By Panchali Ghosh, IPE Global (Kolkata Office)
Celebrated on July 28 each year, World Nature Conservation Day salutes the supreme role of Mother Nature in providing a foundation for a stable and productive society that can ensure the well-being of present and future generations. It is a reminder of a fundamental fact- Nature does not need people. People need nature. Therefore it is imperative that we acknowledge our obligations towards nature and participate to protect, conserve and sustainably manage our natural resources.
With this very basic philosophy in mind, IPE Global has initiated several innovative programs in the past. The organization recognized the importance of identification and awareness of an issue must precede concrete actions to solve it and thereby organized a collage and poster competition across its different branches to sensitize its employees towards the cause. This event gave us an opportunity to engage more deeply and personally with the issue. Apart from thinking about what humans need to do to prevent damage to the world, it made us ponder about how without conservation of the nature, our lives will change for worse. Resources, such as water, oil, natural gas, wood and food, are not endless. When these become less available, countries may get so desperate for it that wars can start over who gets the resource. This can also lead to people accidently making that resource even rarer and less plentiful. Problems like extinction, global warming and wars over resources are only going to worsen unless our generation and the next few will do something about it. Engagement with these thoughts brought forth the revelation that people irrespective of age need to get interested in conservation and get into good environmentally friendly habits sooner rather later.
To address this global issue, we at IPE Global Kolkata decided to act locally. We identified that the Forest Department, Government of West Bengal runs a program whereby it sells plant saplings at a subsidized price (1 or 2 Rupees each), to encourage people to plant trees. Due to lack of publicity the awareness about this initiative was limited. Therefore when we contacted them and proposed to buy some of the saplings for our initiative, they were extremely happy. We then distributed the plants among our IPE Global fraternity and encouraged each other to be responsible for the plants one took. Some plants survived, some didn’t but our initiative and endeavor to make micro contribution towards a macro cause has endured. This year we again got together and adopted some plants and pledged to nurture them in the best possible way we can. We distributed saplings and planted some trees within the premises of our office. The locals who supported our initiative enthusiastically joined us. We are aware that these are baby steps towards addressing a larger issue and we do hope to play our part in conserving nature.
However we must acknowledge, that even this small step has made us more aware of our responsibilities towards the planet we belong to. Personally, I feel extremely proud to be a part of an organization, which encourages its employees to undertake initiatives that are instrumental in making this world a better place to live in.
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