Delhi Greens To Take Forward WED Green Messages from the India Gate Rally. Literally!

World Environment Day is an annual event that is aimed at being the biggest and most widely celebrated global day for positive environmental action. This WED when India has been chosen as the global host, Delhi Greens invites everyone to participate in the WED 2011 Rally at India Gate on the 5th morning! And we ask all of you to find the Delhi Greens’ Bus at the venue and leave us with your green messages. And for the rest of the day, we will take your messages forward by taking them to different public spaces across the city! So, come out in the lush greens of India Gate and smell the air to ensure it always remains clean!

On this World Environment Day, Delhi Greens will also be launching an yearlong campaign: Earth-o-Care, to highlight the need to protect “our common environment” as we address the challenge of ensuring a sustainable development. Delhi Greens will work throughout the year, until the next WED, to promoting the two lifelines of Delhi: River Yamuna and the Delhi Ridge!

River Yamuna is the source of water for the millions of people living in Delhi. Large scale urbanization and increasing level of pollution has deteriorated the river water quality over the years. Lack of adequate sewage treatment plants and a political will to clean the river has led to the death of River Yamuna. Yamuna is now a drain as it passes through Delhi and is no better state downstream of Delhi.

Delhi Ridge is a city forest that is also known as the ‘green lungs’ of Delhi. The Ridge is the last of the Aravalli ranges and has protected the city of Delhi from the sandy winds from the west ever since. Lately, the Ridge has taken up the role of purifying the polluted air of Delhi and is a boon for the city dwellers. However, the demand for urbanisation is now consuming the Delhi Ridge at an alarming rate.

In an attempt to create greater sensitivity and to get across the idea of “Think Global, Act Local”, Delhi Greens will also take up the issue of the melting Himalayas as well as the Tibetan Plateau North of it, which is also known as the roof of the world. Both these geographic features are facing the dual threat from climate change as well the “development” pressure. Both these geographic features have strategic significance as millions of people survive because the fragile ecosystems of the Great Himalayas and the Tibetan Plateau are providing their useful services. But man’s activities and actions in these regions are now altering natural processes in a manner that they may be irreversibly damaged.

Delhi Greens calls upon the citizens of Delhi and the country to take up the issue of saving the lifelines of Delhi, as an issue of saving their future and the future of generations to come. The health of these two lifelines is directly linked with the individual health of each one of us. Delhi Greens also calls upon the citizens to keep themselves aware about useful ecosystem services provided by the various landscape features around us and find ways to keeping them protected.

Arise, awake and stop not till we have secured present and future. Keep yourself informed. Do not let the lifelines be destroyed.

JOIN THE CAUSE, BE THE CHANGE!

For further information, please contact:

Aastha Kukreti
aastha(at)delhigreens.org
+91-9873124937