This initiative is part of the 'Save Trees' campaign, which will run for a month.
Ranchi. Thousands of villagers in 700 villages of Jharkhand will tie Rakhi to about one lakh trees on the occasion of Rakshabandhan on Friday with an aim to promote emotional connection between people and nature. Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (PCCF) Sanjeev Kumar said that this initiative is part of the 'Save Trees' campaign, which will run for a month. Under this campaign, a target has been set to tie Rakhi to three lakh trees in the identified villages of 24 districts. Kumar will launch the campaign on Friday by tying Rakhi to a tree in Jorad village of Gumla district.
Kumar said, Rakshabandhan is a festival of brothers and sisters. On this day brothers take a pledge to protect their sisters. Similarly, protecting the environment is also our highest duty, because our life depends on it. He said that this campaign focuses on connecting people emotionally with nature. Under this, people take a pledge to protect trees by tying Rakhi to them. PCCF said, we have set a target of tying Rakhi to about one lakh trees in 700 villages on the day of Rakshabandhan on Friday. This campaign will continue for a month and during this period Rakhi will be tied to about three lakh trees in 24 districts.
This initiative of Kumar was started in the year 2004 from Lukaiya village of Tundi block of Dhanbad district which was once affected by Maoism. He said that since then, more than 12,000 villages across the state have been linked to this program.
More than 20,000 Mahua trees were preserved in Lukaiya village through this initiative, he said. Now these trees are making an important contribution to the livelihood of the villagers. This is not the only example. This campaign helped in promoting the production of minor forest produce in many villages, thereby adding additional income to the livelihood of the villagers. Kumar said that this initiative has also played an important role in increasing the forest area of Jharkhand.