Action for planet: Massive reforestation initiative taken up to protect biodiversity-rich Eastern Himalayas

New Delhi [India], September 3 (ANI): ‘The Great People's Forest of the Eastern Himalayas’, an initiative to set in motion an ambitious reforestation and conservation initiative in South Asia was launched by Balipara Foundation in partnership with Conservation International.
By 2030, this initiative will seek to plant 1 billion trees and restore and protect 1 million hectares of land across the Eastern Himalayas, from the mountains to the mangrove, read a press statement from the Balipara Foundation. 
The initiative will span across the northeastern part of India, Bhutan, Bangladesh, and Nepal with active involvement of local communities.
The initiative aims to raise USD 1 billion dollars to support this work from public, private, and philanthropic sources. 
The initiative, inaugurated in the presence of G20 Sherpa Amitabh Kant here on Saturday, has been taken as a part of India’s G20 presidency theme -- ‘One Earth, One Family, One Future’.
From the world's tallest mountains, two of our most important rivers – Ganga and Brahmaputra, the world's largest delta, and the globe's largest mangrove forest, it is a vast store of biodiversity.
Eastern Himalayas is also a region of vital significance to humanity, home to some of the most densely populated areas on earth with a billion relying directly on its land and water for their livelihoods and survival.
But sadly an estimated 100,000 hectares of tree cover is lost every year in the region. A third of the glaciers of the Eastern Himalayas could be lost by 2050 as a result of climate change.
“This effort will put the Eastern Himalayas, and the 1 billion people who rely directly on it, on the international conservation agenda. The Great People’s Forest is our movement to protect the region we call home. India’s G20 Presidency has encouraged us to design this ambitious, creative initiative and we hope to better the lives of the billion people who rely on the land and water of this beautiful region,” Ranjit Barthakur, President of Balipara Foundation speaking on the occasion noted.

Balipara Foundation is focused on a community-based approach to conservation. According to its website, the foundation embarked on an ambitious journey to restore forests across Assam, stretching from Udalguri district all the way to Sonitpur, along the Arunachal Pradesh - Assam - Bhutan border.

Richard Jeo, SVP, Conservation International Asia Pacific, said, “People have rightly highlighted the urgent plight of the Amazon and the Congo Basin. But we don’t speak with anywhere near the urgency we should about the Eastern Himalayas and its vast ecological significance for the planet.”
“The people of the Eastern Himalayas are some of the most climate-vulnerable on our planet, threatened by melting glaciers, rising sea levels, and ever more frequent and more violent storms. And they have contributed only the tiniest fraction of the historic emissions that have caused the climate crisis that they are now on the frontlines of,” Jeo added. (ANI)