BHUBANESWAR: Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Sunday appealed to people to show zero tolerance towards illegal wildlife trade and pledge to protect the flora and fauna of the State.
Addressing a function on the occasion of World Environment Day here, Naveen said the joint efforts of the Wildlife Crime Control Cell and Crime Branch have successfully prevented illegal commerce in wildlife.
The public awareness campaigns involving local communities and NGOs have also made significant contribution to check poaching and tree felling.
Focusing on the theme ‘Illegal Trade in Wildlife’ for World Environment Day this year, Naveen said while disappearance of species like elephants, tigers and sea turtles spells disaster for conservation efforts, loss of local species erodes bio-diversity of the region.
The world is dealing with an unprecedented spike in illegal trade, threatening to overturn decades of conservation gains, Naveen said. “Every part of our planet is connected directly or indirectly to our life. When species are lost, ecosystems cannot function properly and lives of all associated partners including humans will be disturbed,” he said.
The slogan for the occasion, ‘Go Wild for Life’, has the objective to safeguard all species which are under threat and take action so that they live happily on earth, Naveen said. The Chief Minister hailed efforts of 217 Prakruti Mitra and 205 Prakruti Bandhu awardees for their work in the field of environment protection and preservation.
Several other organisations in the City celebrated World Environment Day. East Coast Railway organised a mass awareness rally by cadets of Bharat Scouts and Guide at Rail Vihar here. The rally was led by Chief Personnel Officer Manju Roy while Chief Personnel Officer (Administration) P Kishore Babu was present. A drawing competition was held among children.
A unique initiative ‘Trees 4 Tomorrow’ was started by a group of volunteers on Sunday. The group has a target to protect plants and nurture five lakh saplings over a period of time across Odisha. It will be assisted by a team of IT and GIS experts to build a digital online platform that will contain geo-tagged information on every sapling that will be planted.
A web application will be available to the general public so that they can add information regarding their plantation activities for archiving, monitoring and future planning. The idea behind this is to build a State-level repository of information about present and future plantation drives.
Members of Nandini Satpathy Memorial Trust (SNSMT) planted saplings and rallied for environment protection with the theme ‘Keep it clean, keep it green’.
