Talking Point
TreeTake Network
Several environment–conscious people are blazing a trail in the desert, taking the lead to turn arid and barren areas green, in a bid to mitigate climate change and biodiversity loss challenges.
Shyam Sunder Jyani
A trailblazer in the anti-desertification drive, Jyani is an environmentalist and academic, an associate professor in a Bikaner college. Hailing from a rural farming family in a village of Sri Ganganagar district, Jyani began his forays in environmental activities in 2003, when he and some students revived a number of dying neem trees on the campus of Dungar College.
“When I first came to Dungar College in 2003 as an assistant professor, I observed that the campus only had 10 to 15 trees left. And even those trees were dying. So, in the same year, I rescued the trees with my students. And that whole exercise made me realise that this district is more arid than Ganganagar, my native district. The district lacked greenery, which doesn’t occur to our imagination when we think of Rajasthan. However, once my students and I rescued and planted some neem (Azadirachta indica) trees, I got quite keen on making the district green. So, as my subject is sociology, I first thought of taking a cue from people's mindset and understanding what people in this area really think of the environment. So, I observed that people in my area, or I think in most parts of this country, worship trees and water. They already have a semblance of connection with nature but certainly lack empathy. So, I wanted to touch on that aspect and bridge the gap.”
Later, he began door-to-door campaigning in Bikaner for tree planting, and in 2006, he came up with the idea of "Familial Forestry", which involves local families by encouraging them to plant fruit trees in their houses as a "green member". The idea was launched in Himtasar village, where 120 households were part of the pilot project. The choice of fruit trees allowed the anti-desertification campaign to also enhance the nutrition of villagers. According to Jyani, educating the families on the benefits and the after-planting care of the trees yielded dividends, and the saplings' survival rate went up from 20–30% to 90%.
“We started connecting with people and making them understand that in a desert like ours, we can never turn a plant into a tree unless we are emotionally attached to it. For that, we must make a plant part of our family. We have to treat plants and trees as green members of our family, because family is the basic unit of our society. On a local or village level, not every individual is aware of climate change or how it impacts them. But they certainly understand how imperative trees and lands are for them. My motive is simply to make them understand the ways in which they can conserve and preserve them. We make frequent visits to villages and keep interacting with school students, youth, women, and elderly people on a regular basis. We also provide them plantation training and post-plantation care, which adds on to their knowledge of their surrounding environment,” Jyani said. .
To extend the campaign's reach, he incorporated tree planting with festivals like Diwali. A website was also created to spread and increase awareness about tree planting and its subsequent benefits. On Gandhi Jayanti on Oct 2, Jyani enrolled 150 schools in Rajasthan and their students in a tree-planting drive. His efforts led to the planting of more than 2.5 million saplings in north-western Rajasthan by 1 million families across 15,000 villages by 2021, with the greenery being visible from satellite imagery as a "green wall" on the Thar desert periphery. By 2023, Jyani's relentless efforts led to the planting of 3.8 million saplings. Interestingly, he purchased most of the plants and necessary irrigation tanks at his own expense.
In 2023, he began to promote the use of millets, especially in marriage ceremonies and religious fairs. Jyani's efforts have led to planting of 4 million saplings by engaging over 2 million families from 18,000 villages mainly in Rajasthan and some from other neighbouring states and development of 200 institutional forests by December 2024. Under his leadership, a network of public nurseries has come up, providing 200,000 native species' saplings free of cost to the local communities every year. In 2022, Jyani also led the restoration of Dabla Talab, a 207-acre area of degraded land. Through community-driven habitat healing, the project transformed the barren land into a thriving ecosystem. In recognition of his work, he was honoured with the Indira Gandhi National Service Scheme Award in 2012. The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification gave him the Land for Life Award in 2021. He showcased his expertise in sustainable land management at the 15th and 16th Conferences of the Parties (of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD)) as a special guest.
Narpat Singh Rajpurohit
All of us live for our families, working to give them the best. But there are some who live for the environment, animals, birds, trees, and plants, giving every day of their life to them. One such person is Narpat Singh Rajpurohit of Barmer. Environment and wildlife are not his profession, but they are certainly his passion. He has been saving nature and wildlife and planting trees for the past one decade.
Narpat Singh Rajpurohit, who hails from Barmer district of Thar in Rajasthan, has started a campaign for the conservation of wildlife not only in Barmer but across the country. He sometimes arranges water for the animals in the village pond, and at other times, he goes on a journey giving the message of planting trees. He also saves rare species of birds. Narpat Singh has cycled 30,120 kilometres for the environment and has many world records to his name. Narpat Singh says that his whole life is dedicated to nature and the environment. Singh did not let the Dudholai Nadi of his village Langera dry up in the scorching heat and asked for donations from people, spent his own money and also faced contempt but did not deviate from his goal. Narpat started a campaign with public support and started getting water tankers regularly put in the Nadi so that no wild animal died due to lack of water.
At present, Narpat Singh has built more than 10 water ponds with the capacity of one and a half tankers in his village and nearby villages. He himself monitors them by filling them with water regularly. Dozens of wild animals reach the ponds and pools early in the morning and at night to drink water. Inspired by Rajpurohit, who has been working for environmental conservation for 11 years, youths from all over the country have joined him. More than 350 youths in many districts of Rajasthan have made such water pools and are providing water to animals and birds, and taking care of them. Narpat Singh has a rare species of eagle and more than 50 species of birds. He has pedalled miles and miles for environment and water conservation.
He started a cycle journey on January 27, 2019, to spread the message of environment and water conservation and reached Amar Jawan Jyoti in Jaipur through 20 states and 6 union territories in 1179 days. Earlier, he made a Golden Book of World Record by completing a journey of 18202 km. During his daily journey, he used to plant 4 to 5 saplings and make the local people pledge to protect them. Earlier, to create awareness about environmental conservation, he travelled 500 km in May 2017, 200 km in September 2017 and 4,000 kilometres on bicycle from December 2017 to January 2018. During this time, he met people at various places and made them aware about plantation and environmental conservation. This green man has been cycling since his student days.
“During my sister Meena's wedding, I gifted 251 saplings to the wedding party and made them pledge to protect them. Recently, 151 saplings were gifted to the wedding party members at my niece Hansa Kanwar's wedding,” says Narpat, who has also run campaigns for the conservation of wildlife in Barmer. He has personally protected hundreds of endangered animals and gotten them treated. Along with this, he arranges drinking water for wildlife in summer by putting water tankers in Gaonwai Nadi at his own expense. Along with this, he is making people aware of the environment by running campaigns like Save Birds, Install Parinda, Ban on Chinese Fishing, Plastic Liberation, etc. It is worth mentioning that despite having a 10 percent disability in his leg, Narpat Singh is continuously engaged in this mission even in adverse conditions.
Bhaira Ram Bhakhar
People now know environment and wildlife lover teacher Bhaira Ram Bhakhar by the name of ‘teacher with plants'. With a colourful Rajasthani turban on his forehead, light moustache, short hair on his head and a faint smile on his face, when he goes out with his motorcycle laden with trees and plants, people say - look, there is Master Saab with plants. Hardly anyone else has as much love and dedication towards the environment as Bhaira Ram Bhakhar. He teaches children in school all day, and as soon as classes are over, he goes out to distribute plants in the villages. This has been going on for the past 23 years. During this time, there has not been a single day when Bhakhar stayed at his home on a holiday. His soul cries on seeing dry trees and hungry animals, and birds. Bhairam Bhakhar's diligent work has contributed a lot to preventing desertification in western Rajasthan.
Bhakhar, who is employed as a teacher in a government school in Indroi village of Barmer district, started his green journey as a student. In the past 24 years, he has planted more than 4 lakh trees and also roped in 1.2 lakh people to join his campaign. Bhakhar plants and distributes saplings and seeds of native trees like khedji, jaal, rohida and kair because they are drought resistant and maintain environmental balance in the desert region. He also propagates the concept of family forestry, wherein each family plants a tree and takes care of it. He says each individual must plant 300 saplings to protect Western Rajasthan's unique ecology. “Planting a sapling is not an achievement, but making that plant thrive into a tree is. Any sapling needs to be taken care of for up to three years. As an individual, I could not plant many trees with a regular job. So, I involved communities to further the initiative at a large scale,” he says.
“We reach out to local people and motivate them by organising nukkad nataks (street plays). Once people are motivated, convincing them to plant saplings is easier. To achieve this, first, we evoke positive emotions and a sense of ownership among people for the saplings they will plant. We ask them to pledge to protect the saplings until they become trees,” he says.
He goes from village to village, dhani to dhani, and city to city to create awareness about environmental awareness and conservation. So far, he has planted 2,71000 plants, and every day he goes out to plant five to seven new ones. Winter, summer, hot winds, and rain: there is no stopping him. He takes care of everything from buying saplings to taking them to their destination and planting them in the ground. He neither asks for any help nor any support from anyone. He spends his salary on environmental conservation and travels hundreds of kilometres on his motorcycle every day. He not only travels to Rajasthan but also other states to spread environmental awareness. Some time back, he completed a 22,000-km journey on a motorcycle in five states for environmental conservation. During this journey, he connected about one lakh people with his 'Plant trees, save lives' campaign. Now, he is going to start a campaign to plant five lakh desert saplings in eight districts of Rajasthan.
Jadav "Molai" Payeng
Payeng is an environmentalist and forestry activist from Jorhat, popularly known as the Forest Man of India, who was awarded the Padma Shree in 2015. He belongs to the indigenous Mising tribe of Assam. Over the course of several decades, he planted trees on a sandbar of the Brahmaputra River and transformed it into a forest. Through his hard work and determination, he transformed a piece of land that was covered with mud and silt into a green forest. The forest is located on Majuli Island and is now named Molai Forest, inspired by him. It is located near Kokilamukh in Jorhat, Assam, and covers an area of about 1,360 acres/550 hectares.
In 1979, a devastating flood hit Assam, and his birthplace was covered in mud and sludge. Jadhav, a simpleton, turned the barren land into a dense forest. It all started when one day Jadhav was returning to Aruna Sapori, an island in the Brahmaputra River. He had taken his Class 10 exams from Baligaon Jagannath Barua Arya Vidyalaya. He was shocked to see hundreds of snakes dying on the sandy and desolate land. One day, Jadhav asked the elders around him, 'What will they (the elders) do if we all die like these snakes one day?' All the elders laughed at him and made fun of him, but he (Jadhav) knew that he had to make this land green. Seeing this devastation in April 1979 (when he was just 16 years old), Jadav decided to give a new life to the island filled with mud and sludge. He talked to the villagers, who gave him 50 seeds and 25 bamboo plants along with advice on how to grow trees. Jadav planted the seeds and looked after them. As a result, today, 36 years later, he has created a forest on his own. The forest located near Kokilamukh in Jorhat was named Molai Forest after him. It includes an area of 1360 acres. However, creating this forest was not easy.
Jadav watered the plants day and night. He even collected red ants from the village and left them in the sand bar (mud). Finally, he got a gift from nature, and soon many categories of flora and fauna started being found in the empty place. These include the endangered one-horned rhinoceros and the Royal Bengal tiger. Jadav Payeng has won several awards for his achievement as well as honorary doctorates from Assam Agricultural University and Kaziranga University.
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