Anantnag: Kashmir University’s South Campus at Anantnag organised a plantation drive on Saturday.
The day-long drive and an environmental awareness programme were organised in collaboration with the department of social forestry, Anantnag division.
Director social forestry department Mr Suresh K Gupta, IFS—who presided over the function—underscored the importance of plantation and urged the people to come forward voluntarily to plant trees and help expand the “green cover” in Jammu and Kashmir. He said the department is, on its own, planting more than five lakh trees in Kashmir this season.
“We want everyone, particularly the student community, to help us raise awareness about the importance of plantation,” Gupta said, adding that his department would ensure beautification of South Campus by way of planting different species of tree saplings here.
Speaking on the occasion, Director South Campus Prof Muzaffar Ali Andrabi said plantation is “our collective responsibility because human beings share the Earth with plants and animals and get benefited from them.”
“Our survival depends upon plants and therefore we need to plant more and more trees for the benefit of ourselves and the future generations,” he said.
Prof Andrabi said that rapid urbanisation, industrialisation and population explosion in the past century call for abundant natural resources to be available for existing and future generations to survive.
“If we want to cease degradation of the environment, we have to plant more trees so that we can control the adverse fallouts of deforestation, global warming and melting of glaciers,” he said.
Prof Andrabi hailed the social forestry department for collaborating with the South Campus in plantation of more than 500 deodar trees in the campus.
After the awareness programme ended, Mr Gupta and Prof Andrabi planted various tree saplings, along with other officials of the department of social forestry, Anantnag district administration and South Campus.
Among others, the function was attended by Mr Zubair Ahmad Shah, Regional Director, Social Forestry Kashmir, Mr Parvaiz Ahmad, additional deputy commissioner Anantnag, faculty, non-teaching staff and students of South Campus.
