Fight back and get heard! Question and get answers! Have you heard of a car running without a fuel? No. Similarly, for survival of every living being requires some sort of ‘fuel’. Oxygen serves as the life line for us. Trees and plants generate oxygen by photosynthesis by utilising the sunlight. It is simply impossible of thinking life without trees. Besides providing oxygen, trees provide us with food, furniture, fuel and shelter. Moreover, trees are the friends of humanity.
Help us hold the powerful to account. Can you spare a minute to understand that the people we look up to for good environment are the ones who cheat us? I write this to say God bless the people responsible for the “Chipko movement”.
Goa ran an article regarding the proposed felling of over 3500 fruit bearing trees to facilitate the widening of the Mumbai-Goa highway. In the article, it was referenced a campaign started by noted fashion designer, Padmashree Wendell Rodricks to save the trees. The campaign reached close to 4000 signatures, resulting in the post going viral on social media, yet after garnering all this attention and support, contractors were sent to start work on the highway with their first order of business being to cut down the mango trees at the entrance to Colvale.
From 9:30 am till after 6 pm, protestors and activists conducted a ‘chipko movement’ to prevent the contractors from harming the magnificent mango trees in the middle of the highway. Led by Wendell Rodricks himself, the locals stood their ground while they questioned the contractor about the permissions obtained, and the legalities involved in the work they were doing. In videos (which have been taken down) posted by Rodricks on his Facebook account, you could see the fashion designer and activist question the contractor, the contractor, in turn, admitting that they do not explicitly have permission to cut down the trees. Wendell Rodricks vowed to do whatever it takes to stop the trees from being cut. He said “There is a Supreme Court order that you cannot touch a structure that is over 100 years old and if you try to demolish the chapel or these trees I will not keep quiet, if this is not courage than what is?
Making up the crowd were also members of activist groups Goencho Avaaz and The Goa Green Brigade. Members of the groups were seen forming chains around the trees as part of the chipko movement, while others joined in the interrogation of the contractors. We ask the government and local MLA to stop the trees from being cut and revoke the license if any.”
We need to raise a larger cry and prevent this massacre. As a community, we need to do whatever we can to let the Government and its departments know that we will not lose the essence of Goa for the sake of development. We have already lost thousands of trees on NH17 and other roads for the sake of road widening, and we can see the adverse effects of this change in our ecology. It is our moral duty to plant as much of trees as we can. We should not only plant them but also provide them suitable environment for growth. The health of our planet is based on the health of our ecosystem and survival of life.
Stop cutting of trees or nature will stop you.
