Van Mahotsav 2025 | Keeping Up With Tradition To Restore Green Cover

VAN MAHOTSAV, India’s annual traditional festival of forest celebrated from July 1 to 7, is expected to witness 1.46 billion citizens of the country plant a sapling each to conserve the forests and rejuvenate the country. This week-long event, which is considered a festival of life, aims to save the country and the mother Earth by protecting the natural environment and ensure a healthy, green and sustainable future for generations to come.

India’s first national-level tree plantation was organized on July 20, 1947, by MS Randhawa, a civil servant. It was inaugurated by Khurshid Ahmad Khan, commissioner of Delhi, and was followed by another ceremony held at Purana Qila led by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. The tradition was continued by KM Munshi, the then Minister of Food and Agriculture. He turned it into a national event, giving it a new name—Van Mahotsav—in 1950.

Van Mahotsav, deeply etched in Indian culture plays a crucial role in reminding the citizens of the country and responsibility to safeguard and nurture the nation. This festival of trees born out of the love for Mother Nature emerges as a beacon of hope and action for national security and benevolent future.

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Apart from Van Mahotsav, the Ministry of Culture had also taken up the initiative to celebrate Sankalp Parva from June 28 to July 12, 2020, where all its subordinate offices, academies, attached institutions, and affiliated institutions were expected to plant trees in their campus or the surrounding areas.

Since trees are such a vital part in the ecosystem, it is the duty of each and every citizen to preserve trees and promote a healthy, pollution-free environment.

Tropical Forest Degradation in India

Recent years have witnessed widespread cutting of trees to accommodate expanding infrastructure and housing needs as a part of rapid urbanization. This relentless deforestation has resulted in significant environmental degradation, affecting air quality, climate stability and the biodiversity.

According to The Global Forest Watch data, India had to let go of around 38,500 hectares of tropical forest which is an almost 14% tree cover decreasing 0.67 % of our tree cover. Over the last decade, deforestation has caused a total of 16% loss of tree cover in the country’s forest area.
It is evident that forests are under constant threat due to obnoxious human activities. Van Mahotsav is an exemplary move to prevent the country’s vegetation from fading away.

‘Ek Paudha Maa Ke Naam 2.0’

Van Mahotsav 2025 theme, ‘Ek Paudha Maa Ke Naam 2.0’, is to plant a tree in the name of our own beloved mother, alive or death, and serve as if she is, and in inverse, as the mother looks after her children, we are also to look after these seedlings to survive.

It is also our traditional festival that reflects our culture and heritage to honour and love for mother nature. The slogan for this year is “Plant a Tree, Secure Our Future”.

Trees are magicians with carbon, pulling it out of the air at remarkable rates to store it in their bodies including the living wood, roots, leaves, deadwood, surrounding soils and its associated vegetation.

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Forests ecosystems are essentially storage machines for maintaining the equilibrium of climate, biodiversity, soil and living beings on the planet. They are so good at removing this greenhouse gas that “planting trees” is often synonymous with doing environmental safeguard. Trees are one of the most powerful natural weapons to solve all environmental crises.

Tree Planting: Community Participation for Sustainable Future

Indigenous species have had millions of years to adapt to their local environment to give the best coexistence. Again, if we do not get the support from local communities, our planted trees may not survive. Hence, we should think about, all repercussions before our planting trees.

Tree planting can capture carbon regardless of species or who plant it, it is hardly a silver bullet for the climate crisis. Experts estimate that even if we maximize our available lands with trees, this alone would not be enough to counteract anthropogenic carbon emissions. Current afforestation rate is not even 1% of total felled trees.

Van Mahotsav is more than just a festival; it is a revolutionary movement toward a green and sustainable future. While greenery is around, it improves air quality, reduce temperature, support wildlife, enhanced beautification and promote health and well-being.

No life is possible on the earth without plants. Thus, Van Mahotsav is the festival of life, peace, hope and development. It creates the enthusiasm among masses on forest conservation and planting trees. Seeing the present day numerous environmental catastrophes, preservation of forest has become an integral part of life.

Planting of trees provides alternative fuel, increase food resources, creates shelter for biodiversity and wind-belts around the fields to increase productivity, decorative landscapes and conserves soil fertility etc. Trees provide fodder leaves and shades to increase the atheistic value of the landscape and also provide small poles and timber for housing and agricultural implements.

Van Mahotsav will help in increasing forest cover and promote fruit and timber from non-forests. Open fields, river banks and barren lands can be slowly converted into integrated tree land or semi forests or orchards. Finally, through Van Mahotsav, we can bring back our lost forests.

Humans with their greed have cut down globally the forest cover with the size of 40 football grounds per second numbering about 15 billion trees annually. This declining number has brought a major challenge in climate. So, there is a dire necessity of Van Mahotsav festival all over the world to restore the forest cover on non-forest areas.

India ranked 10th in the world, with 24.4% of land area under forest, though the country has only 2.4 % of the world surface. Van Mahotsav carries immense significance not just for a national cause but also for a global cause. Green and healthy, the earth is for all the inhabitants of this planet. Notably, the festival is a commitment to environmental conservation.

Natural Disasters No Longer Natural in Manipur

Manipur has become a vulnerable to floods, droughts, heat waves, cyclones and many other natural disasters. This trend is increasing with each year. With continuous human intervention against nature, these disasters can no longer be considered ‘Natural’. The recent flash floods in Imphal area are a vivid warning signal.

Now, it is our turn to reverse the damage that we have caused and to restore the ecological balance, the best way is planting trees and saving the existing forests. Civil societies, NGOs and Meira Paibis in the state now need to involve in mass tree plantation movements.

We may also organize house-to-house tree plantation campaign. It is suggested for the tree census above 1 ft girth at breast height at least for five valley districts may be started and if so, that could be a great conservation effort.

Hence, this Van Mahotsav-2025, let’s plant at least one tree each by all family members to restore green Manipur, and India as a whole.

The author is an Environmentalist, presently working as District Forest Officer, Chandel district, Manipur. The author can be reached at [email protected].

(Views expressed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Ukhrul Times.)