{"id":18664,"title":"The Forest Man of India","description":"The inspiring tale of Jadav Payeng who planted his own forest. Now, after one mans efforts for more than 40 years, it covers a larger area than Central Park in New York and is home to threatened Bengal Tigers and Indian Rhinos.","content":"

During this important decade of 'Rewilding' our planet, you may be wondering which big player will heed the call and pour their wealth into saving our natural world. Musk? Branson? Bezos? Well, while those three race each other to leave this world, one man in India has made a massive impact using his own wealth...of love for the wild and hard, hand-dirtying work.

Jadav Payeng lives on the worlds largest river island called Majuli in India. The island sits in the Brahmaputra River and due to erosion from frequent flooding has shrunk by two thirds in the last 70 years, and there is concern it may be submerged in another 20 years. Javad took action into his own hands and began planting trees in 1979 at the age of 16, having noticed a large number of snakes had seemingly died of exposure to the burning sun. At this time he planted 20 bamboo saplings in the barren sandbar soil in an attempt to nurture some shading foliage and use the growing trees roots to bind the soil against erosion and absorb some of the flood waters. After setting down his own roots in a small hut within the forest, he continued to plant seeds that he recovered from existing native trees and, by himself, decided to manage this young forest.<\/p>

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After more than 40 years of planting and nurturing, Jadav's forest is now larger than Central Park in New York. The estimated 40 million trees that have emerged from the originally dusty soil have not only turned these exposed sandbars into a green oasis, with their extensive root systems nourishing and securing the soil and drinking the river floodwaters. They have also created a new habitat and ecosystem that threatened species like the Bengal Tiger and Indian Rhino now call home. Javad's forest was only discovered by outsiders in 2008 when a forestry department tracked a herd of Elephants that had caused a problem in a nearby village and then disappeared. Rangers were shocked to track them to this oasis on Majuli and reported their findings. Javad was found and honoured for his miracle forest and now the Elephants return every six months.<\/p>


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Javad's only source of income is actually from farming and selling Buffalo milk, but he has lost over 100 of his cattle to Tiger attacks. Yet he refuses to blame the Tigers. Man and his deforestation is to blame, cornering the Tiger into pockets of wild. It is Javad's mission to grow more pockets and connect them. What a difference one simple farmer with the wild at heart has made to his island, and our planet.<\/p>

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