Showing posts with label Forest. Show all posts
The man who made a forest
Posted by Unknown in Forest, India, Success Stories on Saturday, 23 March 2013
TNN
Way back in 1953, French author Jean Giono wrote the epic tale The Man Who Planted Trees. It seemed so real that readers thought the central character, Elzeard Bouffier , was a living individual until the author clarified he had created the person only to make his readers fall in love with trees.
Assam's Jadav Payeng has never heard of Giono's book. But he could be Bouffier. He has single-handedly grown a sprawling forest on a 550-hectare sandbar in the middle of the Brahmaputra. It now has many endangered animals, including at least five tigers, one of which bore two cubs recently.
The place lies in Jorhat, some 350 km from Guwahati by road, and it wasn't easy for Sunday Times to access him. At one point on the stretch, a smaller road has to be taken for some 30 km to reach the riverbank. There, if one is lucky, boatmen will ferry you across to the north bank. A trek of another 7 km will then land you near Payeng's door. Locals call the place 'Molai Kathoni' (Molai's woods) after Payeng's pet name, Molai.
It all started way back in 1979 when floods washed a large number of snakes ashore on the sandbar. One day, after the waters had receded, Payeng , only 16 then, found the place dotted with the dead reptiles. That was the turning point of 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.
Leaving his education and home, he started living on the sandbar. Unlike Robinson Crusoe, Payeng willingly accepted a life of isolation. And no, he had no Man Friday. He watered the plants morning and evening and pruned them. After a few years, the sandbar was transformed into a bamboo thicket. "I then decided to grow proper trees. I collected and planted them. I also transported red ants from my village, and was stung many times. Red ants change the soil's properties . That was an experience," Payeng says, laughing.
Soon, there were a variety of flora and fauna which burst in the sandbar, including endangered animals like the one-horned rhino and Royal Bengal tiger. "After 12 years, we've seen vultures. Migratory birds, too, have started flocking here. Deer and cattle have attracted predators," claims Payeng . He says locals recently killed a rhino which was seen in his forest at another forest in Sibsagar district.
Payeng talks like a trained conservationist. "Nature has made a food chain; why can't we stick to it? Who would protect these animals if we, as superior beings, start hunting them?"
The Assam state forest department learnt about Payeng's forest only in 2008 when a herd of some 100 wild elephants strayed into it after a marauding spree in villages nearby. They also destroyed Payeng's hutment . It was then that assistant conservator of forests Gunin Saikia met Payeng for the first time.
"We were surprised to find such a dense forest on the sandbar. Locals, whose homes had been destroyed by the pachyderms, wanted to cut down the forest, but Payeng dared them to kill him instead. He treats the trees and animals like his own children. Seeing this, we, too, decided to pitch in," says Saikia. "We're amazed at Payeng. He has been at it for 30 years. Had he been in any other country, he would have been made a hero."
Help from the government wasn't forthcoming, though. It was only last year that the social forestry division took up plantation work on a 200-hectare plot.
Meanwhile, Congress MP from Jorhat, Bijoy Krishna Handique, took interest and said he would moot a proposal to the Centre to declare the area a conservation reserve under provisions of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972. Payeng would be happy.
Farm & Forest Can Develop Together According To Scientists
Posted by Unknown in Agriculture and Farming, Fertility of Land, Forest, India, Research and Studies, Soil Issue, Soil Management, Sustainable Agriculture on Sunday, 27 January 2013
Agriculture
and forest can exist in harmony with each other and sustainable
development too can take place provided things are planned in that
manner.
Unfortunately,
lack of coherent and sustainable planning, a result of absence of a
'land use policy' in the country, is not allowing that to happen. As
along as human beings do not break the balance and interfere with
ecology, agriculture and forest need not be in conflict with each other.
This was the opinion of almost every speaker at the inaugural programme of a two-day brainstorming session on 'Agriculture and Forest: Conflicting Domains or Symbiotic Paradigm' organized by the National Bureau of Soil Survey and Land Use Planning (NBSS&LUP) on Tuesday.
S
M Virmani, former chief scientist of International Crop Research
Institute of Semi-Arid Tropics, Hyderabad, said that forest was capable
of giving every thing human beings could ask for including shelter,
food, and medicines but it was our greed that was leading to a situation
of conflict. Giving examples of gradual disappearance of sparrow from
urban ecology and tigers from forests, he said these were manmade
disasters. The man-animal conflict was an example of man encroaching
upon tiger's territory rather than tiger encroaching on human land. He
warned that unless we traced the causes of this conflict. the required
damage control was not possible.
A
K Joshi, principal chief conservator of forests (PCCF), Maharashtra,
spoke about the nature and conflict between people, animal, forest and
agriculture activities and also mentioned the importance of symbiosis of
these activities.
He also spoke about the livelihood opportunities through ecotourism in the tribal belts.
Ram
Prasad, ex-PCCF Madhya Pradesh, explained the role of water management
through forest for agriculture purpose and importance of forest planning
for watershed management to provide maximum benefits to farmers in the
lower reaches. Forest and agriculture both were land based, occupying a
continuum on the landscape and their co-existence was necessary for
sustainable livelihood in the tribal areas, he said.
He
also mentioned that agriculture was the main beneficiary of forest
ecosystem, conservation of forest could provide satisfaction provided
policies were formulated to address specific issues, he added.
Dipak
Sarkar, NBBS&LUP director, stressed on the role of forests in
carbon storage as trees were the biggest source of carbon sequestration.
He pointed out that cutting of forests led to huge soil erosion which
had a devastating effect on both forest ecosystem as well as human life.
Ashok
Sharma, chief general manager of Forest Development Corporation of
Maharashtra, traced the root cause of various problems to improper
policies. He categorically stated that disregarding scientific
principles of management could eventually lead to vegetation anarchy
both in forestry and agriculture. He called for a comprehensive
landscape management policy.
Arun
Chaturvedi, principal scientist and head of land use planning at
NBBS&LUP, spoke on symbiosis of agriculture and forests. He observed
that climate change would affect rainfed agriculture and increase
pressure on the forests.
He stressed on the need for creating awareness among farmers about value of non-timber forest produce.
He
said in erstwhile forested areas, it was not possible to sustain a
family of even 4-5 persons on one or two hectare of land. The income
from agriculture needed to be supplemented with additional income from
forest produce or other ancillary activities like poultry, pisciculture
small ruminant animals etc.
Expert View
*
Since forests are biggest source of carbon-dioxide sequestration,
conscious efforts should be done to increase forest cover without
displacing forest dwellers
* Efforts must be made to minimize global warming caused through agriculture
* Agriculture growth should shift from horizontal to vertical
* Identify faults in existing forest and agriculture development processes and make efforts to rectify them
* Evolve better and scientific policies of land use for sustainable forest and agriculture development
* Develop a land use policy for country
* Increase per hectare productivity of agriculture and diversify agriculture
Times of India
