(World Nature Conservation Day is observed on July 28 to raise awareness about protecting natural resources and to make people understand the importance of the conservation of nature)

Parthona Phukan

The word nature refers to the phenomena of the natural world collectively, including plants, animals, landscape, and other features and products of the earth. While conservation of nature can be defined as the careful preservation and protection of the resources of nature so that they can persist for the future generation.

World Nature Conservation Day is observed on July 28 to raise awareness about protecting natural resources and to make people understand the importance of the conservation of nature. The history of this day is unknown but it holds its importance. Every year a theme is selected to teach us how a healthy environment is the foundation of a stable and healthy society.

The theme for World Nature Conservation Day 2021 is Forests and Livelihoods: Sustaining People and Planet.

Dipankar Borah, an assistance professor at the Department of Botany, Goalpara College, has been working on the documentation of Behali Reserve Forest for a long time. While speaking about some of the findings of his works, Borah informed that the forest has shrunk rapidly and today it is on the verge of extinction.

Home to about 290 plant species, 49 mammals, 280 birds, 23 snakes, 12 turtles, 11 lizards, 12 amphibians and 241 species of butterflies this forest of Biswanath is pleading for survival, he informed.

“Normally we don’t find so many species in one small forest. Three types of plant species were discovered in the forest and of these, two species are only found in Behali as it is not found anywhere else in the world. Some new plants that have been discovered here were never recorded anywhere else in Assam ever,” he added.

“If adequate steps for conservation are not taken, then the entire forest will disappear in a few years and this will have an impact on the entire environmental surroundings, leading to the rise in man-animal conflicts,” he added.

This left me wondering- what’s wrong with the people. Why are we exploiting nature at such an extreme level?

During a conversation, Jadav Payeng, the forest man of India, told me that when he was in France he had planted a sapling in a place. There were many people around him and among them some laughed, a few danced, some sang and some even cried.

“The mixed emotions that evoked owing to the plantation of one sapling explains a lot about the people. This happened as they have realised the importance of trees, the importance of nature,” he said.

“The developing countries have already exploited and created an imbalance in nature, it’s the developing countries like India which is maintaining nature’s balance and if this comes to an end then nature will revolt against the human race,” he further said.

Mahatma Gandhi once said, “What we are doing to the forests of the world is but a mirror reflection of what we are doing to ourselves and one another.”

It reflects the dependence of humans on the forests.

The human race has always been dependent on the forest for livelihood. But as time went by, human’s became greedy and they began to exploit nature to its core and as a result, the forest covers have decreased, several species of plants and animals are already extinct or are on the verge of extinction. The most lethal impact has been global warming, which has made the global weather unpredictable. The temperature rise has also affected our mental and physical health.

If conservation of nature is not done adequately, then the day is not far when life will perish from this planet. Remember, there is just one earth for us to live in.