with the end of the monsoon came a delightful explosion of butterflies their hues changing over progressing months someone must have forgotten to weed their gardens observed a naturalist actually our neighbouring forest was not set alight last summer allowing much of the wild undergrowth to return and nourish the natural cycle of life as a people we have imbibed the early british distaste for tropical wilderness cementing our driveways as part of neat development sweeping every leaf away for burning instead of leaving it for compost and cutting mature trees quicker than isis beheads its enemies at the heart of this is a complete disregard for nature and a total surrender to a mindless unquestioning existence so heavily loaded in the pursuit of personal gain if global warming was fashion speak till last year it made itself felt in goa this year with unbearable summer heat and little rain the only hope is to come to the defence of forests in what is now an emergency situation and yet in our microcosm of goa forest officers generously provide permissions to clear large swathes of land without blinking architects continue to design buildings that blot out all natural features and our politicians squander away green areas left through misguided policies such as the ecotourism promotion and ad hoc change of land use so lazy is the attempt at policymaking that only those incentivized by money get though while real issues are left to languish in a theatre of the absurd some villagers of goa are actually campaigning to cut their forests in response to fear mongering an uneducated few actively speak untruths of losing lands in this act of the deaf following the blind what is lost is the fact that those who keep their lands as forests will be at an advantage tomorrow as water tables dry up in denuded areas and rich forest land becomes much sought after for water and food security the issue of global warming is that it has reached a tipping point collapse will come suddenly even as we wait for wisdom to occur to these unthinking players in the 1990s the supreme court responded to a petition which sought to identify the fast disappearing natural forests of india the underlying logic was to quantify and then manage the same through suitable policy something that could have been monetized in this doomsday scenario of global warming constant fear mongering and vested interests created pushback and has made it so that even 20 years later the job is not complete we stand at a loss today as 146 countries have submitted what post2020 climate actions or intended nationally determined contributions indcs they intend to undertake in the runup to the united nations conference of the parties cop 21 in paris scheduled in december what we should take note of though is that india has made sustainable promises of enhancing forest and tree cover to create an additional carbon sink of 25 to 3 billion tonne