Vanamahotsav - July 1st Week

Vanamahotsava is a great festival of forests and tree planting. It can be literally translated as great festival of forests. The great festival of forests implies forest conservation, and even in 1950s, forest conservation meant planting lots and lots of trees. So now, it is known as festival of trees. Gujarat was the first state to implement it.

Vanamahotsava is to be celebrated from July 1 to 7. It is celebrated in July because; July is special month for trees and tree planting. Anything we plant during July grows. It is so for other crops too. In first week of July, monsoon is there all over the country and the festival can be celebrated in all parts of the country. So, the plan should be to plant as many seedlings as one can during this period.

The name Vanamahotsava (the festival of trees) originated in July 1947 after a successful tree-planting drive was undertaken in Delhi, in which national leaders like Jawaharlal Nehru, Dr Rajendra Prasad and Abdul Kalam Azad participated.The week was simultaneously celebrated in a number of states.Since then, lakhs of saplings of different species were planted with active involvement of agencies like the forest department.The concept of this great festival for the nature lovers was first initiated by (Late) K.M. Munshi, the then Union Minister for Food & Agriculture in the year 1950.