Tree planting, cleanliness drive mark green day

With “Connecting People to Nature” being the theme of this year’s World Environment Day, many saplings were planted and distributed in the city on Monday.

Cleanliness drives were also organised across the city. Volunteers from Hasiru Usiru and residents from Jayanagar planted over 1,000 saplings in LIC Colony Park and a road in Jayanagar.

Residents of the locality participated in large numbers to green their locality to ensure that saplings replace the trees which were uprooted in the recent rain. Apart from this, over a 1,000 children participated in the children’s rally organised by the Jayanagar ward committee.

Over 150 children from Sadhguru Sainath School and 50 volunteers from United Way Bengaluru planted 600 saplings at Kudlu Doddakere near Kudlu. The 40-acre water body was adopted by United Way Bengaluru. The aim of the plantation drive was to enhance the biodiversity and restore the beauty of the lake.

Bengaluru Development Minister K J George, Mayor G Padmavathy and Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) Commissioner G Manjunath Prasad planted saplings and also decided to distribute 10 lakh saplings to citizens.

Transport Minister Ramalinga Reddy along with MLA and KSRTC chairman Gopala Poojary, planted saplings at the KSRTC premises. An environmental brochure of the KSRTC was also released on the occasion and the foundation stone for the water recycling plant was laid.

Department of Geography and Geoinfomatics, Bangalore University, organised talks on the occasion of the World Environment Day.

Students and teachers of Vibgyor High participated in a plantation drive and also distributed 5,500 saplings.
Bengaluru Division of the South Western Railway too observed World Environment Day by creating awareness among people, vendors, porters and staffers to keep the station and the premises clean.

While some restaurants offered fancy cuisines, others like Organic Hotel The Green Path organised a meeting of eminent environmentalists and humanitarians to spread the message of “Environmental Concern and Humanity.” 

People for Animals (PFA) also celebrated World Environment Day by organising an awareness talk for children from Srinidhi orphanage and by planting saplings in coordination with officials from the state forest department. 
DH News Service

Awareness programme at Bannerghatta
As a part of World Environment Day, Wildlife SOS team at the Bannerghatta Bear Rescue Centre and the staff of Bannerghatta Biological Park conducted an awareness drive encouraging people to appreciate and preserve the environment. The week-long event kicked off with a cleanliness drive at the safari area of the park. The staff performed a skit and volunteers came up with slogans and quotes on the importance of environmental conservation. They also conducted tree planation drives in and around the park. Wildlife SOS Director-Wildlife Veterinary Operations Dr Arun A Sha and Director of Veterinary Services (BBP) Dr Sujay conducted a brief workshop on conservation awareness and human-wildlife conflict mitigation. A group of employees from Dell volunteered at the Wildlife SOS Bannerghatta Bear Rescue Centre. They spent the day building enrichments and digging up ponds for the rescued sloth bears along with weeding and cleaning the premises. On Tuesday, the staff of Wildlife SOS plan to organise an awareness programme for local school children around the forest patch.