- 9 months ago
In this Special Report, India Today's Sneha Mordani explores long-term solutions to Delhi's air pollution. Environmentalist Peepal Baba and Aravalli Biodiversity Park Curator Vijay Dhasmana discuss the importance of ecological restoration. Dhasmana notes the Aravallis are the 'lifeline of this region', while Peepal Baba emphasizes that 'native species can perform all the functions' to clean the air. The report highlights how biodiversity parks act as natural barriers against dust.
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00:00Music
00:12Music
00:16Music
00:25Music
00:27What is that?
00:39You are leaving.
00:41You are leaving.
00:43Where do you do it?
00:45I am leaving.
00:47Where do you do it?
00:49Why do you do it?
00:51Sneha, do you start?
00:53We do it, but where do you do it?
00:55Where do you do it?
00:57That Delhi's air today
00:59is in the very poor category.
01:01And we are celebrating because
01:03from severe it's gone back to very poor.
01:15Or what do we say
01:17that for years this is an issue
01:19which everybody talks about
01:21in the seasonal winter months
01:23and we all think of it as a winter problem
01:25when it isn't.
01:27Delhi's air is bad throughout the year.
01:29Or what do we say?
01:31That the governments don't really care
01:33to discuss about health and environment
01:35unless there is a pandemic.
01:37And this isn't a pandemic,
01:39but it's assuming pandemic-like proportions.
01:41No matter what you do,
01:43no matter how much noise you make,
01:45it doesn't seem to change.
01:47Why?
01:49Because it is on the bottom
01:51of the priority list
01:53of the people that we choose to power.
01:55So we decided
01:57that apart from all the short-term solutions
01:59and knee-jerk reactions
02:01that we've seen from the governments,
02:03we go ahead and explore realistically
02:05what can Delhi and CR do.
02:07And in this quest for more information
02:13and more solutions,
02:15long-term solutions,
02:17we did travel to various parts
02:19of the national capital region
02:21to figure out what the experts,
02:24what is science really saying
02:26as far as air pollution is concerned
02:29and how can long-term solutions
02:32be worked out,
02:33provided there has to be will
02:36when it comes to cleaning up
02:38this dirty ash.
02:40My name is Pipal Baba,
02:59and I think I'm a happy gardener.
03:02It was only in 2017
03:07that we really went into urban forestry.
03:10And since 8 years,
03:11we have been building 278 urban forests.
03:26I'm Vijay Vijay Dashmana,
03:27and I have curated the forests
03:31of Haramali Biodiversity Park here.
03:34For me, this Biodiversity Park
03:39signifies life, wild.
03:43So we need to create wild spaces
03:46in the city.
04:01Many development agencies,
04:02they don't think that way.
04:04But the DDA thought,
04:06they took what you call,
04:08academia with it.
04:11A person like Professor C. R. Babu,
04:14his views came and he given
04:17the concept of Biodiversity Park first time.
04:19This is the first Biodiversity Park of India.
04:24So what is this Biodiversity Park concept?
04:27What does it really mean?
04:29And how is it different from a regular park in Athens?
04:31Because we all talk about green spaces,
04:33you know, parks and trees vanishing in the city.
04:36But biodiversity parks are very different.
04:39It is not simple plantation.
04:41It is ecological restoration.
04:43What do you mean by ecological restoration?
04:45You are helping an ecosystem to recover
04:48which is degraded, damaged or even lost.
04:51It is not that it is simply based on plantation.
04:55But it is a very sound ecological principle
04:58that says that you need to have a site.
05:00When you have a site,
05:01you look at the ecological history of the site.
05:03What was there 100 years ago?
05:04And what happened to it now?
05:06And you bring assemblage of species
05:08in the form of biological community
05:10belonging to a specific ecological region.
05:12For example, if we are working on Yamuna Bairashti Park,
05:16then the vegetation belongs to Yamuna river basin.
05:24Our whole focus is on birds and insects, birds, pollinators.
05:29When we make the habitat for them,
05:32the rest of everything is taken care of.
05:37Tell us how difficult it has been to restore
05:40the Aravali Biodiversity Park.
05:44I remember my team members asking me
05:47will they see a jungle in their lifetime?
05:50And today, just 16 years now,
05:53we are seeing patches of dhau
05:55which is around versus pendula or boswellia.
05:58Nice ecology coming out.
06:00And that's why it was tagged as the OECM site in the country.
06:04The journey was tough, initially very tough
06:07because there was little buying in from the
06:11from the government side, the municipality.
06:14They trusted, but they were not seeing the results, you know,
06:18because the plants that we grow are not available.
06:23They were not available with any private nurseries
06:25or the government nurseries.
06:26So we had to create a nursery, germinate the plants,
06:30procure the seeds from the wild and then germinate them
06:33and then plant them out into right planting schemes.
06:38So did you check that?
06:40Yes, it was 753.
06:42What do you think Delhi is actually breathing?
06:47It's a serious thing.
06:48Now, I feel like pollution is,
06:53like when corruption was used as a word,
06:56a keyword was used for 10 years ago.
06:58Now, pollution will become a part of our life.
07:03I don't think so.
07:04The way things are going on,
07:05that this is also an issue.
07:07It is more of a social media reels.
07:10You know what these decks are being used for.
07:16People are having fun in pollution.
07:21Yeah.
07:22You know, my whole thing is that,
07:25and I am also to be blamed a little.
07:28Nobody seems to be bothered.
07:31Yeah.
07:32That's the big thing.
07:33Yeah, I was just thinking.
07:35See, slow poison is okay for people, you know.
07:39As they say.
07:43Like, just say,
07:44people seem to be like, you know,
07:46enjoy it.
07:47Actually, fog is a good weather to enjoy.
07:50Yeah.
07:51Yeah, true.
07:52Apart from the visibility problems.
07:54Yeah.
07:55If there was no pollution,
07:56this was fine.
07:59You said vehicular pollution,
08:00the construction dust.
08:02How would a tree really help with the construction dust?
08:05Very good.
08:06Very good question.
08:07You see now,
08:08I will take one leaf.
08:09It's a tiny leaf.
08:10Yes.
08:15Look at the amount of particulate matter.
08:17Could you see it?
08:18It's black.
08:19Yeah.
08:20The tree has kept so much of particulate matter,
08:22otherwise you would be breathing.
08:27The most important part that needs to be understood
08:30is that oxygen comes from that.
08:33It's from chlorophyll.
08:34Chlorophyll.
08:35There are trees.
08:37It's a tree.
08:38It's a tree.
08:39It's a tree.
08:40It's a flower tree.
08:41It's a flower tree.
08:42It's an indigenous species.
08:43It's an ornamental plant.
08:45It's a flower tree.
08:46It's a flower tree.
08:47It's a tree.
08:48It's a tree.
08:49If you stay in the forest,
08:51you keep blowing up with it.
08:52You're giving the oxygen to it.
08:54So the oxygen you're giving,
08:57the life force,
08:58the oxygen you're giving,
09:00the oxygen you need to protect.
09:02It plays a very, very significant role. Like the AQI on the road, compared to what is inside, deep inside, we have an acuometer there, and Terry has put it in, and we see on a very polluted day, up to 200 level difference in the AQI. 200, yeah? Or even in summers, 100 is very, very common to observe, that much variation we see.
09:29You know, it's actually reducing, Simran.
09:31I'm telling you, I have to tell you.
09:33Yes, because I went there, there was 200, but there was 194.
09:38Yes.
09:45Sir, so if there's any favourite spot of this location, if you have to show us one, where will you go?
09:51I would take you to the pond area.
09:53Yes.
09:54I would take you to the pond area.
09:56Yes.
09:57We have also made insect hotels.
10:00We have made insects here where the insects come from outside, so we have made them for place for the other areas.
10:10So, here there is egg laying, breeding, propagation.
10:16This is Haritupan Sorkha, which is the name of this place.
10:23This is one place that I would like to show you.
10:30We have the asparas, the juggies, the slum area.
10:36We have the water and the grey water.
10:40We have put filters here.
10:42We have a lot of wildlife over here.
10:45We have a lot of wildlife over here.
10:47We have snakes, we have a Bengal monitor lizard.
11:03We have brown hair, we have rabbits.
11:07We have a lot of wildlife over here.
11:12What's this red thing?
11:15This is called Ghosh Shri or Kullu or Kadaya.
11:21But, it's also called Gondh Katira.
11:25Okay, look up.
11:27Come here.
11:29Look up.
11:31And look down.
11:33You see something?
11:35You see something?
11:37Yeah.
11:38What is this?
11:39What?
11:401, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.
11:451, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.
11:48Look at that.
11:491, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.
11:511, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.
11:521, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.
11:53What are these?
11:54These are...
11:55These are fall?
11:56No.
11:57No.
11:58No.
11:59These are not?
12:00They are called Kupules.
12:01Okay.
12:02They are paleolithic signs.
12:03Roughly 25,000 years old.
12:04Wow.
12:05So, there were humans here occupying these landscapes at one point at a time.
12:08Native species are very important.
12:09Why am I stressing on native?
12:10Because native species can perform all the functions.
12:13When you look at the ridge that covers about 7,777 hectares of area, that is 60-70% is full of prosopis dually flora, a Mexican weed.
12:23Came long back brought by Britishers and that is not performing this job.
12:42Okay.
12:43So, now government is taking up, Delhi government, and probably the forest community will be changed with native slowly in a phased manner.
12:52And it will be restored.
12:53So, what is native to us is what's going to help us.
12:56What is not native to us is not going to be helping us as we've seen.
13:00You're right.
13:02So, these are all special plants.
13:04This is a gymnosperm.
13:05I don't know if you know gymnosperms and angiosperms.
13:07The Mexican one?
13:09No.
13:10Plants which came before the flowering started.
13:14So, this is like your pine and devdars.
13:19So, this is of that kind.
13:21It's called a gymnosperm.
13:23This is ratti.
13:25Ratti leaves are eaten in Paan and it's a sweetener.
13:29Okay.
13:30If you eat, you can die.
13:33This is called gurmaar.
13:35If you eat the leaf, your sense of sweetness dies for an hour or so.
13:43Anything man-made creates heat and pollution.
13:46Anything that is nature-induced,
13:50what God has created, what God has created, what God has created,
13:53what God has created, what God has created, what God has created.
13:56It absorbs heat and pollution.
13:58Okay.
13:59So, your trees, your trees, your borders, your wilderness, your waters, your waters,
14:04your waters, your fields, your waters, your waters,
14:06whatever the sunlight is in the wetland area, the greenland area,
14:08they absorb heat and pollution.
14:11I would like to show you somewhere that if you put your hand, this was, for example, here you see, you see now, you can dig. Carbon is finally fixed into soil.
14:26Okay. 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. But this carbon absorbed by leaf during photosynthesis, now it is permanently fixed into soil. So if your leaf has characteristic to do that, only then that will help you.
14:51This is the biodiversity park, the Yamuna Biodiversity Park, like there are other six in the city. But the other natural barrier to dust and pollution is the Aravallis.
15:05Aravallis 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, groundwater recharge perspective.
15:21For life to exist around, it is very important that Aravallis exists, you know, and for the quality of air, yes, because the alternate plan is to, is to mine them, is to build real estate on them, to have industries on them.
15:39So that alternate plan is definitely going to, you know, cause much more harm than what exists today.
15:45It's very unfortunate that the Supreme Court has accepted this definition of the Aravalli. Now 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.
16:05But still, I think, morphological ridge, or the whole of, for example, the whole of Gurgaon, whole of Farizabad, and whole of Delhi, there exists no Aravallis area.
16:16You know, under 90% of it.
16:19And the 90% of whole Aravallis.
16:22So try, I'm trying to understand, does this mean that, this entire area, because here Aravallis, I understand, I'm visualizing it as these big mountains, or even hillocks, they act as a barrier, right?
16:33They act as a barrier.
16:34And this is what separates this region from the desert that Rajasthan is, Aneba.
16:38Yes.
16:39So this desertification will happen in this area as well?
16:42Absolutely, desertification happens in many, many ways.
16:45But one of them is that sand will move.
16:48That's, aridity will increase.
16:51Which is, which has a direct bearing on the quality of air as well.
16:54Absolutely.
16:55And the life.
16:56Yes, so the dust storms will increase.
16:58And whenever there is more dust, pollutants in the air will get attracted to them.
17:03And therefore, we'll create more of these 2.5s and PM10 and all that, which is very, very harmful for human existence.
17:12Yeah.
17:13They are all great cormorant, fish-eating bird comes from China.
17:17And actually, they are indicator that, suggesting that this wetland has a lot of fishes they feed on, especially Channa.
17:27And that's what brings them here.
17:29Yes.
17:30And because...
17:31They are friends, they are neighbors, what are they? Chinese friends?
17:34Actually birds are, plants and animals are always friends.
17:39They are unlike human beings, in fact.
17:41That's what I was thinking, Chinese friends.
17:48Those are migratory birds, you can see far away.
17:51Those are birds from Europe, Siberia, Central Asia.
17:56I can see gadwal, shawbler and many other birds.
17:59Yesterday, there was a female red-crested pochard also.
18:02There was a common pochard. They are beautiful birds, in fact.
18:05I can describe to you how I'm feeling, you know, as far as my nose is concerned.
18:10All along the 52-kilometre stretch, you can replicate the Yavna-Baiesti Park model.
18:29And that would provide you, not only in terms of what you call purifying air, but also would actually mitigate the heat island effect, which is also playing havoc with Delhi's weather, Delhi's climate.
18:48Everybody makes a sound, the complex problem of Delhi's air pollution. It's not that complex.
18:53What do you think should be done at the banks of the Yamuna?
19:10The NGDA has also said that these are areas that can be used to create more biodiversity.
19:16Instead, we see a lot of beautification. What do you have to say?
19:19I think we'll have to fight this beautification.
19:21Unfortunately, this beautification, the whole, like landscaping, with the lawns and, you know, the idea of landscaping is how do you beautify a place?
19:33Concretization.
19:34Concretization.
19:35Absolutely.
19:36And this channeling of the embankments that we are creating, not letting the water to come onto the floodplains.
19:43Floodplains and floodplains being, you know, you can't treat floodplains as permanent lands.
19:49The river has a wide river bank.
19:54And these floodplains play a very significant role for the life to exist, you know.
20:00They have to be left wild.
20:02They have to be managed in ways that invasive species don't come in, but they have to be left wild.
20:09We cannot beautify them.
20:11So from here, the forest community changes.
20:13Yeah.
20:14This is the Gok forest.
20:15Okay.
20:16Which you find in the Aravlis.
20:17Okay.
20:18Okay.
20:19So that's the Aravlis palette.
20:21This is the forest you will find in Sariska or Rantambore.
20:26Okay.
20:27Or, you know, large parts of your Aamir, Naharagad.
20:32These are the trees you will find there mostly.
20:35Okay.
20:36When we are talking about urban spaces, where there are human settlements.
20:42If you get two acres, then make it a little greener.
20:47Make it a community space.
20:49If you get 20 acres, make it a little greener.
20:51Make it a little greener.
20:52Make it a little greener.
20:53Make it a little greener.
20:54Then you want to use something else for development.
20:57If you think that there is a railway station here.
21:00Then do it at that time.
21:02But, whatever the land has come to this time,
21:05take it to the greens.
21:08And make it a community space.
21:11Where people can sit and sit.
21:14Health, wellness, this is also a thing.
21:17Look at the whole urbanization happening in Ghaziabad, Merat, Noida, extension of Noida.
21:27You know, there's just human, human, and human settlements that you start seeing.
21:33You know, there's hardly any spaces for green.
21:36And the quality of life, nobody is looking at quality of life.
21:39Where is the release for people?
21:41Where is the release?
21:42You know, everything is linked.
21:44If I don't get enough green spaces for myself to release myself.
21:51Of the anxiety of the day, of the relationships, of the stress of life and all.
21:56It will come out in different forms.
21:58And that is going to be a big problem.
22:00I don't know why our planners or decision makers are not thinking about it.
22:05If you put the value of the money that we have in terms of reducing the,
22:11improving the quality of health.
22:13It runs into 1.6 crores.
22:18So, instead of a smog tower.
22:20In fact, two in Delhi, out of which one is different.
22:24Have this.
22:25Yes.
22:26It's much cheaper.
22:27Let me tell you.
22:28Yes.
22:29That's a 20 crores.
22:30As one smog tower costs 20 crore rupees and one is.
22:34And it takes away the PM25 for a small area.
22:38Whereas if I develop the vegetation buffer.
22:41I get many benefits.
22:43It is not just what you call tapping dust particles.
22:49What you need to say.
22:50Data itself says that such what you call vegetation barrier reduces AQI.
23:00Nature is offering us the solutions.
23:02Right.
23:03Thanks for us to grab that opportunity to work on those solutions to help our situation.
23:08Yes.
23:09Yes.
23:10Bye.
23:11Nice.
23:12It's okay.
23:13��ًate that.
23:14market.
23:16��
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