Jadav Payeng | The man who made a forest

  The man who made forest | Jadav Payeng

Jadav Payeng in 2012
Born	Jadav Payeng 1963 (age 52–53) Assam, India
Other names	Molai
Occupation	Forester
Years active	1979–present
Spouse(s)	Binita Payeng
Awards	Padma Shri (2015)

         Padma Shri Jadav "Molai" Payeng (Assamese: যাদৱ পায়েং) (born 1963) is a Mishing tribe environmentalactivist and forestry worker from Jorhat, India. Over the course of several decades, he planted and tended trees on a sandbar of the river Brahmaputra turning it into a forest reserve. The forest, called Molai forest after him, is located near Kokilamukh of Jorhat, Assam, India and

encompasses an area of about 1,360 acres / 550hectares. In 2015, he was honoured with Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian award in India.

A.P.J Abdul Kalam given him name "The Forest Man Of India"

         

Personal life

Jadav Payeng belongs to a tribe called "Mishing" in Assam, India. He lives in a small hut in the forest. Binita, his wife, and his 3 children (two sons and a daughter) accompany him. He has cattle and buffalo on his farm and sells the milk for his livelihood, which is his only source of income. In a recent interview he revealed that he lost around 100 of his cows and buffaloes to the tigers in the forest, but blames the people who carry out large scale encroachment and destruction of forests as the root cause of the plight of wild animals.

     

Mission

For almost 30 years, off everyone’s radar, without support or subsidies, without fear or favour, without Forest Department or foreign hand, Payeng, almost obsessively, continued to expand the forest and the fruit of his labour is now being celebrated around the world. It is indeed amazing that his extraordinary mission was largely unknown until Kalita chanced upon it and made it public.

Educated upto Class 10 at a local school, Jadav Payeng, now 54 years old, is a hopeless romantic and a raving revolutionary, like so many Assamese men of the 1980s. While the rest opted for armed revolutions of many hues, Payeng chose to plant trees of many shades. The former is slowly escaping into the ether, but Payeng’s forest stands tall, defying the annual cycle of floods and constant erosion caused by the mighty Brahmaputra.

          

Payeng owns about 50 cows and buffaloes that live and graze in and around his forest. An honest man who never adulterates his produce of milk, his entire family, including his wife Binita, his sons Sanjay and Sanjiv and his daughter Moonmooni, start their day at 3.30 a.m. By eight a.m. they have milked and bathed the livestock and the milk is delivered to men who row it across to Jorhat. After a brief rest and meal, Jadav lifts his bag of seedlings and starts walking briskly through his forest to the banks of the Brahmaputra to row across to Mekahi island, his newest reforestation mission. The children go to school.

Fighting climate change

I struggle to keep up with him as he leads me with brisk strides into his forest. He splashes through streams, swamps and hot sand without altering his pace. The temperature drops a wee bit as we enter Mulai Kathoni and I am dumbstruck by how dense the forest is!  

“No more global warming, if everyone plants forest,” he recites. I laugh. “No, really,” he says. I tell him most Americans don’t believe in global warming. We didn’t know then, that Hurricane Sandy was heading for the East Coast. That people would die in New York the day after, the NY stock exchange and the Presidential campaign would shut down for two days. That, for a few minutes, Americans would consider the possibility of global warming.  

Payeng proudly shows me the ruins of his own home (also known as Changghar – house on stilts in the Mising style), situated on the outskirts of the forest that was destroyed when the first-ever herd of elephants arrived in 2008. He tells me how he stood and watched from a distance and realised the magnitude of what he had done. While the others watched on, baffled, he was overcome with joy. And he had every reason to be – he has succeeded in bringing life back to the island.

But his celebrations were short-lived. A few days later, angry villagers, having assessed the damage to their crops, blamed Mulai Kathoni for attracting the elephants. One mob manifested their anger by cutting down trees while another set fire to a patch at the far end. He reckons he lost one tenth of the forest in that first wave of mindless violence.

Fortunately, things have calmed down since. The ex-gratia payment for damaged crops offered by the Forest Department, the media attention and accolades bestowed on Payeng have helped in suppressing the rage of the villagers. Payeng figures the peace will last until the next elephant attack.

“Man is responsible for the well-being of all animals and birds in this world,” Payeng explains. I squint. “No, really,” he says. I tell him about ethnocentrism, the dictating mantra for all mankind. It’s his turn to squint but he is quick to retort, “If man does not take care of all animals, who will?”

Source: Sanchuary Asia

Jadav Payeng has created 1,360 acres of dense forest and is known as the 'Forest man of India' (Photos by Jitu Kalita)

A herd of 115 elephants visits regularly for 3-4 months. “In 35 years, the Royal Bengal tigers have feasted on 85 of my cows, 95 buffaloes and 10 pigs,” Payeng says matter-of-factly, then adds jokingly, “They (the tigers) do not know farming, you see.” Payeng with his friend and mentor Jitu Kalita Surrounded by his beloved trees, Payeng may well have remained in their shadow had it not been for Jitu Kalita, a local wildlife photographer, who published an article on him in a vernacular daily in 2010. Today, Jitu is Jadav’s friend and mentor. The local administration has been neither of those. Hell, this forester without designation does not even own a ration card. Payeng laments the indifference of the forest department, saying that they neither helped him grow the forest nor paid heed when he informed them of the endangered rhinos regularly visiting his forest. They believed him only when a rhino was poached on in August 2012. “My younger son and I couldn’t eat for a couple of days when we saw its horn, tail and nails gouged out,” Payeng grieves. Payeng with daughter Munmuni, the first of his three children, all of whom share his love for nature “It is a huge forest and cannot be protected by a handful of staff.” In any case, Payeng believes that law enforcement alone cannot help protect vulnerable species. His sage advice is to form ‘community reserves’ and organise awareness camps to guard against poachers and conserve wildlife. For his remarkable solo undertaking, the Jawaharlal Nehru University invited Payeng on Earth Day and honoured him with the title of the ‘Forest Man of India’ in 2012. Later that year, the then President APJ Abdul Kalam felicitated him with a cash award in Mumbai. The same year, he was among the 900 experts who gathered at the seventh global conference of the International Forum for Sustainable Development at Evian in France. Sanctuary Asia bestowed on him the Wildlife Service Award. This year, he received the Padma Shri. However, prizes matter little to this man for whom a whole crowded forest stands up in ovation. “The Padma Shri is an award for encouragement,” he says, “but my aim has always been to do good for the country. Even the President of India has to do something for the earth; otherwise, there will be nobody left, nothing.’ This nature-lover strongly recommends making Environmental Sciences a mandatory subject, to start them young – just as he did. “If every schoolchild is given the responsibility to grow two trees, it will surely lead to a Green India,” Payeng urges. Expectedly, he spends all the cash awards on more forest. He has now recruited four labourers for planting as he eyes another 5,000-acre area. “The forest could stretch till Majuli,” he envisions, “further to Kamalabari and up to Dibrugarh district.” Next year, Payeng plans to grow trees in some dammed areas in Rajasthan with his soul-brother Rajendra Singh, the ‘Waterman of India’. All his waking hours, Payeng sees the world in green. Come sunset, he wends his way back home on bicycle-boat-bicycle for his 8-pm meal. A little after-dinner apong to smoothen the day’s furrows, and it’s time for bed. Tomorrow is another day, and in it lie the seeds of many more forests.

Source : The Weekend Leader