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Home>Service> Awardees of Fervent Global Love of Lives Award> 19th Fervent Global Love of Lives Award 2016> Forest Man of India -- Jadav Payeng
Forest Man of India -- Jadav Payeng
 Plant the seed of mercy ▪ Plant a forest with love 
I want to turn everything into planting trees
And write them down with my hoe
Turn them into greenery
For everyone who understands me
 
When the land is green
And everything turbid and dirty is completely gone
Everyone could breathe together 
And sing the song of life
                                            -- Jadav Payeng
 
 
Single-handedly planting a 550-hectare forest in 36 Years 
Back in 1979, when a sixteen-year-old Indian boy, Jadav Payeng, saw a large number of snakes washed ashore by the floods, only to be left dying in the bare sandbar, he was so upset that he became determined to save snakes through growing trees. And that was the turning point of his life.
 
Moved by his single-handedly planting a 550-hectare forest in 36 years, thus converting the sandbar into an oasis and paradise for animals, the Canadian documentary director McMaster spent six months shooting by his place and produced a documentary titled Forest Man Of India. Once released, this documentary became a hit in India and moved people around the world, with over 190,000,000 of people from all walks of life watching and clicking like on his story online. He was thus awarded the top award in this field, "Golden Award", by the former president of India (A. P. J. Abdul Kalam) and the title of "Forest Man of India" by Jawaharlal Nehru University. On February 14, 2015, he was granted a Doctorate Degree from Gauhati University, and on April 4th of the same year, a Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian award, from the government of India. From November 30 to December 12 of that year, he has moreover attended the Paris Climate Change Conference under the invitation of the UN, where he was granted the special privilege of sharing his life story of single-handedly planting a forest with an area of 550 hectares in 36 years in his mother tongue, Assam, causing an international media sensation and touching the hearts of national leaders from 200 countries.
 
From planting trees to save the climate to planting trees to save the Earth
Jadav Payeng has always thought the forest as the home of world civilization. From planting trees to protect the snakes, to planting trees to protect their mother river -- Bhramaputra; from planting trees to saving lives --lives on the Majuli Island, to planting trees to save the lives of thousands of girls, he is now desiring more than ever to turn the Earth into a forest of hope, from his initial wish to turn India into a forest of hope.
 
In the end of 2015, Leonardo DiCaprio, the best actor 2016 Oscar Winner for Best Actor, attended the Paris Climate Change Conference together with Jadav Payeng, where the latter shared his experience of helping the climate and saving the Earth through planting trees and received overwhelming responses from people all over the world.
 
Defend the lives in nature with his own life
What's even rarer about him is that Jadav Payeng used to hold back one thousand, even ten thousand with his own body in order to defend this 550-hectare forest and the wildlife in it. In fact, he claimed loudly at that time that: cut me before you cut my trees. He has therefore defended millions of lives with his own. In order that the villagers, the forest, and the animals could live in harmony with each other, he began later to plant such fruit trees as bananas, oranges, dates and mangoes in the forest. Thus ensuring the food supply for the wildlife, animals including elephants have not disturbed the lives of the villagers again.
 
After that, Jadav Payeng decided on his one family precept: continue to plant until the last breath. His wife (Benita Payeng), daughter (Munumi Payeng), his two sons (Sanjay Payeng and (Sanjeeb Payeng), and the generations after them, shall continue to plant trees and never cut down or sell any trees. They shall work to preserve the most precious natural and cultural heritage for human beings and share it with the world.
 
In a word, Jadav Payeng has been planting trees to save lives in the nature, to save girls, to save their mother river and the island that gives him life. He also goes on to involve people from all walks of life at home and abroad in his efforts to save the Earth by planting trees. Under the lens of McMaster, a Canadian documentary director, he is the man who has single-handedly planted a forest and moved the world. He is therefore truly worthy of his title of "Forest Man". And among the 2459 nominees for the medal, Jadav Payeng has been award the 19th Global Fervent Love of Lives Medal by the Chou Ta-kuan Foundation.
 
Plant the seed of mercy
In the summer of 1979, when the sixteen-year-old Jadav Payeng was playing on the river coast of the Majuli Island, the island was bare, covered by no grass or trees.
 
As soon as the water in the Bhramaputra was washed ashore the scorched coastal sandbar, they would turn into red hot steam.
 
What was washed ashore, apart from water and debris, were a large number of snakes.
 
Jadav Payeng said: The water ebbed away soon, leaving only the debris washed ashore on the coast. As it was extremely hot in June and July, the snakes were also left to die on the scorched sandbar. Seeing this, I was greatly upset, thinking that perhaps I would also die like this someday in the future.
 
This brought the young Jadav Payeng into sad teas. He walked back to the village in great frustration and told what he had seen to the village elders.
 
Jadav Payeng recalled: they told me that if you could plant some bamboos, the snakes might not die. They gave me 50 bamboo seeds and 25 bamboo seedlings. I planted all of them and watered them once every five days.
 
Since then, Jadav Payeng had often been seen by the villagers, alone and planting trees on the sandbar along the river coast. Thanks to his efforts, various plants began to take root in the Majuli Island for the first time.
 
Planting trees to save girls
After carefully planting the 50 bamboo seeds and 25 bamboo seedlings he obtained from the village elders on the Majuli Island, Jadav Payeng also watered these plants once every day with the water he carried from the Bhramaputra. He attended these plants as if they were his children.
Three months later, only one of the 50 seeds sprouted and only 7 of the 25 seedlings survived. However, this was already out of his expectation, filling his heart with great joy.
 
Every time he saw the bamboo seedlings, he was so moved as to entertain the idea of saving the lives in nature through planting trees.
 
Not long after that, Jadav Payeng's mother gave birth to a little sister, upon which event Jadav planted 111 buttress trees, her mother's favorite tree, according to a folk custom of India.
 
Jadav Payeng talked about them passionately: The buttress tree is a plant growing in tropical rain forests and characterized by its triangular buttress root in parallel with the ground. It grows very fast. With its huge crown, thick trunk, stout branches, developed stilt root and aerial root, it is a representative species in the conservation of water and soil.
 
Preference to boys is a deep rooted attitude in India. Quite a number of women will choose abortion if pregnant with girls. And even if the girls do come to the world, it doesn't mean they could grow up in a safe environment. As the birth of girls is not welcomed, there is now a drastic imbalance between men and women in India, so much so that raping is not any news in the country.
 
Converting the bare sandbar into a green oasis
A pious Hindu as Jadav Payeng is, he has heard about the Arc of Noah from the village elders. This story is a reminder to human kind -- a reminder that they should find a sustainable way to live in harmony with nature.
 
The good man Noah, of course, has since been held by Jadav Payeng as an example of life.
 
At 3 o'clock every morning, Jadav Payeng would get up and sail across the river to the Majuli Island. After feeding his herd of over a hundred cattle, he would begin to plant trees on the waste island.
 
Jadav Payeng has learned to use the bamboo watering system from the Chinese. On every seedling, he set up a bamboo pole, which would drain the water naturally down to the tree roots via crisscross bamboo network thus formed.
 
This bamboo watering system is the key to his success in turning the waste island into an oasis.
 
What is more admirable about him is that while planting trees, Jadav Payeng does not stop his pursuit of knowledge, which, in turn, is for his planting of trees.
 
In order to achieve ecological balance in the forest, he introduced ants, crickets and earthworms here. Capable of creeping into the iron hard soil, these insects did not only make the tree planting easier, but also fertilized the soil.
 
In this way, Jadav Payeng has planted one seedling after another, which grows into one oasis after another. These small oases grow later into big oases one after another, and finally into the large forest.
 
Cut me before you cut my trees
The hard work of Jadav Payeng paid off as a lush forest, which, naturally, became a new home to such wild animals as Asian elephants and rhinos.
 
However, as the number of wild animals began to multiply, damages to the crops were unavoidable, which pissed off the villagers on the island.
 
In recent years, a herd of over a hundred elephants has settled down in the forest. They have, moreover, become interested in the villages nearby. Jadav Payeng said that the villagers there liked to make their own rice wine, whose flagrant smell would often lead the way for the elephants into the village. The elephants would steal their wine and food, tramping the farmlands around the village into a mess in the process.
 
At beginning, the villagers and the animals were able to leave each other alone. As the elephants roamed into the village again and again, destroying the crops along the way, all people in the village began to complain about Jadav Payeng for attracting the elephants with his forest and demanded therefore that the forest be cut down.
 
At that time, over a thousand heavily armed villagers decided to take actions and cut down the forest. Jadav Payeng stood against them all by himself and swore to defend the forest and the wildlife in it, claiming loudly that cut me before you cut my trees.
 
Moved by the spirit of Jadav Payeng of defending the forest with his own life, the villagers gave up the action eventually.
 
After that, in order that find a solution that worked for both parties, he began to plant such fruit trees as bananas, oranges, dates and mangoes in the forest. Thus ensuring the food supply for the wildlife, animals including elephants have not disturbed the lives of the villagers again.
 
As Jadav Payeng became more and more famous, this forest, together with the wildlife in it, also becomes known to the world. The Majuli Island is now the first choice for global eco-travel, bringing in benefits for the villagers on the island from the tourism industry.
 
What we need are thousands of Jadav Payengs
Dr. Arup Kumar Sarma of Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati said that Jadav Payeng has already shown the example -- that if one person can, at his own effort, do this kind of plantation, then why not others?
 
If we can have economic value, if it is economically viable, if it gives benefits to the people ... if we can plan it in this way, then we can do it for the entire catchment.
 
In fact, we have proposed this kind of things already and we have found it is economically viable.
 
If this kind of project can be implemented, and gradually one river and another river, the whole entire basin, Bhramaputra basin, and implemented sustainably to every river in the world, every river could be our mother river.
 
I hope that through reforestation, we can solve the problem of blood and erosion to a great extent."
 
Sometimes I wonder, what ten Jadav Payengs, or hundred Jadav Payengs, or thousand Jadav Payengs could do?
 
He once told me, I was worried about the fate of the world, just like everyone. I see bad things happening on my island and I do what I can do to help. And how I hope that   everyone could look up to Jadav Payeng as an example and do what they can to help.
 
I am just a simple man. There are many just like me. When I asked him if he thought Majuli could be saved. He replied: "Yes"! Jadav Payeng: "My dream is to fill up Majuli Island and Jorhat with forest again, and gradually do that in every corner of India. I will continue to plant until the last of my breath."