Reinventing the ‘green canopy’

Recently East Champaran took a peculiar initiative to protect the older trees of the district, several steps were taken for the same including formation of groups to guard the trees, covering up of the exposed roots and also celebration of festivals and programmes along with the trees. Several festivals like Raksha Bandhan, Teacher’s day celebration, Lantern festival, Dahi handi among many have been celebrated with the tree by tying rakhi to them and promising to save them at any cost. And many programmes and functions also take place under the trees canopy, like it used to be in the earlier times. The trees are chosen for the programme are more than fifty years old having the canopy size of 1000 meters square to 2000meters square.

Trees were an integral part of people’s lives in ancient times and many activities right from schooling and cooking used to take place under the trees shadow, which made people more connected to the trees thus making them care for those trees and conserve them like their own.

This initiative is also slowly restoring that feeling of connection with the trees and spreading awareness about trees being an important part of our lives as many activities now take place under the guardian trees.