A Sikh organization in the US has announced to develop 400 forest areas in India and other parts of the world to combat climate change. According to the announcement made on the occasion of Sikh Environment Day (SED), Sikh organization ‘EcoSikh’ said that it has planted 1150 trees in Ireland and 500 trees in Derbyshire, UK. Apart from this, a forest area of 250 trees has been developed in Surrey, Canada.
EcoSikh took cooperation from local governments and Gurudwaras in its projects. In a statement on Saturday, the organization said that these forests are called ‘Guru Nanak Holy Forest’, which is named after the founder of Sikhism. The campaign started in 2019, when Sikhs celebrated the 550th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak. Rajwant Singh, Founder and Global President, EcoSikh (USA) said, “The Sacred Forest Project has become a community-based initiative and hundreds of people across the world have joined the campaign. This is a concrete step to mitigate the effects of climate change and the good news is that all the trees planted are alive.” He said that in the last 36 months EcoSikh has planted a tree in Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Delhi, Maharashtra, Gujarat and Forest areas have been developed in many states all over India including Jammu. Each forest has 550 trees of native species. He said that these forests have been created following the Japanese Miyawaki method and are tagged on Google Maps across Punjab and India. Every year on the occasion of SED, hundreds of Sikh institutions and gurdwaras around the world take steps to reduce carbon emissions and save water and energy.