Man grows 1,360-acre forest in India...by himself

[Armstrong]

An exceptional individual by any stretch of the imagination !

 

[Shardul.....the lion]

Salute......

 

[neehar]

my salutations...may people like him remind the world its responsibilities

 

[hembo]

tigers and rhinos!!!

I have a doubt .. 1000 acre is too small for tigers is nt it ?

He is from my home state and I feel so proud as an Assamese for him. Great Respect.

His forest is near the Kaziranga sactuary which probably helps the wild animals in migrating to and fro. This is what I found in Wiki:

Payeng started his journey of plantation in 1979. He started working on the forest in 1980 when the social forestry division of Golaghat district launched a scheme of tree plantation on 200 hectares at Aruna Chapori situated at a distance of five km from Kokilamukh in Jorhat district. Mulai was one of the labourers who worked in that project which was completed after five years. He chose to stay back after the completion of the project as others left. He not only looked after the plants, but continued to plant more trees on his own effort slowly transforming the area into a big forest.

The forest, now known in Assamese as Mulai Kathoni or Mulai forest, houses around four tigers, three rhinoceros, over a hundred deer and rabbits besides apes and innumerable varieties of birds, including a large number of vultures. There are several thousand trees among which are valcol, arjun, ejar, goldmohur, koroi, moj and himolu. There are bamboo trees too covering an area of over 300 hectares.

A herd of around 100 elephants regularly visits the forest every year and generally stay for around six months. They also gave birth to 10 calves in the forest in recent times.

His efforts came into lime light during 2008 when forest department officials went to the area in search of a herd of 115 elephants that sneaked into the forest after damaging property of villagers at Aruna chapori, around 1.5 km from the forest. The officials were surprised to see such a large and dense forest and since then the department is showing interest on conservation with regular visit to the site.

A few years back, poachers tried to kill the rhinos staying in the forest but failed in their attempt due to Mulai who alerted department officials. Officials promptly seized various articles used by the poachers to trap the animals.

Mulai is ready to manage the forest in a better way and to go to other places of the state to start a similar venture. Now his aim is to spread his forest to Bongoan of Majuli.

- He have not marred just to devote himself full time for his forest.

He is married. From Wiki:

Personal life

Jadav Payeng lives in a small hut in the forest with his family. Binita, his wife and his 3 children (two sons and a daughter) accompany him. His only source of income is through selling milk, he has good number of cows and buffaloes in his farm and sell the milk for his livelihood. In a recent interview he revealed that he lost around 100s of cows and buffaloes to the Tigers in the forest, but blames the people who carry out large scale encroachment and destruction of forests as the root cause of the plight of wild animals.

 

[hembo]

Facilitation Ceremony of Mr. Jadhav Payang, the "Forest Man of India (Asam)" by Vice Chancellor of Jawaharlal Nehru University Delhi on 22 April 2012 on the occasion of Earth Day. The Water Man of India Mr. Rajender Singh (Rajasthan) was also present.

 

[my2cents]

Exactly.

No excuses.
No "government should do it".

Just his own dedication.
Excellent work.
As they say, "it's better to light a candle than to curse the darkness".

Must be super human effort. I always dread doing my lawn with a mower ......

 

[axisofevil]

This is why I go so hard about pollution and green energy in India. YOu don;t realize what you have till you loose it. People are prodded to believe we cannot have development unless we accept pollution but I beg to differ. With a safe, clean environment, there is no life. Never forget that! This man should be given a youtube show and allowed to go to other parts of India to spread awareness campaigns.