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Man who turned a sandbar on Brahmaputra into forest

Villager single-handedly sets up a lush forest that has over one lakh trees and is home to a variety of wildlife

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He transformed a 550-hectare barren sandbar on the Brahmaputra into a sprawling jungle, single-handedly. At 52, Jadav Payeng now plans to upgrade another sandbar into a forest.
His relentless efforts have earned Payeng the “Forest Man of India” title.

Located near Kokilamukh, 12-km away from his village in Assam’s Jorhat district, Mulai Kathoni (Mulai is his nickname) forest is a result of three decades of Payeng’s hard work. The lush forest has over one lakh trees and is home to leopards, rabbits, apes, birds, snakes, vultures, deer, wild boars and wild buffaloes.

Payeng’s efforts are viewed as significant given Assam’s alarming loss of forest cover in recent years. A recent report of the Forest Survey of India revealed the state lost forest cover to the extent of 19 sq km between 2009 and 2011. The decrease is largely attributed to human encroachment.

For Payeng, it all started in 1979 when a devastating deluge had wreaked havoc in his village and the surrounding areas. That year, the social forestry division launched a scheme to afforest the sandbar. Payeng worked there as a labourer and when others returned home after the completion of the project, he chose to stay back and went on growing trees.

“After the floodwaters receded, the temperatures soared. But there wasn’t sufficient forest cover. I had seen scores of snakes, washed ashore by floodwaters, dying on the sandbar and the livestock plunging into waters to beat the heat. It was then I decided to grow trees all my life,” Payeng told dna. He started by growing bamboo trees.

Payeng’s efforts were noticed in 2008 when a team of forest officials raided Mulai Kathoni in search of a herd of wild elephants that had slunk into the forest after running amok in a neighbouring village. Ever since then, the department has been doing its bit for the conservation of the forest.

In the forest, Payeng rears cows and buffaloes. He sells the milk to keep his family of five going.

He lives in a hut in the forest. His wife Binita and his three children (two sons and a daughter) stay with him in the forest at times.

Payeng now plans to upgrade another 500-hectare sandbar on the Brahmaputra into a forest.

“It may take another 30 years but I am optimistic about it. I feel sad when I see people felling trees.

We have to save the nature or else we all will perish,” he said. He always insists that every individual must grow two trees.

“My efforts haven’t gone in vain. I may live a very lowly life but I feel satisfied that I have been able to stir up a lot of people who love nature. I have been honoured both outside Assam and the country.

My only regret is that my efforts have not been recognised in my own state,” Payeng lamented.

In 2012, he was honoured at the world conference on global warming in Paris and by the School of Environmental Sciences, JNU.

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