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 roadt. 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.
A little over 30 years ago, a teenager named Jadav "Molai" Payeng
began burying seeds along a barren sandbar near his birthplace in
northern India's Assam
region to grow a refuge for wildlife. Not long after, he decided to
dedicate his life to this endeavor, so he moved to the site where he
could work full-time creating a lush new forest ecosystem. Incredibly,
the spot today hosts a sprawling 1,360 acre of jungle that Payeng
planted single-handedly.
The Times of India recently caught up with Payeng in his remote
forest lodge to learn more about how he came to leave such an indelible
mark on the landscape:
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.
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."
