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Activist pastes photos of Lord Shiva on trees to save them from being axed
Environmental activist Virendra Singh said that the authorities claim 2,900 trees would be chopped off, but he fears the actual number is more than 20,000.
In a bid to stop trees from getting chopped off for a proposed road, an environmental activist from Chhattisgarh, has been pasting pictures of Lord Shiva on the trees. Virendra Singh told news agency ANI that the local community does want development in the region, but not at the cost of harming forests.
“The authorities are saying that just 2,900 trees would be cut for the project. [However], since the small plantation is not considered, I fear that the actual number will be over 20,000,” he was quoted as saying by ANI.
The Public Works Department (PWD) has proposed to build a road stretching 8-kilometre from Taroud to Daihan in the Balod district of Chhattisgarh. Singh has also requested the villages to come forward and help him in saving the forest as it is very essential to preserve the environment, ANI reported him saying.
“We have not received rainfall yet,” Singh said, adding that while several parts of the country are receiving “incessant rains”, Balod isn’t even getting its “due share.”
The activist further stated that they first began the Chipko movement, and followed it up by putting up poster banners at street intersections. Later, they tied Rakshasutra around the trees, and have now resorted to pasting photos of Gods to save them from being cut.
“Both global warming and pollution are causes of deforestation. We have to save the trees to save the planet,” Singh told ANI.
Last month on World Environment Day, a few environmental activists and citizens in Nagpur staged a silent protest in Nagpur against the plan to chop off 4,930 trees in Ajini area. The trees are proposed to be cut for the Inter Model Station (IMDS) – a collaborative venture between Rail Vikas Nigam Limited (RVNL) and the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), according to a PTI report.
The felling order was issued by the garden department of the Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) in May in the form of a newspaper notice.
