The India International Centre (IIC) organised a talk on Healing a Landscape: Rewilding Aravali Biodiversity Park’ here in the city.

The event was held on Wednesday at the IIC as part of its series of talks on the ‘Living Landscapes’ curated to critically examine our relationship with nature.

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Vijay Dhasmana, a well-known Ecological Restoration Professional, led the audience through the captivating journey of restoration of a 380-acre mining site degraded by mining and stone crushing into what is today the Aravali Biodiversity park.

He said that this was a result of a citizens’ movement led by IAmGurgaon, corporate organisations, citizens and the Municipal Corporation of Gurugram.

Emphasising that citizens need to be concerned and take an active part in these activities, Dhasmana spoke about the need for restoration of natural

landscapes using natural processes.

Stressing the need for habitat specific plantation in consonance with the geological and climatic conditions of the region, he pointed out that the importance of preserving natural forests and ecological regions as habitats take a long time to regenerate.

The talk was followed by a panel discussion which was chaired by KN Shrivastava, IAS(Retd), Director IIC and former DG, ASI who spoke about the planet facing the threat of being unliveable unless urgent measures were taken to tackle climate change.

The participants in the panel discussion were Sohail Hashmi, Writer, filmmaker and heritage activist and Bharati Chaturvedi, Founder and Director of Chintan.

The discussion was moderated by Anuj Srivastava, Architect, writer and photographer who has also conceived the series.

Speaking on the occasion, Hashmi said the kind of greening being carried out should reclaim jungles and natural forests and not be

limited to just planting trees.

Chaturvedi emphasised the role of diversity in the natural landscape and its role in combating the drastic effects of climate change and global

warming which was having a disproportionate adverse impact on the marginalised sections of society.