The Hindu : Kerala News : On a mission to cover the State with trees

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Tuesday, Aug 12, 2008
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Kerala

Kerala

On a mission to cover the State with trees

Giji K. Raman

KATTAPPANA: “Kick the habits” towards a low carbon economy is the message of the United Nations in 2008.

It simply forwarded a crisis the world was facing due to the loss of the green cover and increase in carbon dioxide which has reached the level of 2 PPM (particle per million), the reason sighted for global warming.

Only a dedicated effort to plant more saplings and grow trees can save the earth,” says Prof C. P. Roy, the force behind Green Leaf, an organisation dedicated for planting saplings in various part of the State for the past 15 years.

Green Leaf has to its credit a bio village developed in the heart of Kattappana and trees grown in almost all the institutions in and around Kattappana.

Green Leaf has over thousands of people in various walks of life as its members who join hands with Prof. Roy in planting saplings on roadsides and public places.

“Green Leaf is an organisation having no secretary or president, those who once help in planting a sapling is a member and over one lakh saplings of trees that include medicinal plants have been planted by Green Leaf. We have institutional planting and avenue planting,” said Mr. Roy adding that finding a location for planting and follow up action to protect them requires some effort.

According to him, only one-fifth of the trees planted will remain. Mr Roy has been credited for planting the entire campus of Government ITI and Government College, Kattappana, which have fully grown up trees.

Green Leaf is the only one of its kind that has taken the largest number of saplings under the ‘Our Tree Project’ of the Government of Kerala. Green Leaf and MES College, Nedumkandam, where Mr. Roy is a lecturer, have planted 3,000 saplings in Kottayam and Idukki districts under the project.

In Changanassery bypass road, 2.5 km was planted with saplings in 2006-07 and a 13-km stretch of Ettumanur-Pala route was planted with saplings this year and under the Green Kottayam Project, 2,000 saplings were planted.

The trees include rain tree, bamboos, neem tree, cassia fistula, fruit trees and all most all medicinal plants. According to Mr. Roy, an important reason for the climatic change experiencing the Idukki district is the loss of green cover in the Western Ghats.

He is a familiar face in and around Kattappana. “We collect seeds and it is given to a private nursery at Kattappana which develops the saplings and supplies to Green Leaf at nominal rate,” says Mr. Roy.

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