Minister calls for proper care for planted saplings

KOLLAM: Global warming is not a fairy tale but a fearsome reality, Benoy Viswom, KOLLAM: Global warming is not a fairy tale but a fearsome reality, Benoy Viswom, Minister for Forests, has said.

He was inaugurating the ambitious �Haritha Muttam Haritha Veedhi initiative of the Kollam City Corporation here on Sunday.

Quoting scientific studies, Mr. Viswom said that if the temperature of the earth rose by another 3 degrees Celsius, man would meet the fate of the dinosaurs. Installation of air-conditioners will not save the human kind. It was high time we understood that the destruction of life-sustaining environment was suicidal, he said.

He said Copenhagen failed because countries responsible for huge emission of carbon dioxide did not want restrictions imposed on them. While development was the right of each society, it should not be carried out by crushing nature and destroying natural resources.

The Minister said the Forest Department exiled all foreign trees from its collection of saplings for social forestry initiatives. Saplings of 25 native species were being distributed ever since the LDF government came to power. He said that the �Ente Maram programme launched by the government in schools was a big success. Through the programme, school students of the State became a model for the entire country.

�More than 80 per cent of the saplings distributed under the �Ente Maram programme are growing into trees. The credit for that goes to the school children of the State.