Ramon Magsaysay Award winner and Gandhian environmentalist Chandi Prasad Bhatt on Tuesday emphasised the need to expand the green cover to counter climate change.
“The extreme heat conditions we are experiencing now can only be countered by plantation of trees. It is the answer,” he said after planting two saplingsRudraksha and Termanalia in the SOA University campus here.
Pointing out that Kalahandi district in Odisha figured among the hottest areas of the country during summer, the 83-year-old social activist known for the Chipko movement said vigorous attempt to extend the green cover would recharge the groundwater and counter the effect of rising heat.
The mindsets of the people need to change and the youths shall have to come forward to work for protection of the environment,” he said.
Recalling his experience when he visited the areas devastated by the 1999 Super Cyclone in Odisha, Bhatt said it worried him much as a lot of greenery had been wiped out by the natural calamity.
“The city of Bhubaneswar was also badly affected in the 300-kmph storm and scores of big trees had got uprooted. But it made me happy when I saw that the city has reclaimed a lot of greenery,” he said.
I am also glad that the area under mangrove vegetation in the Odisha coast, which covered an area of 193 sqkm in 1999, has increased to 231 sqkm as per the latest Forest Survey Report,” Bhatt said, adding that the mangroves acts as a buffer against cyclones.