For The Last Five Years, These Village Men Have Given Lives To 350 Uprooted Trees By Planting Them In A Sacred Grove
4 Aug 2018 12:57 PM GMT
A bunch of passionate young men are saving big trees uprooted in the Sahyadri Mountains by transplanting them at their village’s sacred grove. And that’s just one part of their conservation work
It is four in the evening. It has been raining relentlessly and everything around is drenched. The black tar road is washed clean as it marks a serpentine route through the lush green surroundings. The fog adds a layer of mystery to the environment that is slowly getting darker.
This is a village perched atop 2,400 feet in the Sahyadri Mountains, the local name for one of the UNESCO decorated biodiversity hotspot Western Ghats. This is mid-July, which along with August receives the high rainfall. And it is indeed a high rainfall quantum — mean annual rainfall of 4,500 mm, ranging between 3,000 mm to 6,000 mm depending upon the altitude — that nourishes the rich biodiversity of the region.
A bunch of youths are on a mission in the pouring rains. Four of them have found a tree uprooted after a wall fell due to excessive rain over the past two days. One of them get a tempo van and the others lift the heavy, more than six feet long trunk of Nana tree (Lagerstroemia Microcarpa, a flowering tree endemic to India, native to Western Ghats). Villagers have already taken away branches and leaves.
The small truck reaches the perimeter of a sacred grove, devraai in Marathi. Named after the local deity Ambeshwar (its temple is in the center of the sacred grove), this Ambeshwar Devraai is a wonderful patch of thick forest bang in the middle of a sloping mountain plateau. Surrounded by farmland, the grove stands out with its wide variety of evergreen trees, shrubs, climbers, creepers and a diverse collection of moss and lichen.
Replanting effort
Battling rain, the youth bring the tree to a designated spot where one of their colleagues has already dug a pit. As others struggle to hold the trunk straight into the pit, one of them deepens the pit further and other chops off some of the extra protruding roots. Finally, the wet trunk snugly fits into the pit and is covered with damp earth.
Even when drenched themselves, the youth, with a look of satisfaction at a job done well, pat the tree trunk and one of them, their leader Pramod Mali, says with a chuckle: “Please, do live.”
For almost five years now, this has become a weekly routine of sorts for the young men. On the lookout for any uprooted trees due to heavy rains in the mountains and on the highway, they quickly bring it to the sacred grove to transplant it. Mali and nine other youths from the village have formed a Vanrakshak Social Force that have been carrying out this transplantation exercise and other conservation work for the sacred grove and the surrounding forests.
On the southern side of the sacred grove is a huge arch painted with the name of the deity. A bright shiny board besides it details the importance of the place with pictures of almost all elements of the biodiversity found there. As the group enters enter the brown stony upward path shining after cleansed fresh with water and dotted with greens here and there, it indeed feels as if they were are entering a cloudy abode of the deity.
Functional parts
The youth have divided the devraai in four parts. Three are already named and functional. Punarjanm Mohim (Transplantation Mission) is where they bring uprooted trees and replant them. Mangal Van is where people plant trees on the day when their near and dear ones get married. They inform the newly married couple about it and urge them to plant trees too. Fulora Van is where people plant native trees on their birthdays or that of near and dear ones. The fourth is a proposed Smruti Van, a place where people can plant trees in remembrance of their family members or friends.
“We get these plants from a nursery. And we have been getting good response to this. At times, even some visitors have evinced interest in this,” Avinash Ghadge, 31, told VillageSquare.in.
The team has already started documentation of the rich biodiversity of the sacred grove. There are 86 trees, nine climbers, and 27 shrubs, apart from scores of herbs, algae, fungus and creepers. There are 18 species of birds and 23 species butterflies, not to mention the large number of insects and reptiles.
This area has mixed semi evergreen and moist mixed deciduous forests as part of the Western Ghats. The Working Plan for the Forests of Kolhapur Forest Division says that the sacred grove is spread over 4.25 Ha. The neighboring reserved forest is 318.16 Ha.
Biodiversity riches
Amba village is immediately to the east of Amba Ghat (pass) on the state highway that connects Kolhapur in western Maharashtra to Ratnagiri in the Konkan region. Till a few years ago, it was surrounded by little agriculture land and dense forest. As per the Census 2011, there are 256 households in the village that has a population of 1195. Many villagers have chosen to migrate to cities, and the remaining farm the land.
Amba falls in the buffer area of two parts of the Sahyadri Tiger Reserve (one each on the north and south side of it). The surrounding jungle, nearby places of historic importance such as Vishalgadh Fort, Pavan Khind and scores of waterfalls and dam reservoirs have turned Amba village into a base camp for tourists.
Tourist influx
In 2018, the forest is patchy, as the village has undergone a sea change with a multitude of resorts dotting the landscape — from just two about a decade ago to 36 as on date. Although tourists are bringing in much-needed earnings, they are also a cause of worry for these young conservationists.
With his colleagues, Mali, 32, runs the Vasundhara Eco Tours for sustenance, taking tourists on jungle treks. They teach people how to observe the forest, how to read each movement, from termites to timber, from algae to aves, everything is part of the jungle and have a role in the food chain. There are one-day, two-day treks almost round the year but less in peak monsoon as the jungle is infested with leaches.
Forest conservation
But it is not just uprooted tree transplantation that these youth carry out. They are into varied forest conservation and preservation activities. So, how did Mali and his team form the Vanrakshak Social Force two years ago? The increasing number of tourists and mainly their unwarranted activities got them worried. Jungle trips by outsiders for drinking sessions, loud music, broken liquor bottles troubled the youth.
“What if a Gaur gets hurt because of such a bottle?” “What happens to the greenery in case of forest fire due to leftover garbage by tourists?” The youth started asking these questions. The rich biodiversity is just too fragile and precious to be lost to such reasons..
Published with the permission from VillageSquare.in