New Delhi: The Aravalli Sanrakshan Yatra – a journey undertaken by activists under the banner of the Aravalli Virasat Jan Abhiyan through all districts of the Aravallis across Gujarat, Rajasthan, Haryana and Delhi over 38 days to highlight issues threatening the Aravallis hill range – concluded at New Delhi on Monday (March 2).On Monday, travellers on the Aravalli Sanrakshan Yatra gathered at Vasant Kunj along with a group of around 50 citizens and mixed soil collected from different areas under the Aravalli hill range during the yatra, with soil in Delhi. They then planted two saplings of sagar gota or the fever nut tree: a small, native prickly tree that goes by the scientific name Caesalpinia bonduc. The tree is used by local communities in the hill range as an ayurvedic medicine.“The sacred ceremony of combining the Aravalli soil of the four states was done to symbolise the coming together of rural and urban people living in the lap of the oldest mountain range in India to protect our lifeline for clean air and water security,” said Kusum Rawat, member of the Aravalli Virasat Jan Abhiyan and affiliated with the Adivasi Samanvay Manch Bharat, in a statement. “Saplings were planted to reiterate our promise to safeguard and conserve the Aravallis. It was very heartening for us to see people joining from different states across the country such as Jharkhand, Orissa, Telangana, Maharashtra and Uttrakhand in this yatra at different points,” she said.The Aravalli Sanrakshan YatraThe activists have traversed 700 kilometres across these states starting from January 24, and were led by Neelam Ahluwalia who is the founder of the People for Aravallis, a citizens’ collective that has been raising concerns about numerous threats to the Aravallis including mining and most recently, the acceptance of a uniform definition for the hill range (which the Supreme Court has now put on hold pending a report by a committee).Ahluwalia, Rawat and others including environmentalists, ecologists, community leaders, civil society groups across India, social and climate activists, researchers and lawyers among others, have come together under the banner of the Aravalli Virasat Jan Abhiyan. The journey some of them undertook across the Aravallis – the Aravalli Sanrakshan Yatra – was an effort to highlight the need to protect the hill range for the numerous ecosystem services it offers, including functioning as a barrier for northwest India against desertification, as a critical water recharge zone, climate regulator, pollution sink and wildlife habitat.Talking about her experience on the 38-day journey across the Aravallis, Sadhna Meena, a Bhil adivasi community leader from Jawar mines area in Udaipur district said that only the faces kept changing in every Aravalli district across Gujarat, Rajasthan and Haryana – the problems were, however, similar. “The cumulative effect of mining has been the systematic dismantling of rural livelihood systems, agriculture, livestock rearing, forest-based livelihoods and water-dependent occupations, replacing them with environmental degradation, economic distress and forced migration,” she said in a statement. “The continued destruction of the Aravallis directly violates the right to livelihood guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution and threatens the survival of rural communities who have lived in these landscapes for generations.” Kailash Mina, an environmental activist from Sikar district in North Rajasthan said that the Aravalli Sanrakshan Yatra had highlighted that there was nothing sustainable about mining in the area, which causes negative social and environmental impacts. “The yatris engaged with rural communities dependent on India’s oldest mountain range for their sustenance and livelihoods in every district and captured the beauty and destruction of North West India’s lifeline for clean air and water security. Both licensed and illegal mining in the Aravalli belt over the last 40 years has razed many hills across the range to the ground and along with it several cattle grazing areas,” he said in a statement.Activists lay down demandsHe added that there was a need for a participatory and transparent process by the Supreme Court and the government which involves communities impacted by mining. “We also demand that no licensed mining and stone crushing activities should be allowed near human habitation, agricultural fields, water bodies, wildlife sensitive zones so our rural communities, cattle and wildlife are able to live peacefully without suffering from adverse health and livelihood impacts. And illegal mining across the Aravalli range must be stopped.”The Aravallis require strict protection, not senseless definitions to exclude the majority of the areas from legal protection and so called ‘sustainable mining plans’, said Ahluwalia, who has been campaigning to protect the Aravallis for many years.“Our demands are that the Supreme Court recalls its November 20, 2025 judgement completely and scraps the regressive definition of the Aravallis given by a Committee spearheaded by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change. Other than experts, the Supreme Court appointed new ‘High Powered Committee’ should include spokespersons of communities impacted by mining and must direct that an independent and cumulative social and environmental impact study of the entire Aravalli range across 4 states is carried out to ascertain the damage already done to the hills, forest, rivers, groundwater, agriculture and associated activities by mining, real estate, encroachments, waste dumping and burning,” she urged.Damage done to people’s health and livelihoods in all the Aravalli districts must be part of this assessment, Ahluwalia added. “Liability should be fixed for the same. We also demand that the Aravalli range spread across Gujarat, Rajasthan, Haryana and Delhi be declared as a ‘Critical Ecological Zone’ based on its significance for the eco-system services the range provides for millions of people living in North West India and to protect the home of our precious wildlife.”