CEE focuses on forests this World Environment Day

AHMEDABAD: Centre for Environment Education (CEE) conducted a day-long series of events to celebrate the World Environment Day (WED). Sunday was the 11th WED and the theme this time was, "Forests: Nature at your service."The annual event aims to be thebiggest and most widely celebrated global day for a positive environmentaction.A large number of Amdavadis came together to celebrate thevalue of forests on CEE campus. The event included activities on nature such asan exhibition, fair, treasure hunt, quiz, film screening, magic show, amongothers."Forest products were displayed at the exhibition to teachchildren the importance the forests hold for us," said a programmeorganizer.Children and youth who attended the event were oriented tothe basics of the environment and its protection."People should alsoensure that these activities are not just limited to WED, but make it a point tofollow these simple yet effective measures everyday in order to protect ourenvironment," said Priya Nair, programme head, CEE."The atmospherehere stimulates awareness for the environment and it is the right day to teachthe kids the value of forests and what we owe to nature," said Nikita Shah, 32 ,a homemaker, who came to the event with her daughter Kavina, 10.Facepainting was a hit as the kids were pleased to get images of tigers, monkeys,lions and other favourite animals painted at the event."I got myface painted to become a tiger. I want to give the message to the world to savetiger," said an eager participant. Kids were keen to click photos with alife-size model of a tiger at the centre.The theme of the drawingcompetition was `Today and Tomorrow: Forest`. Sensibilities of the childrencould be gauged through their drawings.Falak Pandit, 12, depictedthe chaos created by mankind and the damage caused to theforests.Heet Punjawat , 10, a nature lover who watches environmentalTV channels on a regular basis, was delighted to see fish and turtles on the CEEcampus. "I could nottake my eyes off them," she added.YoungAmdavadis also enjoyed seeing the process of making clay toys. GeetanjaliPoluru,11, who learnt clay modeling, taught others to make birds and animalswith clay. "I want to tell everybody not to fly kites because it kills birds. Weshould love nature and not harm it," said Poluru.