Hyderabad: Hyderabad’s Global Climate Action day on September 25 is all set now! With over 1500 participants from around the city Future for Friday (FFF), a youth organization is all graced to take this day as an opportunity to fight for the environment very peacefully.
On this day people from places come forward to donate shoes tagged with messages. The event is spearheaded by Swedish teen climate change activist Greta Thunberg to speak against the inaction of governments and leaders in containing climate change, has changed in form this time in view of COVID-19 pandemic.
Instead of people storming into the streets, the strike will see shoes sent by protesters to represent them. All the boots thus gathered will be put at one place with personal messages to the government.
Hyderabad’s shoe strike
The Hyderabad will see the very first of shoe strike for an environmental cause in India. The organization has already received over 1000 shoes with simple messages speaking for the environment and about it.
Hyderabadis supporting this strike and has urged a few demands. Two city-specific demands have been put forth by the movement, for the restoration of the hydrological regime of Hyderabad’s lakes by 2022, and conservation of natural forests as No-Go Zones.
The one among the other demands by the environmentalist is the significance of realizing the importance of the environment and how people should work collectively for the cause.
The next demands come after a celebrity land endorsed, converting a lush green forest into an urban park. The activists call it a cardinal sin, “people forget that we are in the midst of a climate crisis and forests are the only solution mankind has to mitigate this. Stay fit by jogging in the park, doesn’t matter if we are opening the gateway to more zoonotic viruses like covid19!” said a volunteer.
Bringing focus on the plight of water bodies in the urban sprawl, a voluntary also said that Hyderabad, once hosting over 3,000 lakes, now has only half of them surviving, and they too fast shrinking. Instead of taking action against land sharks, the government itself is encroaching into the lake spaces by laying roads, it said.
The statement also spoke against converting forest blocks in the city into urban parks, and the initiatives to hand them over for private adoption.
“Beautify it, while encroachment in its catchment area continues to flourish. Let’s go boating, so what if we face the threat of drought & farmer suicides as the underground water is completely depleted!” said another volunteer.
We are Striking on September 25, 2020, to let the government know that the citizens cannot be fooled and understand that “The Swanky Urban Dream that they are painting Precedes A nightmare”