Randeep Hooda highlights the importance of preserving biodiversity and creating awareness around wildlife on the occasion of Wildlife Conservation Day today. The actor, who has been championing environmental causes be it animal welfare or wildlife protection, shares that deforestation is a major issue that needs to be addressed immediately.

“We all have to understand the importance of having all these different creatures that we share the planet with, the importance of them in the way that even if one these go missing it’ll affect us badly in some way or the other. Preserving the biodiversity is the only way we can survive,” he says.

Hooda urges everyone to “protest against any kind of deforestation” as that means habitat loss of the wildlife. “Loss of wildlife is the loss of delicate balance of mother Earth. We share the planet with them. We’ve to behave responsibly,” adds the 44-year-old.

Elaborating more on the pressing issues concerning wildlife conversation, he shares one of the biggest concerns in India in recent times is deforestation in the name of development. “More than a thousand square kilometres of protected forest has been denotified in the last few decades, probably the largest chunk ever. It seems whenever there’s a development, the easiest access to government land is protected forest. We can’t replace a forest by planting trees, it’s a myth. I’m not against development. But it has to happen in the right way,” he adds.

Apart from spreading alertness among general public, on whether he also tries to make his industry colleagues aware of wildlife conservation, the actor replies, “Film industry people are mostly aware. Of course awareness is one thing and doing something about it is another. So, it’s time to take necessary steps towards saving our planet.”