International year of Forests - 2011

It’s the UN time of the year and this year – 2011 has been officially announced as the international year of forests. The main aim of dedicating this year to the forests is to bring about an awareness of various activities which harm the forest environment as they form an essential part of the sustainable development. Sustainable development is nothing but using the available resource for human benefits by not harming the environment. Deforestation as we all know has been another major concern. The International year of Forests also has Deforestation as one of the main elements to create awareness about. The fight for forest began way back in the 1992 by the United Nations. One of the agendas, Agenda 21, adopted by the member states during the United Nations conference on Environment and Development also known as the Earth Summit in 1992 at Rio De Janerio was Deforestation. Following the Earth summit UN appointed the Intergovernmental panel on Forests (IPF) which was succeeded by the Intergovernmental forum for Forests (IFF) to implement what was adopted by the member states in Agenda 21. However the IPF/IFF was not a great success but did manage to change the scenario from worse to better if not the best. In the year 2000 United Nations Economic and Social Council established The United Nations Forum on Forest (UNFF) with the objective of fulfilling Agenda 21. The concept of sustainable forest management was introduced through UNFF. 

Now the transition from Year of Biodiversity to Forest is something which is itching everyone who cares as there has been very less impact. However the activities to promote the year of forests have been charted out well. Starting with the short film contest, the results of which was announced on the launch ceremony, played 11 International Forest Film Festival winners clips along with Yann Arthus-Bertrand’s FORESTS. The highlight policy was the Tree plantings policy adopted by Ethiopia, Georgia, Jamaica, Lebanon, Poland and Korea The major event planned out by the UN for this international year of forests, according to me, is the ENO (Environment Online) planning to organize a global forest conference for children in September at Finland. ENO is a virtual school for sustainable development in Finland. 

 The Agenda 21 setup by UN in 1992 still remains stagnant without much change to it. The real question is will the Year of Forests complete what year of Biodiversity etc has failed to do?

Know your trees – The Great Indian Banyan.

What many of us are ignorant about when the word environment is uttered are the trees. In a country like India, trees play a major role either to worship, a place to rest or the main element of almost all the ancient tales. So I thought why not have a ‘Know your trees’ post every month in which I share my knowledge about trees. This month its going to be about one of the oldest and much celebrated trees of India. Give it up for the great big Banyan Tree. Many are ignorant about the fact that the Banyan is India's National tree. This giant tree distinguished for its medicinal value and being part of every ancient folk tale has a dark side too. Before we understand the dark sides of the tree there are a few basic facts that one has to know about the plant world.


Let’s begin with Pollination - One of the important genetic process in a plant is Pollination. Production of an offspring and fruiting of a plant is entirely dependent on pollination.
Pollination is nothing but the process of transferring pollen grains from one flowering plant to another. These pollen grains are transferred with the help of pollinators - mostly the insects like Honey Bees, Bumble bees, Moths, flies etc. A very sad state that we humans have brought to the world of plants is by affecting the pollination process. We are killing these pollinators by using insect repellents and eventually leading to a stagnant position.  Well now that we know the basic concepts it will be easier to understand the murky side of the Banyan tree. The pollinators for a Banyan tree is a small needle top sized Wasp. Banyan trees have small fruits which act as main agent for pollination. These fruits have a very small hole for the wasp to enter. But the hole is so small that the wasp has to struggle its way in and by the time it drops in the seeds it dies. Now the real problem here is that there is a continuous decline in the number of wasps who are the pollinators which automatically disturbs the entire cycle. This however can only partially be the Banyans fault.

However the dark side of the tree is that if you have noticed carefully there aren’t many trees which grow around the Banyan. This is mainly because of the extended roots of the tree which twists the other trees roots and stops their growth. Research states that a Banyan can grow up and cover an entire planet with its extended roots. Also other trees growth is affected by the birds and animals which consume fruits from the Banyan tree on some other tree. The seeds or even the juice of the Banyan fruit is harmful for other trees as it stops their growth. And if you are wondering how on earth I managed to find out information about the Banyan it’s definitely not from Google but from tree walks arranged by a foundation called Nizhal.