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www.GOALias.blogspot.com1717 Forests: Our LifelineOne evening Boojho entered thepark with an elderly person. Heintroduced him to his friends.Prof Ahmad was a scientist working inthe university. The children startedplaying while Prof Ahmad sat on abench in the corner. He was tired as hehad participated in the golden jubileecelebrations of the town. After a while,the children also came and sat aroundhim. They wanted to know about thecelebrations. Prof Ahmad told them thatafter the cultural programme, thesenior people discussed the town’sunemployment problem. A plan wasproposed to put up a factory by clearingan area of the forest just outside thetown. This would give the increasingpopulation of the town a chance to getjobs. The children were very surprisedwhen Prof Ahmad told them that manypeople had objected to this idea.Fig. 17.1 A view of a forest“This is because the forests serve asgreen lungs and water purifying systemsin nature”, Prof Ahmad explained. Thechildren were confused. Prof Ahmadrealised that the children had not visiteda forest. The children also wanted toknow more about the forest, so theydecided to visit it with Prof Ahmad.17.1 VISITTO A FORESTOne Sunday morning, the childrenpacked a few things like a knife, a handlens, a stick, a notebook and walkedtogether through a forest trail near avillage. On their way, they met Tibu, ayoung boy of their age group, of nearbyvillage, who was taking cattle for grazingalong with his aunt. He was very agile,running here and there to keep the herdtogether. When he saw the children,Tibu also started walking along withthem, while his aunt went on a differentpath. As soon as they entered the forestTibu raised his hand and signalled themto keep quiet because noise coulddisturb the animals living in the forest.Tibu then took them to a place at aheight to show them the broad view ofthe forest. Children were surprisedbecause they could not see any land(Fig. 17.1). The different treetops hadformed green cover over the land. However,the cover was not uniformly green. The206SCIENCE