Lagwad

Book: लागवड (Marathi) 
Authors: Ketaki Ghate and Manasi Karandikar 

In the last few years, the subject of nature and environmental conservation has gained a lot of importance. At the rate of human development, many people are doing their best for the conservation of nature at different levels. It started with writings, movements, exhibitions, further efforts to create awareness among the people by taking them to nature, which resulted in the creation of good plans and policies. And with increasing awareness, people’s outlook towards nature changed.

Due to all these efforts, the actual groundwork started. In relation to this, the importance of planting trees has increased at all levels. Discussions on cultivation, articles, posters, tree lists, actual planting programs, etc. have been emphasized by many commendable initiatives. WhatsApp, Facebook, etc. are adding special emphasis to this. While planting, people are posting many photos with their hands in the soil, along with the trees. Planting is a good thing. But it still seems to have some technical flaws. It is not right to blame anyone for that and that is not the objective as well.

In our education system as a whole, there are no open, direct and proper answers as to why, how to look at nature, what it has to do with human life, what exactly conservation is, exactly how to do it. This effort seems to have started recently. But it will take a long time for this to spread roots. It seems natural that mistakes are being made right now. Many experts and organizations are working on their own to prevent or reduce these mistakes. We got guidance from some of these experts and took the opportunity to work on the ground for nature. This experience so far led to a scientific or logical set of guidelines for the flowering of nature on a land. If we look at nature from this point of view and cultivate, then nature will definitely benefit.

Let’s understand how to benefit from it in the book ‘लागवड’.

Everything we need to live our daily lives is made from raw materials that are extracted from nature. It uses natural resources as well as living things. If this biodiversity is to be used forever, there is no alternative but to protect it, to sustain it.

History tells us that if big climate change occurs in nature, the species will become extinct and it will take a long time for the life to regenerate. And there is no evidence that some of the changes that took place on Earth in the past were caused by a single species. Rather it happened naturally. The dinosaurs became extinct because meteor hit the earth and volcanic eruptions caused climate change and they could not survive. Climate change may be natural, but its speed and magnitude have increased exponentially. And it is precisely for this reason that the question arises as to whether man is a part of biodiversity or not. – Ketaki Ghate and Manasi Karandikar

Note: This storyticle is in English however the book is currently available in Marathi only.