On the occasion of Daan Utsav, Pankaj Tripathi urges people to plant trees

Daan Utsav, formerly known as The Joy of Giving Week is an annual 'festival of philanthropy' that is celebrated from Gandhi Jayanti onwards (From October 2 to 8) during which the corporate world, NGOs, government sectors, schools, colleges, individuals and collectives, donate financial and creative resources, time and skills.

On the occasion of the 13th year of Daan Utsav, actor Pankaj Tripathi is endorsing the mission of social organisation Grow-Trees.com to encourage people to plant more trees.

He says, "Nature is not just a beautiful backdrop to click a selfie, a resource, a tool, an Instagrammable picture. Organisations like Grow-Trees.com help us to understand and respect ecosystems and I hope, millions more get drawn to a massive mass afforestation movement and plant trees not just during Daan Utsav but even afterwards. If even half of 1,392,700,000 Indians planted trees, imagine the green impact it would make. If you don't have land of your own where you can plant a tree, get in touch with Grow-Trees.com. Donate a tree instead of gifting bouquets on special occasions. Oxygen and water are not free and rains do not come automatically. They are results of healthy ecosystems. Nature is a living, breathing system that sustains us and we must do what we can to make it healthier."

Tripathi was also impressed with the work Grow-Trees.com has done over the past decade to plant millions of trees across cities, tribal lands and animal habitats to increase biodiversity, sequester carbon and replenish ecosystems.

Bikrant Tiwary, CEO Grow-Trees.com adds, "Pankaj is not just a very gifted and intuitive actor, he has great empathy for the environment and for all living beings sharing this planet with us. I am happy that he is speaking out for Nature and asking people to plant trees because his voice will for sure galvanise a large number of people to do so. This is a very important time for us as a race because we have a small window to deal with climate change and we must make the most of it by planting trees and working together to adopt sustainability as a way of life. The pandemic has shown us how unhealthy our relationship with the planet is and it is time we started repairing it, one tree at a time. "