It’s a green school campus complete with an herbal garden, a composting unit, and plenty of trees. Its students plant saplings, rally for the use of bicycles and participate in competitions on environmental themes.
On Tuesday, N.S.N. Matriculation Higher Secondary School won the ‘Green School’ award given by the C.P.R. Environmental Education Centre.
The centre, which is celebrating its 25 anniversary this year, released two books on the occasion: Sacred Groves of India, a compendium and Green Pilgrimage for a Clean India , a guide to being environmentally conscious while visiting holy sites.
Speaking at the function, Member of Parliament Jairam Ramesh said, “India is a paradoxical civilisation. We venerate biodiversity, pray to rivers and mountains and have deities that ride wild animals. Respect for nature is firmly entrenched in our thinking. And yet, we treat it with total neglect. I have come to the conclusion that we worship it so we can ignore it.”
Stressing the need for the younger generation to lead a movement to protect our environment, he lauded the centre’s efforts in environmental education. He also said that being in the ministry of environment meant one couldn’t please everybody.
“Our national wealth is under relentless attack. Yes, we need jobs and development but not at the cost of our rivers, mountains and animals. The two need to be integrated, and this involves making some tough choices,” the former environment minister said.
Ashok Lavasa, secretary to the ministry, said the country had reached a point where worship of nature had become ritualistic as it did not translate into responsible behaviour in citizens.
“Awareness has to be spread across the board to all sections of the society,” he said. He also spoke about the need to make the current regulations simpler and more transparent as, at present, they were difficult and a lot of discretion was given to the regulator.
Chairman of the centre M.S. Swaminathan said the compendium on sacred groves was important as it presented not just a description of groves in villages where animal life and medicinal plants flourished, but also highlighted the need to create more groves and rejuvenate destroyed ones.
Nanditha Krishnan, honorary director of the centre, presented its achievements over a quarter century and thanked her colleagues for their hard work and dedication.
Hans Raj Verma, secretary, environment department, Tamil Nadu, also participated in the event.
