The Free Press Journal, in collaboration with Grow-Trees.com, honoured the newly elected women parliamentarians in Maharashtra with a meaningful gesture. The triumph of the women MPs was memorialised by planting five trees for each one of them at Grow-Trees.com's Trees for Tigers project in Ramtek. These MPs include Supriya Sule (NCP-SP), Pratibha Dhanorkar (Congress), Shobha Bachhav (Congress), Smita Wagh (BJP), Varsha Gaikwad (Congress), Raksha Khadse (BJP), and Praniti Shinde (Congress).
Grow-Trees.com's co-founder Pradip Shah said, “Our plantation projects in different parts of India would have remained incomplete without the contribution and participation of women. Women are also equal stakeholders in the preservation of the environment and in the dialogue around climate change, and must be given equal representation everywhere. We feel happy that seven dynamic women have been elected in Maharashtra. In partnership with FPJ, we have dedicated five trees to each one of them with the hope that this number will grow. The trees will also help in the conservation of the tiger habitat by expanding the forest cover, which is critical for the health of biodiversity.”
India is home to 70 per cent of the world’s tiger population, yet as few as 3,167 tigers are alive in the country. As the existing forest cover shrinks and prey becomes scarce, tigers are compelled to enter human-dominated areas, resulting in human-wildlife conflict. The distinctive aim of the project is to plant over 5,36,023 trees in Ramtek to strengthen the tiger habitat. Out of the total number of trees, 4,50,013 have already been planted.
Gaurav Kadam, Pune Bureau Chief, FPJ, said, “We are proud to partner with an initiative that not only celebrates the leadership of women but also contributes to the conservation of tigers. We hope more people will come forward to plant and dedicate trees to protect India's wildlife habitats. If our forest cover continues to shrink, it will exacerbate climate change and also precipitate human-animal conflicts. Planting trees is the simplest way to make a difference to the environment.”
On completion, the Ramtek project will reforest degraded land, increase the tiger habitat, and alleviate the pressure on the green cover of the Pench corridor. The forest produce would generate additional income for the local communities and also improve groundwater levels, mitigate soil erosion, and offer holistic improvement of local ecology and economy.
