in a day in the year 2013.
Pictures from www.lifegate.com
