"Flood
had washed a great number of snakes onto the sandbar.I saw they had no
option but Death.I was 16 at that time .The snakes died in the heat,
without any tree cover.It was carnage. I alerted the forest department
and asked them if they could grow trees there." It was 1979 in India's Assam region. - Jadav Payeng
Alone He started to Plant .He planted bamboo at start. He watered the plants morning and evening and pruned them. After a few years, the sandbar was transformed into a bamboo thicket. He then decided to grow proper trees. He collected and planted them. He also transported red ants from his village,as Red ants change the soil's propertie.
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. Jadav Payeng decided to be part of this mission.He and other members of this project worked to grew forest.Lifetime of this project was only five years. After five years others left He chose to stay back continued to plant more trees on his own effort slowly transforming the area into a big forest.
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.
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.
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.
Alone He started to Plant .He planted bamboo at start. He watered the plants morning and evening and pruned them. After a few years, the sandbar was transformed into a bamboo thicket. He then decided to grow proper trees. He collected and planted them. He also transported red ants from his village,as Red ants change the soil's propertie.
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. Jadav Payeng decided to be part of this mission.He and other members of this project worked to grew forest.Lifetime of this project was only five years. After five years others left He chose to stay back continued to plant more trees on his own effort slowly transforming the area into a big forest.
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.
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.
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.
- Jadav Payeng was honoured at a public function arranged by the School of Environmenal Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University on 22nd April, 2012 for his remarkable achievement.
Jadav
Payeng lives in a small hut in the forest with his family. Binita, his
wife and his 3 children (two sons and a daughter) accompany him. His
only source of income is through selling milk, he has good number of
cows and buffaloes in his farm and sell the milk for his livelihood. In a
recent interview he revealed that he lost around 100s of 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.
