The Orissa Environmental Society (OES) organised ‘National Environment Awareness Campaign 2015 (NEAC) here at the Jayadeva Vatika on Sunday.
The theme of the campaign was ‘Combating desertification, land degradation and drought.’
The aim of NEAC was to create awareness among people to solve the environment-related problems, which are increasing day by day, said OES secretary Dr Jayakrushna Panigrahi. “For eradication of environmental problems, we first need to find the reasons behind them,” he added.
To focus on desertification land degradation and drought (DlDD) activities, a summit on climate change would be held in Paris with 196 representatives from different countries, he informed.
“We invite the NGOs, school students, different organisations to participate in this campaign and to ensure a drought-free and green environment,” Dr Panigrahi said.
Centre for Environmental Studies Director Prof Sailabala Padhi said, “We should reduce carbon dioxide in the environment which is also responsible for creating drought-like situation to build a green one.”
Forest expert Gadadhar Mohapatra said industrialisation is the main reason of desertification.”We need to change course and start securing every hectare of land that can provide food or freshwater and restore all the degraded land that we can,” urged Mohapatra, adding that by doing so, people would be able to make rapid steps towards controlling climate change.
“The degradation is the result of loss of vegetation due to deforestation, unsustainable fuel wood and fodder extraction, shifting cultivation, encroachment on forestlands, forest fires and overgrasing,” he said.