Why This Trust
India is well known for its immense culture and biodiversity values for ages. Interestingly, India harbors only 2.4% of the world’s land area but supports 8% of the global biodiversity that includes 45,000 floral species (60 monotypic families and 6000 endemic species) and 91,000 faunal species. Moreover, India supports four biodiversity hotspots (the Himalayas, the Western Ghats, the Indo-Burma region, and the Sundaland, which includes the Nicobar group of Islands).
Over the past ten centuries, the natural wealth of India has faced continuous threats. Especially during the Mughal and British colonial periods, large-scale devastation occurred. Several hectares of forest land were cleared for timber and also for tea and coffee plantations. Parallelly, Indian faunas were ruthlessly killed in the name of the imperial sport of hunting. Ironically, even after independence the remnant natural wealth also faces severe anthropogenic pressures in the form of habitat destruction, overexploitation, hunting, pollution, and the introduction of non-native species. Also, ongoing climate change events such as cloud bursts, frequent cyclones, and droughts have devastated all the major ecosystems and their functions and services, which concomitantly affects the unique genetic and species diversity of India. The aforesaid events negatively reflect on livelihood, health, food security, and GDP of the nation.
It is the undeniable duty of every Indian to conserve nature and natural resources because the existence of pristine nature is interlaced with the livelihood of several millions Indians. Besides, Article 51-A (g) of the Constitution of India states that “It shall be the duty of every citizen of India to protect and improve the natural environment including forests, lakes, rivers, and wildlife and to have compassion for living creatures.” Thus, the protection and improvement of the natural environment is the duty of the State (Article 48-A) and every citizen (Article 51-A (g)).
Considering all the above, we have planned to establish an organization to create awareness among different classes of people and systematically encourage them to get involved in conservation and natural protection of our depreciating resources. Hence we have established the trust “3rd Planet Nature Conservation and Research Foundation” to do some constructive work to protect our future generation as we the Trustees and the Advisors strongly believe in the statement “We Do Not Inherit the Earth from Our Ancestors; We Borrow It from Our Children.” Apparently, we do not have any right to loot the natural wealth.
