DU sees 'climate warriors' in new students, to make tree plantation part of curriculum

New Delhi: Planting a tree will be a part of the Delhi University curriculum from the coming academic session, and the students will be the varsity's "climate warriors", Acting Vice-Chancellor P C Joshi announced on Saturday. This will be applicable at the Under Graduate, Post Graduate and M.Phil./Ph.D levels, DU officials said.

The programme will be scientifically monitored and evaluated by the respective colleges, centres and departments, they said.

"Every year, the Delhi University admits lakhs of students from different parts of the country and they will be our climate warriors," Joshi said. Planting and subsequent maintenance of trees will not only create a big supply chain in creating jobs at a different level but also yield several valuable products which will provide suitable income at a different level, he added.

"Today, we are facing a major biosphere crisis and there are only 28 trees per person available in India while the global average is 422 trees per person, Canada has 8,953 and China has 130 trees per person," said Botanist and Professor Dinabandhu Sahoo, Director of the Centre for Himalayan Studies and the brain behind the proposal.

In a statement, DU Registrar Vikas Gupta said the world is facing one of the greatest humanitarian crisis today not only due to the COVID-19 pandemic but also several environmental, social and economic challenges.

"For the first time, we all realised the value of oxygen and the pandemic has taught us many things. Therefore, we need to fight the challenges together and get ready ourselves to combat future problems," he said.

The varsity also issued guidelines on the new initiative.

DU had constituted a committee for examining the proposal of the Centre for Himalyan Studies for implementing a mandatory action-oriented programme for Environmental Action as Academic Social Responsibility, the notification said. According to the notification, each student should plant at least one native tree species in their native place/place of stay, such as village / town / city / hills / seacoast , etc.