Social organisations in the city celebrated World Environment Day on Monday with a host of programmes aimed at improving civic awareness and rejuvenating Tiruchi’s green cover.
Team members of Thanneer had an early launch of Environment Day events with a drive to remove nails and advertisements stuck on the trees in the Khajamalai area on Sunday (June 4) evening.
This was followed by a tree-planting campaign on G-Corner and participation in the awareness rally conducted by Tiruchi Corporation yesterday.
The Anna Science Centre-Planetarium organised an interactive programme for school children based on this year’s Environment Day theme ‘Connect with Nature’. Four students of Class 7 and 8 made for a rather modest showing at the programme this year, but did well in a contest to name the plants in the science centre’s campus within half an hour.
A. Aslam, assistant professor of Botany, Jamal Mohamed College, explained the rules of taxonomy and how to identify plants according to their physical attributes. He urged the assembled gathering of parents and children to take care of plants as they were the primary food producers of the world.
Ithu Namathu Tiruchi (INT), a grouping of 18 non-governmental organisations in the city, has planned to carry forward its Environment Day celebrations by holding a ward-wise tree planting drive on June 11. “We will be planting five native trees per ward, and as there are 65 wards in the city, we are calling it Project 65. Besides this, we will also be installing tree guards to protect the saplings,” said J. W. Edison, an organiser of the INT drive. More details could be had by calling 9865182522. At the Rail Museum, trainees of the Railways planted saplings to mark Environment Day.
Potties were distributed to the parents of 55 infants in Kombai tribal village in Thuraiyur block as part of a World Environment Day programme by SCOPE (Society for Community Organisation and People’s Education).
Teaching children how to use the toilet at an early age would help eradicate open defecation, said SCOPE director M Subburaman. The potties were being given under the State Balanced Growth Fund advanced by the State Planning Commission, he added.
