On World Ozone day, Founder President, Dr. VinitaaApte and Chairman, RajendraShende of TERRE Policy centre invited the chief corporators of Pune for a round table discussion. The sole objective of the discussion was to instil strong attempt of making the city more environmentally conscious and active through the corporators and experts, who have lot of capacity in going beyond the common practices of Municipal Corporation. The programme started with an introduction of TERRE Policy Centre and the highlights of its various environment projects, followed by the self-composed music video called as, 'Vasundharageet'.
Rajendra Shende, Chairman at TERRE and Former Director at UNEP (United Nations Environment Protection) briefly explained the importance of ozone layer to help in the understanding of its cause and preventive measures. He shared his experience and contributions in ozone protection and said, "With the consistent efforts in science and research, we have been able to safeguard the further depletion of ozone, and by 2050-2060 we can achieve lot more in having ozone layer like how it was back in earlier times. For that we must understand and act as faithful stewards of our planet."
The honorary presence of Corporator, MadhuriSahasrabuddhe was an effective lead, as she is one of the influential and active member. She addressed the attendees with the initiatives that she has been successfully carrying out in schools. She said that the seed balls distribution has become an innovative plantation activity, restriction on using thermacols for decorations and refusing the use of plastics in schools under her ward is setting bar as environmentally-smart schools. She added, "It is very important for all of us to understand the global activities that we can adopt locally to make sure that implementation is done at an efficient manner". The discussion also included Manjushree Khardekar, VeenaGodbole, KritikaDeshmukh, Deepak Pote, JayantBhave, MadhaviKeskar, SushilMengde and VarshaBidhe. Manjushree Khardekar explained how the biomedical van started by them has been helping them in proper collection, management and disposal of such wastes in their wards. She strongly believes that all the wards should adopt the same to achieve similar management that is effective and easy.
Dr. Vinitaa Apte, Founder President at TERRE, focussed her talk on the importance of city leaders to be aware on the environmental issues. She said, "If we the leaders in our respective fields are fully aware and updated on the environmental concerns, we can expect change to happen locally and globally. Awareness among leaders works as drivers for change, and we all must make sure to do best with the responsibilities that comes with our duty."
The discussion concluded with the Ozzy Ozone video and on that note, Dr. Vinitaa Apte proposed that 'Clean Climate Development' (CCD) forum could be formed, where all the ecofriendly solutions could be shared by everyone. The forum would have lot of ideas to be implemented in making the Pune city ecofriendly ward-by-ward.