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New website to preserve Yamuna, ridge

NEW DELHI: Based on the premise that in order to protect something you need to be acquainted with it, activists fighting to save the Yamuna and the Delhi Ridge have gifted the city a website that is a compendium of all relevant information about the two ecological units.

Titled “Delhi Natural Resources Site”, the website has been conceptualised by Professor Vikram Soni of the National Physical Laboratory and devised by Vikal Samadariya of Kalpvriksha and Diwan Singh of Natural Heritage First, both non-government organisations with assistance from students of IIT Delhi.

The website is aimed at creating awareness about the exact extent of the ecological units, their present condition and the steps that need to be taken to protect them.

“The website, inaugurated by the Lieutenant-Governor of Delhi on Monday, is an attempt to bring people closer to the environment that they need to protect. We realised that until people knew where the Ridge is or what is the total floodplain area of the Yamuna, they will not be in a able to offer any support in keeping an eye on any encroachment or take up their protection,” said Diwan Singh.

Mr. Singh said the website would soon be shared with students of various educational institutions who would also be encouraged to adopt some areas for maintenance and protection.

The website has been divided into sections.

The “knowledge section” offers creative solutions to preserve and use natural resources and explains the resource and sets economic value on it.

The second section is on “visual knowledge” that has films and video clips on the Ridge and the floodplains. It has a presentation on how to make the issue (environment conservation) a political agenda and how to include it in the educational setting.

The third section is a detailed ground level mapping of the Ridge and forest using Google Earth maps that provide a snapshot of the area with encroachments marked out and a tool for computing the area on the screen itself.

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