Quite a heartwarming story and an admirable example! Hopefully the
publication of the story will help his efforts and bring him support.
cm
On Apr 9, 2012, at 4:36 AM, Dilip Deka wrote:
It is hard to walk the talk. This man's work (in the article below)
is admirable. He is a modern day Noah.
The link was in another Assamnet email. In case you didn't open the
link there, I wanted to bring it to your attention. We can help
Mulai through AFNA.
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Home » India
Man creates forest single-handedly on Brahmaputra sand bar
Mar 25, 2012 |
Tags:
Brahmaputra
Jadav Payeng
A man in his mid-50s helped grow a huge forest on a sand bar in the
middle of the mighty Brahmaputra in Assam's Jorhat district, which
has caught attention of the government, tourists and film-makers.
The 30-year-long effort of Jadav Payeng, known among local people as
'Mulai', to grow the woods, stretching over an area of 550 hectares,
has been hailed by the Assam Forest Department as 'examplary'.
Mulai began work on the forest in 1980 when the social forestry
division of Golaghat district launched a scheme of tree plantation
on 200 hectares at Aruna Chapori situated at a distance of five KMs
from Kokilamukh in Jorhat district.
Assistant conservator of forest Gunin Saikia, who is presently
posted at Sivsagar district, said, “Mulai was one of the labourers
who worked in our project which was completed after five years. He
chose to stay back after the completion of the project as others
left."
Mulai not only looked after the plants, but continued to plant more
trees on his own effort slowly transforming the area into a big
forest, Saikia noted.
“This is perhaps the biggest forest in the middle of a river,”
Saikia, who was instrumental in conceiving the project, said.
The department planned to launch another plantation programme in the
area this year, Saikia said pointing out that there was ample scope
to extend the forest by another 1,000 hectares.
Not only tourists are flocking to the woods in droves, a famous
British film-maker Tom Robert went there two years back to shoot one
of his films.
The forest, known in Assamese as 'Mulai Kathoni' or Mulai forest,
houses around four tigers, three rhinoceros, over a hundred deer and
rabbits besides apes and innumerable varieties of birds, including a
large number of vultures.
It has several thousand trees among which are valcol, arjun, ejar,
goldmohur, koroi, moj and himolu. There are bamboo trees too
covering an area of over 300 hectares.
A herd of around 100 elephants regularly visits the forest every
year and generally stay for around six months. They also gave birth
to 10 calves in the forest in recent times.
Mulai’s efforts caught attention of the forest department only
during 2008 when a team of forest officials went to the area in
search of a herd of 115 elephants that sneaked into the forest after
damaging property of villagers at Aruna chapori, around 1.5 km from
the forest.
“The officials were surprised to see such a large and dense forest
and since then the department is showing interest on conservation
with regular visit to the site,” Mulai said.
Mulai, an avid nature lover, has constructed a small house in the
vicinity of the reserve and stays with his family which comprises
wife, two sons and a daughter.
He earns his living by selling milk of cows and buffalows he has
kept. Mulai has one regret, though. The state government has so far
not provided any financial assistance to him to carry out his
'mission' except for the Forest Department which from time to time
supplies him saplings for plantation.
“A few years back, poachers tried to kill the rhinos staying in the
forest but failed in their attempt due to Mulai who alerted
department officials. Immediately our officials swung into action
and seized various articles used by the poachers to trap the
animals,” Atul Das, forest beat officer, said.
In the last three months Das along with a few of his staff are
camping in the area to stave off any attempt by poachers to kill the
rhinos.
“We are persuading the state government to initiate necessary
measures with the Centre for declaring the area a mini wildlife
sanctuary,” Pranon Kalita, leader of Jorhat district Asom
Jatiyatabadi Yuva Chatra Parishad, said.
Member of Parliament from Jorhat and former DoNER Minister B K
Handique would also take up the matter with the concerned union
ministry for declaring the area into a wildlife sanctuary, Kalita
said.
Mulai said, “If the Forest Department promises me to manage the
forest in a better way, I shall go to other places of the state to
start a similar venture,” he said.
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