It was at a lunch recently on Cranks Ridge that I met a woman who talked to me about a planting project taking place on the ridge.
Her husband had organised an NGO and set about obtaining trees with which to reforest the valley around.
Later in the day I met Champa who had just finished planting forty trees around and about her property. One of the more innovative ideas of the NGO was to plant ‘sacrifice’ trees in the forest. In other words, to plant fruit trees that will feed the monkeys and so reduce their raids on the local’s crops. But the focus of the project was the reintroduction of native trees such as the lofty deodar, cedar and others.
I got excited as I do when people start talking about re forestation. The forests are the lungs of the entire planet and I have written previously about the invasion of exotic species into the fragile ecology of Uttarakhand.
A rose by any other name may still be a rose but the pine trees introduced here by the British area one of the more aggressive exotic species around these parts.
The following week I met Devdas, the man who ran the project.
I offered to make a donation towards the project and surprisingly he refused my money! They had already all the money they needed to fund the project and trees galore, he explained.
For an old cynic like me, it was refreshing to see that the Greentrees project was not another one of those seriously suspect NGO’s set up in developing countries in order to fund some foreigner to live the life of Riley. The project was set up for a purpose and once the purpose was achieved then there was no further need for funding in order to employ some foreigner to oversee the locals who have the native knowledge they need but only suffer from a lack of funding and local infrastructure.
The rest was easy. I asked him if he could supply the guy whose guesthouse I stayed at these three months with trees instead. They are ridiculously cheap because a local nursery is also supporting the project.
For a little bit more than twenty US dollars, we bought a grove of guava, a stand of deodar and a copse of cedar that Raju will plant all around his land. The fruit trees will provide an extra income, the native trees will spread their roots into the soil and help to hold the hill on the hill and now there is a forest somewhere in the world that I had a small part in. It’s something to think about as a traveller especially if you are up with the latest guilt trip of carbon footprints.
Plant trees, plant local trees, indigenous trees, become a Janey Appleseed and help the planet to keep on breathing for us.
I know that every time the family see those trees growing they will think of me with love and I know that every time I think of them with love, a breeze will blow through those trees in fragile Almora.