It was during Indira Gandhi's tenure as Prime Minister of India that environment, with all its attendant concerns, developed as a pivotal new area of studies, planning and action at government and public levels all over the world. It was, again, her deep understanding and involvement in these concerns that her ideas and policies provided the right guidelines not only for India but all other Third World and similarly placed countries. Now, after she is no more and things everywhere have started moving in a big way, it is imperative for all those working in these and related areas, to carefully peruse and grasp whatever she said on these matters on various occasions. It is with this view that suitably edited material culled out of her major speeches delivered at national and international gatherings is being published here in book form. The book covers all issues concerning environment, such as ecology, conservation, development, population control, pollution, energy, waste management and recycling, food, fuel and water, social forestry, wildlife, genetic engineering, ocean development, poverty, peace, people's involvement and related aspects of science and technology. It is a complete book in every respect on the subject. The book serves the purpose of a primer on environment wherever the subject is taught or dealt with, including schools and colleges where it is fast becoming a part of the syllabus and institutes specially devoted to its study. We in India, in partnership with people all over the world, must rededicate ourselves to the protection and wise management of our life-sustaining environment. Of the many tasks that this entails, perhaps the most crucial is of revegetating uncultivated parts. Vegetation forms a green 'security blanket', protecting the fertile yet fragile soil. maintaining balance in atmospheric conditions, safeguarding supplies of fresh water and moderating their flow to prevent flood and drought. Animal and human life is dependent on vegetation in a myriad ways. But the green cover, especially in our forests, is under attack by the greed of the rich and the need of the poor. This must be corrected. Each person, community and organisation can help. Farmers and craftsmen in villages, managers and workers in public and private sectors, teachers and students, parents and children must all join hands to ensure that barren lands, denuded hillsides and eroded watersheds are alive again with trees and plants. Indira Gandhi