India: Global Host of World Environment Day 2011

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) announced that India would be for the first time ever the global host of World Environment Day 2011 on June 5 this year.
A UNEP press release noted that India had one of the fastest growing economies in the world that is embracing the process of a transition to a Green Economy.

It said the theme of this year’s WED, “Forests: Nature at your Service” underscored the intrinsic link between quality of life and the health of forests and forest ecosystems. The WED theme also supports this year’s UN International Year of Forests, it said.

The UNEP pointed out that India is a country of 1.2 billion people who continue to put pressure on forests especially in densely populated areas where people are cultivating on marginal lands and where overgrazing is contributing to desertification.

“But the Indian Government has also found solutions. While the socio-economic pressures on the country’s forests are tremendous, India has instituted a tree-planting system to combat land-degradation and desertification, including windbreaks and shelterbelts to protect agricultural land,” it said.

The release noted that, in conserving its critical ecosystem, India had successfully introduced projects that track the health of the nation’s plants, animals, water and other natural resources, including the Sunderbans - the largest deltaic mangrove forest in the world, and home to one of India’s most iconic wildlife species: the tiger.

It said India had also launched a compensation afforestation programme under which any diversion of public forests for non-forestry purposes is compensated through afforestation in degraded or non-forested land. The funds received as compensation are used to improve forest management, protection of forests and of watershed areas. Moreover, a government authority has been created specifically to administer this programme, it said.

“Over close to the 40-year history of WED, India’s cities and communities have been among the most active with a myriad of events undertaken across the country each and every year - so it is only fitting that this rapidly developing economy is the host in 2011,” Mr Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary General and UNEP Executive Director, said.

“India is famous for its culture, arts, movies and world-beating information technology industries. Increasingly it is at the forefront of some of the ‘green shoots’ of a Green Economy that are emerging across the globe,” he said.
“From its manufacturing of solar and wind turbines to its Rural Employment Guarantee Act which underwrites paid work for millions of households via investments in areas ranging from water conservation to sustainable land management, foundations are being laid towards a fundamental and far reaching new development path,” he added.

UNEP said this was underlined by India’s introduction of the Clean Energy Fund into its national budget which provides subsidies for green technology and has been the basis for a National Action Plan on Climate Change which sets specific targets on issues such as energy efficiency and sustaining the Himalayan eco-system.
“India is currently planning one of the largest green energy projects in the world that will generate 20,000 megawatts of solar energy and 3,000 megawatts from wind farms on 50,000 acres in Karnataka in southwest India. The first phase of the US$50 billion project will start next year,” the release said.

In its report on the Green Economy launched yesterday, UNEP cites India and the $8 billion National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, which underwrites at least 100 days of paid work, benefiting close to 60 million rural households.

“India’s offer to host WED is another expression of India’s strong commitment to work with the global community for sustainable development. This event will serve as the inauguration of a series of events leading up to the hosting of the 11th Conference of Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity. It will also flag off the celebrations of the international decade for biodiversity. This will in addition signal India’s commitment to the biomass economy so dependent on the sustainability of our natural resources,” Dr. T. Chatterjee, Secretary for Environment and Forests of the Government of India, said.

According to the release, Mumbai and Delhi will be the venue for this year’s global celebration of the environment, with a myriad of activities over several days to inspire Indians and people around the world to take action for the environment.
The celebrations in India on June 5 will be part of thousands of events taking place around the globe.

“WED 2011 will emphasize how individual actions can have an exponential impact, with a variety of activities ranging from school tree-planting drives to community clean-ups, car-free days, photo competitions on forests, bird-watching trips, city park clean-up initiatives, exhibits, green petitions, nationwide green campaigns and much more,” it said.

This year, UNEP plans to make WED 2011 into a bigger celebration than ever before, building on the unprecedented success of WED 2010 - when people in more than 112 countries registered activities on the WED website and WED was thrust into the blogo-sphere with the first-ever WED- blogging competition.

“The WED 2011 website will inspire, inform and involve people through unprecedented interactivity, offering daily tips, information and statistics on forest conservation, a platform where people around the world can register their activities, social networking campaigns and competitions to get people on every continent involved,” the release added.

By KOL News , Written on February 23, 2011
(http://www.asianetindia.com/whats-hot/india-global-host-world-environment-day-2011_244321.html)