UNDERSTANDING THE NEEDAND SIGNIFICANCE OF GREEN WALL

Indian Union Government is all set to come up with such a project that’s going to swell our lungs with hope and happiness. The government is planning to undertake a vast reforestation exercise along the Aravalli hill range that will stretch from the Ridge of Delhi-Haryana border to Banas-Kantha in Gujarat.

About the proposed wall:

• It will be a 1,400km long and 5km wide green forest corridor from the Delhi-Haryana border to Gujarat.
• It will be based on the concept of “Great Green Wall” running through the width of Africa, from Dakar (Senegal) to Djibouti, to combat climate change and desertification.
• It will be a national priority for India to achieve its goal to restore 26 million hectares of degraded land by 2030.

Need and Significance:

• Conversion of such a huge tract of land into a green belt that too in high-intensive land-degraded states will act as a catalyst towards meeting India’s target
• The upcoming proposal of developing the green belt from Porbandar to Panipat will be helping in restoring the degraded land through afforestation along the Aravalli hill range.
• It will be resulting as a barrier towards dust coming from the deserts in western India and Pakistan.
• In the past decades, the Aravalli range has lost so much green cover that it’s losing its ability to act as a natural barrier against the heat and dust that blows in from the west. According to the ecologists if the loss persists it’s more likely that the desertification will expand into the rest of India as well. Therefore, the Green wall of India could be counted as a priority project to save our environment and ecology.

Read more: Green Revolution Introduction, objectives & Important Facts

Great Green Wall of Africa

• It was built aiming to restore Africa’s degraded landscapes and changing the dynamics of one of the world’s poorest regions, the Sahel.
• It has been completed only about 15% of the total initiative taken by Africa.
• The Wall will be the largest living structure on the planet – an 8,000 km natural wonder of the world stretching across the entire width of the continent after its completion.
• Sahel is a semi-arid region of western and north-central Africa extending from Senegal eastward to Sudan.
• It’s a transitional zone between the arid Sahara (desert) to the north and the belt of humid savannas towards the south.

Aravalli Mountain Range

It’s the oldest fold mountains on Earth aging approximately three billion years. It runs over 800km from Gujarat to Delhi (through Rajasthan and Haryana).

Highest peak of Aravalli Range – Guru Peak on Mount Abu.

Climatic Effects of Aravalli’s-

• In summers, the mountain range gently guides the monsoon clouds eastwards (to Shimla and Nainital), and helps in nurturing the sub-Himalayan rivers and irrigating the north Indian plains.
• In the winter months, it protects the fertile alluvial river valleys

Conclusion

The project of Great Green Wall is yet to get its final and formal nod as the details are being worked out. But if it is given the status of a national mission then for sure the proposed project could insure the country against a potential crisis of food insufficiency in the decades ahead. According to the reports, 96.4 million hectares, or nearly 30% of India’s total land, have already been degraded and to save the nation from such degradation projects like Green wall Concept shouldn’t be undermined or delayed.

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