Can’t afford to ignore environment: Dia

Neha Saini
Tribune News Service
Amritsar, June 3

Sparing a thought for the environment, a healthy future for our kids and the continuation of life, a Green-awakening programme of the FICCI FLO’s city chapter focused on bringing small yet impactful steps towards a sustainable lifestyle. The session was led by Dia Mirza, UN Environment Goodwill Ambassador in India and the Green couple of Punjab — Rohit and Geetanjali Mehra.

“Keep engaging the civil society and government in the things we can do to save the nature around us. Every individual has to work towards sustaining the environment, irrespective of lifestyle, personal ambitions or constraints. We cannot afford to move forward as a developing country without sparing a thought about the toll it will take on our environment. The impact of climate change on our agrarian sector, our landmasses and water resources is already visible. We need to act, thorough stricter laws, policies and individual and community changes to salvage our nature,” said Dia in her address. She has been quite vocal about waste management, especially plastic waste, in her awareness campaigns.

Her now famous ‘travel bottle’ has been a shining example of the changes she had made possible. “If we carry our own water, in traditional and conventional ways that we used to do several years back, it will be the simplest, most effective way to shun the plastic packaged single time use water bottles that are becoming a huge menace for our ecology,” she said.

IRS officer Rohit Mehra and his wife Geetanjali Mehra, the environmentalist couple, who have popularised the vertical garden concept using plastic bottles as means of recycle, also spoke about the grave consequences of climate change if not acted upon in time.

“I read a couple days back a report published by an international journal on climate change that if the pace of exploitation and deterioration of natural resources continued like this, in future every healthy child born will have a life span of only a few hours. It is scary enough to understand and act responsibly towards our environment,” said Rohit in his address. He also explained the concept of seed balls used for afforestation, a concept where seeds are made using compost and clay and thrown at various open spaces to grow naturally. “We have been working on the concept and in collaboration with FICCI FLO also held workshops for seed ball making. It is an effective ay to ensure that trees grow naturally and with better survival rate,” he said.

The FICCI FLO turnabout at the Gumtala Bypass was also inaugurated by unveiling the vertical garden created on the flyover and also kicking off their green awakening initiative. “It is our way of reminding the community that every effort counts and that we can be the change we desire to see,” said Arushi Verma, chairperson, FICCI FLO.