The objective of college environmental club is to promote environmental awareness among students. It aims to sensitize students on different environmental issues such as global warming,pollution ,deforestation ,exploitation of natural resources etc. It is a forum that empowers students to participate and take up meaningful environmental activities and projects.
Development of a Mini Forest on the college ground through Miyawaki Technique. Objectives of the Practice -To restore a potential degraded land patch of the college rapidly and effectively by forestation. -To create a natural carbon sink and encourage biodiversity. -To promote greener environment and help reduce pollution, attract birds and insects. -To make the stakeholders aware of Miyawaki technique for rapid forestation. Context Earth is losing its forest cover rapidly. Deforestation is responsible for global carbon emissions, soil erosion and bio-diversity loss. So, when a local NGO Bharat Vikas Parishad approached the college for collaboration to develop a Mini Forest, because of the ample availability of the potential land of our college ground - the idea was welcomed enthusiastically. The Practice The work to develop the land patch into a mini forest started around the beginning of the year 2021 when Bharat Vikas Parishad got the nod of the college authorities to work on this very unique project. In this method propounded by Japanese botanist Akira Miyawaki, the forest grows rapidly by the construction of soil, utilizing native plant diversity, growing healthy saplings and planting them close together. .
The first step was to choose the potential natural vegetation, then saplings were grown in bags full of organic manure, then planting site was prepared with organic bio- mass and saplings were finally planted densely-three to four per square meter. The saplings compete with each other for sun light to grow rapidly. Only native species that would occur naturally in that area without humans, given the specific climatic condition, are planted. It is really heartening to see diverse variety of useful plants like cherry, orange, tamarind, sweet lime, pomegranate, blackberries, laburnum, drumsticks, neem, sacred fig, night jasmine(also known as harsingaar and parijaat) etc. growing into beautiful trees with care and regular monitoring by the NGO, authorities and the extremely efficient gardeners of the college. Evidence of Success The institution boasts of a mini dense forest of its own after approx. a year and half from the commencement of this project. It is a great learning for all the stakeholders specially students that it is so easy to develop a mini forest with natural and organic methods and no big investments. A great haven for the great number of bio-diversity already present in the college, this forest is a unique feature of our institution and a remarkable example before the local communities and other institutions, a step towards reducing carbon footprint and a great contribution towards a cleaner, greener environment