Assam: Assam and the region’s leading biodiversity conservation organisation ‘Aaraynak and Parijat Academy’ organised two cleanliness drives and sensitisation programmes under Mission LiFE (Lifestyle for Environment). The event was organised around Deepor Beel- a Ramsar site in Guwahati Assam, which was attended by Engineer Gokul C Bhuyan, Additional Chief Environmental Engineer, HI, Regional Office Assam, Pollution Control Board, representatives from Aaraynak, officials from Guwahati Wildlife Division, and students and teachers from Parijat Academy, Guwahati.
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The Deepor Beel, located around 10 km southwest of Guwahati, spans across 900 hactare area, is considered the largest wetland ecosystem in the Brahmaputra River valley.
The wetland is primarily fed by the Kalmani and Basistha rivers, which carry sediment and nutrients into the Beel, and thus supporting a rich biodiversity. It provides an excellent habitat and nesting sites to resident birds and harbours an impressive diversity of winter migratory birds.
It is a crucial elephant corridor and provides a livelihood to the local communities residing around its fringes.
During the event, Mr. Bhuyan emphasised the need to adopt sustainable practices such as drip irrigation and talked about the importance of water conservation.
He mentioned how a recent official raid jointly by PCBA and GMC helped seized around 10 tonnes of single-use plastic.
While, Aaranyak’s Madhumita Borthakur, a senior GIS Analyst, provided insights on the need to organise such an outreach programme. This was followed by a Mission LiFE pledge by all the participants. Thereafter, the cleanliness drive was undertaken around the Deepor Beel watchtower, which resulted in a collection of four sacks full of plastic waste. These wastes will be disposed of properly by the PCBA.
Parijat Academy’s Seuti Teron shared the inspiring story of Parijat Academy founded by Uttom Teron, who is a recipient of the CNN IBN Real Heroes Award in 2002, and extended a heartfelt thank you for organising the event.
The second event in the series was organised at the 10th mile, Khanapara Range of Amchang Wildlife Sanctuary which was joined in by Adarsh Hindi Vidyapeeth High School.
The programme sensitised the students, local youths and other representatives of the local community to practice a sustainable and harmonious lifestyle around protected areas.
The programme was presided over by Mr. Bhuyan, in the presence of Mahendra Lal Deb, Principal of the school, forest officials from Khanapara Range and Avishek Sarkar from Aaranyak.
The cleanliness drive was carried out in and around the Khanapara range by the students, members of local communities, officials from the forest department, PCBA and Aaranyak.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
NDTV – Dettol have been working towards a clean and healthy India since 2014 via the Banega Swachh India initiative, which is helmed by Campaign Ambassador Amitabh Bachchan. The campaign aims to highlight the inter-dependency of humans and the environment, and of humans on one another with the focus on One Health, One Planet, One Future – Leaving No One Behind. It stresses on the need to take care of, and consider, everyone’s health in India – especially vulnerable communities – the LGBTQ population, indigenous people, India’s different tribes, ethnic and linguistic minorities, people with disabilities, migrants, geographically remote populations, gender and sexual minorities. In wake of the current COVID-19 pandemic, the need for WASH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene) is reaffirmed as handwashing is one of the ways to prevent Coronavirus infection and other diseases. The campaign will continue to raise awareness on the same along with focussing on the importance of nutrition and healthcare for women and children, fight malnutrition, mental wellbeing, self care, science and health, adolescent health & gender awareness. Along with the health of people, the campaign has realised the need to also take care of the health of the eco-system. Our environment is fragile due to human activity, which is not only over-exploiting available resources, but also generating immense pollution as a result of using and extracting those resources. The imbalance has also led to immense biodiversity loss that has caused one of the biggest threats to human survival – climate change. It has now been described as a “code red for humanity.” The campaign will continue to cover issues like air pollution, waste management, plastic ban, manual scavenging and sanitation workers and menstrual hygiene. Banega Swasth India will also be taking forward the dream of Swasth Bharat, the campaign feels that only a Swachh or clean India where toilets are used and open defecation free (ODF) status achieved as part of the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2014, can eradicate diseases like diahorrea and the country can become a Swasth or healthy India.
