Jadav Payeng, who is called the Man of the Forest in India, lives on the river island of Majuli (Assam state). Once this island on the Brahmaputra River was the largest in the world, but gradually soil erosion and floods turned it into a desert coast and destroyed almost a third. The story that we will tell you about began in 1979.
Jadav was then 16 years old. One day he saw that a snake had washed ashore, but the reptiles had nowhere to hide and they all died. The guy was so impressed that he sounded the alarm and turned to the forestry department with a request to plant trees. However, he was refused: they say, it is pointless to plant something in this place, anyway nothing will grow. Then he got hold of the first 20 bamboo seedlings and began to plant his forest alone. When he was able to prove that the soil was not barren, the Forestry Department also got involved, launching a project to plant 200 hectares. But the project ended a few years later, and Jadav stayed and continued to plant trees every day.
Jadav next to the first tree he planted.
Today, the Jadava Payenga forest occupies 550 hectares (for comparison: the area of the Central Park in New York - 341 hectares, Gorky Park in Moscow - 219 hectares) and is a real reserve with rare tree species and a rich fauna. It is home to Bengal tigers, rhinos, many birds (including vultures) and a herd of 115 elephants.
Surprisingly, almost no one knew about Jadav Payeng and his life's work until the fall of 2007 (not counting the locals, who mostly twisted their fingers to their temples and called him a fool). In 2007, photojournalist and traveler Jita Kalita visited the island. He hired a boat to take photographs of the birds on the Brahmaputra River around Majuli Island. And I could not believe my eyes when I saw a huge and dense forest on a deserted island.
The usual landscape of Majuli Island looks like this.
Kalita was the first to tell the world about this amazing place and the amazing person who created it. They started talking about Payeng, they started writing about him in the news, and soon everyone called him "The Man of the Forest of India."
Promotional video:
Jadav Payeng lives with his wife and three children in a small hut in the forest. Keeps cows and buffaloes and makes a living by selling milk to residents of the surrounding villages.
Jadav Payeng lives with his wife and three children in a small hut in the forest. Keeps cows and buffaloes and makes a living by selling milk to residents of the surrounding villages.
He does not receive any profit for his ecological activities, only public recognition. In 2015, he was presented with the fourth most important civilian award in India - Padma Shri.
Jadav still plants trees every day and says he is going to do it "until his last breath." When he first started, it was much more difficult to care for the seedlings, but now the forest has grown, strengthened and began to grow on its own, and this simplifies the task.
When the forest was filled with wild animals, poachers also flocked there. Fortunately, the authorities helped - and the poachers were rebuffed. There was also a story when the locals wanted to cut down the forest - they said that elephants trample their fields. But Jadav defended his brainchild with his chest, saying: "If someone wants to kill my trees, let them kill me first."
This is how erosion destroys the shores of the island of Majuli.
Jadav Payeng dreams of making the whole island green as before.
Its goal is a forest with an area of 2,000 hectares, that is, four times more than has already been done.
Author: Eva Tushenkina