By Lt Col H. Bhuban Singh (Retd)
I stay at Chingama-thak, Pishum, Hao ground. A few days back, perhaps on Wednesday, 21st Nov, I went to Indo-Burma road for some work at about 10 am. To my utter surprise and dismay, I found several lovely (tall) trees cut down, near Iboyaima Gas Agency, ostensibly for the purpose of widening the congested NH-39. Immediately, tears rolled down my cheeks. It is good to widen our National High-way, but it is atrocious to cut down trees, which were about 15-20 feet in height with green leaves.
Scientifically, it is estimated that a tree of about 30 feet in height can deliver enough oxygen to sustain about 30 persons. The city of Kolkata is devoid of trees except in the Maidan area and some parks. Therefore, it is believed that the percentage count of oxygen in the atmospheric air is below the normal world average and it is causing concern to Kolkata Corporation. So planting trees arid saving them, have become one of the essential duties for all of us. A walk in the NH-39, near the Raj Bhavan and ‘M’ Sector, opposite the Kangla moat is refreshingly enjoyable, because the up and down roads are wide, almost dust free and trees are plenty. We desire the entire Imphal area to be neat and clean as the Raj Bhavan and Kangla Fort area. But, if we cut down trees at random, we will suffer. Can’t a JCP dig all around the tree with a diameter of about 20 feet and uproot the tree and replant it on a well-prepared and well posi-tioned pit and save the tree? I appeal to the Hon’ble Minister of Environment and Respec-ted Chairperson of Imphal Municipal Council, to give a thought to environmental protection and greenery all around Imphal.
Also, Imphal city has seven Assembly Constituencies; garbage is piling up everywhere in Imphal. There are no incinerators in the city area. So, why can’t, one day of the seven days of a week, be allotted for garbage collection for each Assembly constituency and these be dumped in low lying areas in Lam-phelpat and thus clean up our city and reclaim land to make space for Greater Imphal? This is just a suggestion for the Res-pected Chairperson of IMC.
About two and half decades ago, I had written an article titled “Love Thy Trees”, when I was President. Manipur Horticultural Society. This article was serialized in the then (now extinct) weekly called “Resistance” dated September 7 and 14, 1982 published every Tuesday by ‘Pan Manipuri Youth League’. I am republishing it again for the graceful consumption by our leaders and intellectuals and act, if possible.
‘Love thy trees’
They do not talk, they do not weep, they do not bleed and they do not move from place to place; so they are insignificant and are taken matter-of-factly. But their motto is to serve others. Sacrifice, Sacrifice and yet further sacrifice is their aim. No other living species can be credited with such devotion to service before self. No one can be more noble, more gentle, more sublime and more exalted. The above description fits the trees.
Air, which means oxygen, is what all animals including human beings need most. It takes higher priority over water or food. The oxygen requirement of Indians are not manufactured by Indian Oxygen Ltd. The firm is interested in profit-spinning activity of supplying oxygen to hospitals or to gas welding workshops not in free issue of oxygen.
But the humble low and ever-sacrificing tree (or any other plant) manufactures oxygen from carbon dioxide of the atmosphere and allows animals to live. So the logic or the message is clear. Cut down trees, your oxygen supply will be cut off. Despite our misbehaviour the tree is more than kind to us for it even gives our air properly filtered. The tiny hairs on the leaves of trees (and plants) collect the micro dust particles of the atmosphere and save our lungs from abuse.
Our birds and animals need forest for food and shelter. Disturb the forest the birds and animals will get disturbed and nature’s ecological balance will be upset. Without birds and animals, who destroy the harmful insects, scavenge the rot which will produce germs and bacteria, human beings cannot manage to exist. By now there must have developed some love for trees in your heart if not for anything but at least for your survival.
Since trees do not cry they speak mutely to our intellectual perceptibility. If their silent speech and their tale-tell signs are ignored they will inflict heavy punishment.
The tragedy is that the punishment comes so slowly that we do not realise the punishment is on. It is now believed that the thinning out of the Amazon basin forest for conversion into cattle ranches in South America is causing micro-climatic change in local areas and may even cause some changes to far-off India also.
Imagine a Calcutta without the Maidan the trees and the lawns- a Calcutta with a forest of concrete buildings and stones. Localised micro-climate will be experienced at Calcutta. The climatic change will in turn have bearing on crop production too. The partial clearance of the Himalayan jungles will, it is predicted, reduce rainfall and the Ganges and Yamuna may not flow.
This sounds utter rubbish now, as the Ganges and Yamuna will flow till we die. But there is historical evidence to show that, the Harappans of the Indus Valley civilization who destroyed forests hastened their own decline. Apart from the Chief Conservator of Forest in every State, each one of us are now required to be volunteer assistants to the Chief Conservator. This is exactly what the Manipur Horticultural Society does. We are to conserve our forests.
The world’s oil reserve will practically run out by the next century. Already the impact of shortage is felt. Forest for fuel and for energy has occupied the minds of those who can foresee things. Under the Sixth Five Year Plan, a social forestry scheme will be launched in about one hundred selected districts allover the country.
This will reinforce the existing (or yet to exist?) social forestry schemes at State level. Under the scheme there is a programme of “A Tree for Every Child”. It is now a fit question to ask whether your child has planted his share.
Farm forestry has been taken up successfully in South Korea, primarily for fuel wood. In drought prone areas, fuel farming is found to be more lucrative than agricultural farming. Under the guidance of Shri M.K. Dalvi, regarded as “father of social forestry” the Gujarati farmer has discovered that his unirrigated, parched and saline land can yield wealth in the form of fuel wood. Trees like eucalyptus grow fast. Watered and fertilized, the trees grow incredibly fast; some reaching 80 feet within about four years. Once harvested, the trees coppice (send up fresh shoots from the stump). Such forests yield about Rs. 8000 per hectare annually.
Commercial energy plantation is now a reality. Car powered by wood gas travelled in 1979 from coast to coast in the United States. At the Jari Project in the Brazilian Amazon, an electric power station of wood fuel has been installed recently, the conversion table being about 18 metric tones of dry wood to generate 20,000 kwh of electricity. The Frenchman, Jean Pain has already demonstrated the practicability of producing methane gas and fertilizer from plant waste (leaves, shrubs, branches etc.) at his Domaine des Templiers forest farm. Pain’s methods are beginning to spread to the rest of Europe and the world. Here are some statistics : 1000 hectares of forest can supply 6.000 tons of fertilizer a year. 960,000 cubic metres of bio-gas (or, 480,000 litres of oil equivalent) and millions of litres of hot water. The potential significance of Pain’s discovery is enormous. By the turn of the next century, the energy requirement for cooking, lighting, warming and even transportation and industry can come out of forest resources only. Henry Ford in a 1929 interview, as quoted by Merilyn Mohr in “Harrow Smith”, Canada, said:
“We can get fuel from fruit, from that shrub by the road side or from apples, weeds, sawdust
...... There is enough alcohol in one year’s yield of a hectare of potatoes to drive the machinery necessary to cultivate the field for a hundred years. And it remains for someone to find how this fuel can be produced commercially as a better fuel at a cheaper price than we now know! That someone is coming in Jean Pain (and others). Forest can become twenty-first century man’s “guardian angles”.
The generosity of trees does not end here. They like to provide us with fruit, shadow, shelter, protection from the ravages of wind, protection of soil from erosion, timber for buildings and furniture, bark (cork), gum, oil fibre, medicine, spices and various other extracts. To enjoy these benefits, we are required to be more cultured and less savage.
Call it, tree culture, so as to include Horticulture. For dealing with trees, technology is also required as in timber technology. Even art is also required. Landscaping by decorative or flowering trees is an art. A beautiful avenue lined with matching trees is a pleasure to behold. Not wanting to be left out, literature, in the shape of a poem by George Morris, sang:
Woodman, spare that tree;
Touch not a single bough!
In youth it sheltered me,
And I will protect it now.
In the ultimate analysis, the old saying of our forefathers that if you fell a tree, plant ten trees, seems to be apt for our survival. The Manipur Horticultural Society did plant trees for the welfare of mankind and publicity will come, when these trees grow up in size. Till then, like the trees, silence.
The Sangai Express
I stay at Chingama-thak, Pishum, Hao ground. A few days back, perhaps on Wednesday, 21st Nov, I went to Indo-Burma road for some work at about 10 am. To my utter surprise and dismay, I found several lovely (tall) trees cut down, near Iboyaima Gas Agency, ostensibly for the purpose of widening the congested NH-39. Immediately, tears rolled down my cheeks. It is good to widen our National High-way, but it is atrocious to cut down trees, which were about 15-20 feet in height with green leaves.
Scientifically, it is estimated that a tree of about 30 feet in height can deliver enough oxygen to sustain about 30 persons. The city of Kolkata is devoid of trees except in the Maidan area and some parks. Therefore, it is believed that the percentage count of oxygen in the atmospheric air is below the normal world average and it is causing concern to Kolkata Corporation. So planting trees arid saving them, have become one of the essential duties for all of us. A walk in the NH-39, near the Raj Bhavan and ‘M’ Sector, opposite the Kangla moat is refreshingly enjoyable, because the up and down roads are wide, almost dust free and trees are plenty. We desire the entire Imphal area to be neat and clean as the Raj Bhavan and Kangla Fort area. But, if we cut down trees at random, we will suffer. Can’t a JCP dig all around the tree with a diameter of about 20 feet and uproot the tree and replant it on a well-prepared and well posi-tioned pit and save the tree? I appeal to the Hon’ble Minister of Environment and Respec-ted Chairperson of Imphal Municipal Council, to give a thought to environmental protection and greenery all around Imphal.
Also, Imphal city has seven Assembly Constituencies; garbage is piling up everywhere in Imphal. There are no incinerators in the city area. So, why can’t, one day of the seven days of a week, be allotted for garbage collection for each Assembly constituency and these be dumped in low lying areas in Lam-phelpat and thus clean up our city and reclaim land to make space for Greater Imphal? This is just a suggestion for the Res-pected Chairperson of IMC.
About two and half decades ago, I had written an article titled “Love Thy Trees”, when I was President. Manipur Horticultural Society. This article was serialized in the then (now extinct) weekly called “Resistance” dated September 7 and 14, 1982 published every Tuesday by ‘Pan Manipuri Youth League’. I am republishing it again for the graceful consumption by our leaders and intellectuals and act, if possible.
‘Love thy trees’
They do not talk, they do not weep, they do not bleed and they do not move from place to place; so they are insignificant and are taken matter-of-factly. But their motto is to serve others. Sacrifice, Sacrifice and yet further sacrifice is their aim. No other living species can be credited with such devotion to service before self. No one can be more noble, more gentle, more sublime and more exalted. The above description fits the trees.
Air, which means oxygen, is what all animals including human beings need most. It takes higher priority over water or food. The oxygen requirement of Indians are not manufactured by Indian Oxygen Ltd. The firm is interested in profit-spinning activity of supplying oxygen to hospitals or to gas welding workshops not in free issue of oxygen.
But the humble low and ever-sacrificing tree (or any other plant) manufactures oxygen from carbon dioxide of the atmosphere and allows animals to live. So the logic or the message is clear. Cut down trees, your oxygen supply will be cut off. Despite our misbehaviour the tree is more than kind to us for it even gives our air properly filtered. The tiny hairs on the leaves of trees (and plants) collect the micro dust particles of the atmosphere and save our lungs from abuse.
Our birds and animals need forest for food and shelter. Disturb the forest the birds and animals will get disturbed and nature’s ecological balance will be upset. Without birds and animals, who destroy the harmful insects, scavenge the rot which will produce germs and bacteria, human beings cannot manage to exist. By now there must have developed some love for trees in your heart if not for anything but at least for your survival.
Since trees do not cry they speak mutely to our intellectual perceptibility. If their silent speech and their tale-tell signs are ignored they will inflict heavy punishment.
The tragedy is that the punishment comes so slowly that we do not realise the punishment is on. It is now believed that the thinning out of the Amazon basin forest for conversion into cattle ranches in South America is causing micro-climatic change in local areas and may even cause some changes to far-off India also.
Imagine a Calcutta without the Maidan the trees and the lawns- a Calcutta with a forest of concrete buildings and stones. Localised micro-climate will be experienced at Calcutta. The climatic change will in turn have bearing on crop production too. The partial clearance of the Himalayan jungles will, it is predicted, reduce rainfall and the Ganges and Yamuna may not flow.
This sounds utter rubbish now, as the Ganges and Yamuna will flow till we die. But there is historical evidence to show that, the Harappans of the Indus Valley civilization who destroyed forests hastened their own decline. Apart from the Chief Conservator of Forest in every State, each one of us are now required to be volunteer assistants to the Chief Conservator. This is exactly what the Manipur Horticultural Society does. We are to conserve our forests.
The world’s oil reserve will practically run out by the next century. Already the impact of shortage is felt. Forest for fuel and for energy has occupied the minds of those who can foresee things. Under the Sixth Five Year Plan, a social forestry scheme will be launched in about one hundred selected districts allover the country.
This will reinforce the existing (or yet to exist?) social forestry schemes at State level. Under the scheme there is a programme of “A Tree for Every Child”. It is now a fit question to ask whether your child has planted his share.
Farm forestry has been taken up successfully in South Korea, primarily for fuel wood. In drought prone areas, fuel farming is found to be more lucrative than agricultural farming. Under the guidance of Shri M.K. Dalvi, regarded as “father of social forestry” the Gujarati farmer has discovered that his unirrigated, parched and saline land can yield wealth in the form of fuel wood. Trees like eucalyptus grow fast. Watered and fertilized, the trees grow incredibly fast; some reaching 80 feet within about four years. Once harvested, the trees coppice (send up fresh shoots from the stump). Such forests yield about Rs. 8000 per hectare annually.
Commercial energy plantation is now a reality. Car powered by wood gas travelled in 1979 from coast to coast in the United States. At the Jari Project in the Brazilian Amazon, an electric power station of wood fuel has been installed recently, the conversion table being about 18 metric tones of dry wood to generate 20,000 kwh of electricity. The Frenchman, Jean Pain has already demonstrated the practicability of producing methane gas and fertilizer from plant waste (leaves, shrubs, branches etc.) at his Domaine des Templiers forest farm. Pain’s methods are beginning to spread to the rest of Europe and the world. Here are some statistics : 1000 hectares of forest can supply 6.000 tons of fertilizer a year. 960,000 cubic metres of bio-gas (or, 480,000 litres of oil equivalent) and millions of litres of hot water. The potential significance of Pain’s discovery is enormous. By the turn of the next century, the energy requirement for cooking, lighting, warming and even transportation and industry can come out of forest resources only. Henry Ford in a 1929 interview, as quoted by Merilyn Mohr in “Harrow Smith”, Canada, said:
“We can get fuel from fruit, from that shrub by the road side or from apples, weeds, sawdust
...... There is enough alcohol in one year’s yield of a hectare of potatoes to drive the machinery necessary to cultivate the field for a hundred years. And it remains for someone to find how this fuel can be produced commercially as a better fuel at a cheaper price than we now know! That someone is coming in Jean Pain (and others). Forest can become twenty-first century man’s “guardian angles”.
The generosity of trees does not end here. They like to provide us with fruit, shadow, shelter, protection from the ravages of wind, protection of soil from erosion, timber for buildings and furniture, bark (cork), gum, oil fibre, medicine, spices and various other extracts. To enjoy these benefits, we are required to be more cultured and less savage.
Call it, tree culture, so as to include Horticulture. For dealing with trees, technology is also required as in timber technology. Even art is also required. Landscaping by decorative or flowering trees is an art. A beautiful avenue lined with matching trees is a pleasure to behold. Not wanting to be left out, literature, in the shape of a poem by George Morris, sang:
Woodman, spare that tree;
Touch not a single bough!
In youth it sheltered me,
And I will protect it now.
In the ultimate analysis, the old saying of our forefathers that if you fell a tree, plant ten trees, seems to be apt for our survival. The Manipur Horticultural Society did plant trees for the welfare of mankind and publicity will come, when these trees grow up in size. Till then, like the trees, silence.
The Sangai Express
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