This Indian Man Planted an Entire Forest by Hand...

I have just been talking about how humans should be helping nature rather than fighting it on purplemer's thread, when I stumbled across this:

If all people decided to take action every time an injustice was witnessed, there would never be any need for squabble to detract from the opportunities at hand.

This is exactly what Jadav Payeng decided when he realized his home in India’s northern Assam region needed more trees to protect its wildlife. It all started in 1979 when large floods washed a great amount of snakes ashore the sandbar near the then-16-year-old’s home. After the tide had receded, Payeng found the place dotted with the dead reptiles; this spurred a turning point in his life.

“The snakes died in the heat, without any tree cover. I sat down and wept over their lifeless forms. It was carnage. I alerted the forest department and asked them if they could grow trees there. They said nothing would grow there. Instead, they asked me to try growing bamboo. It was painful, but I did it. There was nobody to help me. Nobody was interested,” says Payeng, now 47.

Link

The Forest that this man has planet has become known as 'Molai Woods' and is absolutely thriving! The man did his research as well, he made sure he put the right type of ants in this forest as 'regulators', then let nature do the rest.


Molai Woods, credit: Flickr

I think we all have something to learn from Payeng, he saw an injustice in the world that was causing suffering, and he get off his a*se and did something about it! The man literally built a home for thousands of livings creatures with his bare hands.

There are too many people who will sit back and say 'Hey, that's not fair... What's on TV?', I am not going to pretend I am not guilty of that, and sometimes it can seem hard to know how to help, but it's easy and it's possible. We have this amazing tool called the internet where you can do ANYTHING, in fact, this guy trumps you because he didn't even need the internet. I'm not saying everyone should go out and spend 30 years building a forest, but we certainly shouldn't be the kind of people to 'look the other way'.


Mettā ~

reply to post by iRoyalty


Every corporation should hire a team of three people to do what he did, fund them, and let them loose on a nice piece of land. Now wouldn't that be nice?

Perfect! One man can make a difference. Johnny Appleseed? I can assure you that man lives a fulfilled life. Nothing like a noble purpose to make you want to get out of bed in the morning.

What a wonderful man! We need more human beings who care about the environment before it's too late.

If i did that where i live, i would get sued and thrown in prison, our last natural existing forrest takes an hour and a half to walk through.


Good job dude

reply to post by Mianeye


I hear ya. Some people can't take a joke. Reminds me of the time I let loose a few Asian carp off the boat down in NOLA.

I was gonna try kudzu around my neighborhood, but apparently eurasian milfoil is still too dominant.

reply to post by iRoyalty


That's a brilliant story to share, iRoyalty. Guerrilla gardening should be embraced and supported wherever it occurs!

Mianeye
If i did that where i live, i would get sued and thrown in prison, our last natural existing forrest takes an hour and a half to walk through.


Good job dude

This is a very sad truth, my step dad tried to build an eco hut in our garden at my old house, a neighbour reported us and we had to dismantle it.

Democracy, what happened to you bro?

beansidhe
reply to post by iRoyalty

 

That is how all buildings should look. Whack a few solar panels on and a lot of Earth's problems, solved

reply to post by dfens

I had to chew a little on your comment(read take a shower and another cup of wake up coffee) before i realized what you meant with "joke"

My comment came out a little short and could easily be taken as sarcasme.

But what i really meant was, i live in Denmark, not the biggest country out there but still.

5000 years ago Denmark was one big forrest but man started to cut it down for varius use and to clear for agriculture, that lasted up untill 1800 where only 1% of the natural forrest was left, they then started to plant forrest as they cut it down up till now where there is around 15% of forrest left in Denmark, but it's all government controled.

If i were to buy a piece of land and decide to plant a forrest i would need a permission from the government but they would never alow it, i can though get permission to grow Christmas tree and Birch for firewood

Here is a map of Denmarks forrest as it looks now, hope you can spot them, the 1% left from the 1800 is the one that takes an hour and a half to walk through and is natural, the rest is planted.

reply to post by iRoyalty


An ancient proverb says: a man, in his life, would have to make a son, to write a poetry and to plant a tree...