Leading the drive to popularise raising of native palmyra, Canopy Nature Academy, an NGO striving hard for conserving the green cover and educating the students on the "Fauna & Flora"of the region are engaged in distributing Palmyra seeds to various entities through various Green NGOs in the city. So far, the zealous volunteers have planted close to 1500 seeds in the campus of Kumaraguru College of Technology and around 10,000 seeds have been distributed to various entities across the city.
"Palmyra (Panai Maram in Tamil) is a drought-resistant variety and an indigenous tree of Tamil Nadu. The species is best suited to thrive under hot climatic conditions, as well. Over the years, Palmyra trees have become scarce in numbers and shockingly it is now marked in the endangered list", said Saravanan, of Canopy Nature Academy which has taken up this green initiative.
"The once abundant palm trees have now become endangered due to various factors including agricultural crisis and importantly, farm lands being converted into real estate.We have been spreading the message of planting palm trees from which a lot of value-added products such as palm sugar which are in high demand now can be extracted. We plan to target farmers, students, educational institutions in the plantation drive to revive and popularise raising of palmyra in our region", shared Saravanan who is also the Founder of Canopy Nature Academy.
"The Palm seeds have been procured from Ramanathapuram District and processed before distributing it to the various sections including farmers, educational institutions and whoever is interested in raising the native palm variety", he added.
"More over palm could only be planted in a seed form and no nursery can be raised. People of this region should realise the worth of reviving Palmyra our native species and grow it in multi-fold", Saravanan said.
Public/entities who are interested in planting Palmyra can contact 94888 50428.