DDA, WWF to start dragonfly festival at Sanjay Van in Delhi by month-end

This is the first such event planned in the city forest area after the DDA inked a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with WWF India last week to promote nature-based learning and experimental activities, especially for children.

In a bid to increase citizen participation in protecting the city forests, the World Wide Fund for Nature- India (WWF India) and the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) will jointly organise a dragonfly festival in Sanjay Van at the end of July.

A view of Sanjay Van forest reserve. (HT Archive)

This is the first such event planned in the city forest area after the DDA inked a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with WWF India last week to promote nature-based learning and experimental activities, especially for children.

Radhika Suri, director of environment education, WWF India, said, “The dragonfly festival is the first of the many events and activities that we plan to hold at Sanjay Van to encourage people’s involvement in preserving the forest. The community needs to own the forest and for that, we will plan different activities.”

Suri said dragonflies are an indicator of the health of an environment and help to check diseases such as malaria and dengue as they feed on mosquitoes.

“Visitors, especially children, can take pictures of dragonflies in the forest and upload them on India biodiversity portal along with the coordinates of where they were spotted. The pond ecosystem in Sanjay Van attracts several species of dragonflies and damselflies. This will help in understanding the status of the forest environment and also give us an idea about the number and types of species of flies, and their location with respect to water bodies.”

Spread over 783 acres, Sanjay Van is a notified reserved forest and is part of the South-Central Ridge and is visited by around 10,000-15,000 people daily, according to WWF India.

“The idea is to get people to connect with nature and facilitate experiential activities such as tree tagging, nature walks, flora and fauna observation, children’s educational activities etc. along with educative signboards, a flora and fauna atlas and citizen science initiatives,” said a senior DDA official, asking not to be named.

The festival is one of the initiatives during which visitors can explore the forest and also contribute to data/information collection, the DDA said.

“We will initiate citizen science projects to allow visitors and volunteers to explore and contribute information/data on the various plants and animal species that can be discovered throughout the year,” Suri said.