Why in news?

Veerendra Heggade of Dharmasthala launches Vanashri afforestation scheme in the Mysuru city

Highlights:       

• The Vanashri programme iniatiated by the Mysuru Urban Development Authority (MUDA) to plant 25,000 saplings in the city during the year and shore up the green cover was launched.
• Supported by: Shri Kshetra Dharmasthala Rural Development Project,
• Inaugurated by: Dharmadhikari Veerendra Heggade.
• This was part of the ongoing Green Mysuru campaign launched with the objective of planting 1 lakh saplings in four years and under which 50,000 saplings had already been planted in two years.
• Mysuru is known to be clean city and going forward, it should also emerge as the green capital of Karnataka
• The focus is on high density plantation in open areas to create urban forest ecosystem and the volunteers of Shri Kshethra Dharmasthala Rural Development Project have come forward to ensure the watering of the saplings during summer for three years to ensure their survival.
• The MUDA is planting indigenous species such as Atti, Hippe, Honge, Halasu, Nagalingapushpa, Bettada Nelli, Kadubadami, Bevu and Mahogany.

The need:

• Though India is ancient and had pristine forests the giant trees have disappeared and nature has been vandalised compared to a few other countries where the forest density and tree height is such that even sunlight does not penetrate to the ground, Hence it is not only important to take up planting of saplings and nurture them but also ensure that there was no further erosion of forest cover.