dehradun sunderlal bahuguna one of the countrys oldest and most wellknown environmentalists turned 90 on saturday the gandhian who shot into limelight as one of the pioneers of the chipko movement in the 1970s to save trees in the garhwal himalayas spent the day quietly at his home at shastri nagar in dehradun where he was visited by a host of wellwishers including environmentalist vandana shiva and chief minister harish rawat the veteran environmentalist who has been ailing for some time reiterated his support to the new chipko movement that has been started by activists and residents in a bid to save dehraduns tea gardens from being converted into a smart city our original chipko movement raised the issue that forests are not meant for traders and those who want to earn money through them it helped create awareness about the need to save trees but now with increasing pollution and mindless cutting of trees the situation is much more serious as people are not able to breathe properly and their very right to live is under threat a new chipko movement is therefore all the more necessary to ensure clean air and pure water which can only be obtained if there is an abundant green cover he said the activists wife vimla who had also played an active role in the original chipko movement said that despite suffering from ill health for the past few years bahuguna was deeply concerned over how the green cover in towns and even villages was rapidly diminishing he keeps reiterating that if we continue to erect tall buildings at the cost of the environment there would be a grave question for survival in front of human beings shortly she said the gandhians son pradeep added that his father had a simple mantra for the numerous environmental problems like global warming changing climate patterns etc that the country was facing plant more trees thats what he says will counter the ill effects of many of these changes he was happy when cm rawat told him that a rs 300 incentive was being given to those who plant trees fittingly the nonagenarian got quite a few saplings as his birthday gift bahugunaji is most happy when people gift each other saplings instead of expensive presents on his birthday too he received two saplings from the chief minister which we will plant in our garden shortly said his wife