Interesting facts

• Dr. K.M. Munshi started the festival of "Vana Mahotsava" in July 1950. Since then it is celebrated every year in the first week of July. It is generally synchronised with the break of Monsoon in most parts of the country. Munshi inaugurated the festival by planting a tree at Dehotsarga, located in Somnath, Gujarat, India. Dehotsarga, is believed to be the place where Lord Krishna breathed his last and left his earthly form for his heavenly abode.
• It was to arouse mass consciousness regarding the significance of trees and to revive an adoration for these silent sentinels mounting guard on Mother Earth that Munshi thought of the Vanamahotsava.
• "Trees mean water, water means bread and bread is life" - Munshi coined this slogan while celebrating the Vana Mahotsava.
• VANAMAHOTSAVA has now become a National Festival and it is being celebrated on a progressively bigger scale each year.
• While inaugurating the 13^th Vanamahotsava at Delhi, Jawaharlal Nehru had said that the thoughtless felling and lopping of a tree was like beheading a man and that needless cutting of trees was a crime against nature.
• The value of such national movements lies not in what is achieved in a single year, but, in its cumulative effect over a series of years.
• It is forest-mindedness which matters in the long run, not the number of trees actually planted.
• At first, the target of a crore of trees was exceeded, and over three crores were planted. How many of these trees have survived? True, the number of survivals is not very large. It is estimated that for every five saplings planted, one at least will live to grow into a tree.
• Indian Post issued a COMMEMORATIVE STAMP on Dr. K.M Munshi on December 30, 1988. The stamp depicts K.M. Munshi and a tree, symbolising his interest in the Van Mahotsava. The First Day Cover (FDC, which are issued with every COMMEMORATIVE STAMP) shows him against the background of the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan.

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