In this special Health 360 report, environmental expert Dr Faiyaz Khudsar takes viewers on a tour of the Yamuna Biodiversity Park and the Aravalis, highlighting unique flora like the 'Ghost Tree' (Kullu) and ancient 'Paleolithic signs' known as cupules. Dr Khudsar explains that these 25,000-year-old markings indicate early human occupation.
00:00what's this red thing this is called ghost tree okay or kullu or kadaya but it's also called gond
00:12kathira okay look up come here look up and look down you see something you see something yeah what
00:28is this one two three four five six seven eight nine ten one two three four five six seven eight nine ten
00:37here you go one two three four five six seven eight nine ten what are these these are no no no they're
00:53called cupules they are paleolithic signs roughly 25 000 years old wow there were humans here occupying
01:03these landscapes at one point of time native species are very important why am i stressing on
01:10native because native species can perform all the functions when you look at the ridge that covers
01:18about seven thousand seven hundred seventy seven hectares of area that is 60 70 percent is full
01:24of prosopis dually flora a mexican weed came long back brought by britisher and that is not performing
01:31this job okay so now government is taking up and delhi government and probably the forest community
01:38will be changed with native slowly in phased manner and it will be restored what is native to us is
01:44what's going to help us what is not native to us is not going to be helping us as we've seen
01:49you're right so these are all special plants this is a gymnosperm i don't know if you know gymnosperms and
01:56angiosperms though the mexican one no these plants which which came before the flowering started so this is
02:04like uh your pine and devdars so this is of that kind it's called the gymnosperm this is rati rati leaves are eaten
02:16in paan and it's a sweetener okay but if you eat they you can die this is called gurma if you eat the leaf your sense of sweetness dies for an hour or so
02:31anything man-made creates heat and pollution anything that is nature induced
02:39joh bhagwan nae banaya hai parmatma nae banaya hai joh prakriti nae banaya hai
02:45woh absorbs heat and pollution
02:48okay so aapke peed, aapke pahaad, aapke nadiaan, aapka samundar, aapke talaab, aapke jitnye bhi jhalashen hai, wetland area, greenland area, they absorb heat and pollution
02:59I would like to show you somewhere that if you put your hand this was for example here you see if you you see now you can dig
03:13carbon is finally fixed into soil the carbon which we would have been breathing are available in the atmosphere creating problem helping greenhouse effect and all supporting what you call climate change
03:27climate change but this carbon absorbed by leaf during photosynthesis now it is permanently fixed into soil
03:35so if your leaf has characteristic to do that only then that will help you
03:41this is the biodiversity park in the Yamuna biodiversity park like there are other six in the city
03:47but the other natural barrier to dust and pollution is the Aravallis
03:55Aravallis are the lifeline of this region this larger region it is very very significant not only from human perspective from wildlife perspective from biodiversity perspective from drainage perspective
04:09ground water recharge perspective for life to exist around it is very important that Aravallis exist you know and for the quality of air yes because the alternate plan is to mine them is to build real estate on them to have industries on them so that alternate plan is definitely going to you know cause much more harm than what exists today
04:35it is very unfortunate that the supreme court has accepted this definition of the Aravallis
04:45now this will open up a can of walls in terms of what what is possible in the Aravallis though it is only restricted to mining but still I think morphological ridge or the whole of for example the whole of Gurgaon
05:01whole of Farizabad and whole of Delhi there exists no Aravallis where you know 90% of it and the 90% of whole of Aravallis
05:11So try I am trying to understand does this mean that this entire area because the Aravallis I understand I am visualizing it as these big mountains or even hillocks they act as a barrier right and this is what separates this region from the desert that Rajasthan is Aneva
05:28So this desertification will happen in this area as well? Absolutely desertification happens in many many ways but one of them is that sand will move
05:38that's aridity will increase which is a which has a direct bearing on the quality of air as well absolutely and the life
05:45yeah so the dust storms will increase and whenever there is more dust pollutants in the air will get attracted to them and therefore will create more of these 2.5s and PM10 and all that which is very very harmful for human existence yeah
06:02they are all great cormorant fish eating bird comes from China and actually they are indicator that suggesting that this wetland has a lot of fishes they feed on especially Channa
06:17and that's what brings them here yes and because there are friends there are neighbors what are they Chinese friends
06:24actually birds are plants and animals are always friends they are unlike human beings in fact
06:31that's what I was thinking Chinese is friends
06:38those are migratory birds you can see far away those are birds from Europe Siberia Central Asia I can see Gadwal, Shobalar and many other birds
06:49yesterday there was a female red crested pochard also there was a common pochard
06:53they are beautiful birds in fact I can describe to you how I'm feeling you know as far as my nose is concerned
07:10all along the 52 km stretch you can replicate the Yavnabaya strip park model
07:20and that would provide you not only in terms of what you call purifying air
07:27but also would actually mitigate the heat island effect which is also playing havoc with Delhi's weather
07:36Delhi's climate
07:38everybody makes it sound the complex problem of Delhi's air pollution it's not that complex
07:42what do you think should be done in the banks of the Yamuna the NGD has also said that these are areas that can be used to create more biodiversity
07:49instead we see a lot of beautification what do you have to say
07:56I think we'll have to fight this beautification unfortunately this beautification the whole like landscaping
08:02with the lawns and you know the idea of landscaping is how do you beautify a place
08:09Concretization of the banks is what we see
08:10Concretization of the banks is what we see
08:11Concretization absolutely and this channeling of the embankments that we are creating not letting the water to come onto the floodplains and floodplains being
08:16you know you can't treat floodplains as permanent lands
08:23the river has a wide river bank
08:29and these floodplains play very well in terms of the floodplains
08:35you know you can't treat floodplains as permanent lands
08:38the river has a wide river bank
08:43and these floodplains play very significant role for the life to exist you know
08:49they have to be left wild
08:51they have to be managed in ways that invasive species don't come in
08:57but they have to be left wild we cannot beautify them
09:00so from here the forest community changes
09:02yeah
09:03this is the Ghoek forest
09:04okay
09:05which you find in the Aravlis
09:06okay okay
09:07so that's the Aravli palette
09:10this is the forest you will find in Sariska or Rantambor
09:15or you know large parts of your Aamir, Naharagad
09:21this is these are the trees you will find there mostly
09:24okay
09:25when we talk about urban spaces
09:28where there are human settlements
09:32if you get 2 acres
09:34then please green it up
09:37make it a community space
09:39if you get 20 acres
09:40make it a 5 acres
09:42make it a 5 acres
09:43make it a 5 acres
09:44later you want to use it for development
09:46you want to use it for your mind
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10:36enough green spaces for myself to release myself of the anxiety of the
10:42day of the relationships of the stress of life and all it will come out in
10:46different forms and that is going to be a big problem I don't know why our
10:51planners or decision-makers are not thinking about it if you put the value
10:56of the money that we have in terms of reducing the improving the quality of
11:02health it runs into 1.6 crores and so instead of a smog tower in fact two in
11:11Delhi out of which one is different have this yes it is much cheaper let me tell
11:17you that's a 20 crores as one smog tower cost 20 crore rupees and one is
11:23and it takes away the PM25 for a small area whereas if I develop the meditation
11:29buffer I get many benefits it is not just what you call tapping your dust
11:37particle what you need to say data itself says that such what you call vegetation
11:46barrier reduces AQI nature is offering us the solutions right it's for us to grab
11:53that opportunity to work on those solutions to help our situation yes
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