Hero #101: Jadav Payeng … (02/22/16)
Padma Shri Jadav Payeng is an Indian (Mishing tribe) environmental activist, who over the course of several decades planted and tended trees on a sandbar of the river Brahmaputra – single-handedly transforming the once-barren piece of land into a lush forest reserve. The forest, called Molai Forest, now encompasses an area of about 1,360 acres …
It was 1979 when Payeng, then age 16, encountered a large number of snakes that had died due to excessive heat after floods washed them onto the tree-less sandbar, a mini-tragedy that inspired him to plant 20 bamboo seedlings there. Over the following 40 years, Jadav frequently returned to the sandbar, always planting trees when he did so. Today his Molai Forest is home to Bengal tigers, Indian rhinoceros, over 100 deer and rabbits, dozens of monkeys, and several species of birds, including a large number of vultures. There are now several thousand trees there (where once there had been none), and Bamboo alone covers an area of over 300 hectares. A herd of around 100 elephants also regularly visits the forest every year and generally stay for around six months.
Having achieved such a grand success, Jadav is aiming to expand his efforts to other sandbars nearby; turning them from lifeless deserts to rich forests in the process.
“I asked my elders, what they would do if all of us died one day, like these snakes. They just laughed and smirked — but I knew I had to make the planet greener.” ~ Jadav Payeng
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