Chamoli’s unsung green soldier acts locally, grows own forest
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By Rakesh Agrawal | March 20, 2011 2:15 AM EDT
SANKOT (Chamoli, Uttarakhand, India): Like many of his countrymen, 87-year-old Narain Singh Negi too has a large, extended family. But even by the standards of Indian extended families, the size of Negi’s family is colossally huge. When one adds up all the children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, it numbers more than half a million. That’s half a million plants.
Spread over 27 hectares at the edge of his native Sankot village in Chamoli district, Uttarakhand, Negi’s forest has a variety of trees and plants, among them rhododendrons, deodar, peach, pears, apricot and walnut. It also has more than 14 wildlife species.
Sankot is some 75 kilometers from the town of Karnaprayag in central Uttarakhand. The forest is a great source of biomass for the villagers, providing them with fruits, herbs and fuel wood, as well as fodder for cattle, without having to walk long distances. “Villagers need trees like banj (oak), and buransh (rhododendrons) for their biomass needs,” says Negi. “Their need for fodder, fruits and fuel wood are met by the forest.”
“This is a boon for us women and has greatly reduced our workload,” a villager, Hasuli Devi, agrees.
Negi served as the “sarpanch,” or head of the Sankot van panchayat — village forest committee — from 1968 to 1970. Van panchayats, created eight decades ago to manage forests that lie nearby villages, are unique to Uttarakhand. Some 12,000 community forests administer as much as 14 percent of the state’s forests.
Millions in Chamoli — the largest district in the state, with an area of more than 7,600 square kilometers — and Uttarakhand depend on forest resources for their livelihood. In fact, forest resources and tourism are the state’s leading source of income.
A 2007 study estimated that the annual contribution of Uttarakhand’s forest, based on the services they provide, may be as much as $2.4 billion (Rs. 10,700 crore). The study was conducted by two nonprofits, the London-based Leadership for Environment and Development and the Central Himalayan Environment Association, located in Nainital, Uttarakhand.
That Negi has led his forestation efforts in a state where quality forestland is dwindling at an alarming rate makes his campaign even more worthy.
Uttarakhand is one of the greener states of India, with more than 64 per cent of its area covered with forests, according to the state Forest Department. However, the exact extent of forest cover is a lot less — just a little over 41 per cent, the rest being degraded land, where forest was cleared for wood and agriculture. Mostly, even the so-called “forestland” is scarcely covered, as divulged by satellite images. Dense forests with canopy cover exceeding 60 percent is actually less than 15 five percent.
For some in Uttarakhand, the success of the octogenarian’s four-decade-old green movement with relatively limited personal resources — Negi estimates having spent at least Rs 15 lakh ($33,300) thus far — serves to highlight the failure of the state’s forest authorities.
“The Forest Department has an army of workers and officials who are supposed to grow forests on the extensive forestlands the department possesses,” says Bauni Devi, a former head of the nearby Urgam van panchayat. “But what they have done is to merely raise sparse monoculture forests — mostly pine in the hills and eucalyptus in the plains — in the 60-plus years after independence.
“It is a huge slap on the face of the policymakers and those wildlife lovers who propagate that people and wildlife cannot exist together,” says Rukmani Devi, 54, another villager supporting Negi in his crusade. “Animals like deer, monkey, bear and porcupine flourish in this forest that has been sustained by human efforts,” she adds.
Negi’s forest has been in the making for 45 years.
As in the case of many hugely successful citizen-projects, the inspiration for this one was also a local calamity. “In 1965, a massive landslide almost destroyed my village entirely and that prompted me to action,” he says. “I was contemplating a permanent solution so that such disasters did not recur,” he adds. The idea of growing a forest in and around the village germinated following detailed discussions with fellow villagers.
However, it was a tussle with some villagers and the then Chamoli district authorities, during his tenure as the van panchayat head, that really ignited his passion for the forest.
When a few villagers encroached upon Sankot van panchayat’s land during the time when he was serving as its head, Negi offered them cultivable land in return for releasing the usurped land. “I offered 6 nalis (about 0.12 hectare) of cultivable land but the villagers did not budge,” he recalls. Then, he lodged a case against them with the sub-divisional office at Karnaprayag.
“I also requested the sub-divisional magistrate to hand over the 27 hectares of land for the village panchayat to me so that I can raise a forest,” he says. But the official questioned his motive and doubted his integrity. “That day, I took the oath of Bharat Ma (“Mother India”) and promised that I’ll raise a forest,” he recalls.
What ensued was a one-man forestation mission.
First he built a stone wall around the area where he envisaged the forest. Then, he prepared a nursery of ringal (dwarf bamboo), walnuts, surai (cypress), among other plants. His initial nursery had 20,000 plants—all bought from the Forest Department for Rs. 2 a sapling.
Monikers followed. He was dubbed “sanaki” or eccentric by many. But in time, erstwhile skeptics turned into ardent admirers.
While raising his plant family, he often could not pay adequate attention to his biological family. The twice-married Negi has three daughters from his first wife, who died five years ago, and a son from the second wife, Laxmi Devi. The son, Nandan Singh Negi, works as a junior clerk with the Forest Department.
For his friends and supporters, Negi’s forest is a testament of one man’s ability to make a difference. That he has achieved this feat without any government or institutional support makes it all the more commendable.
However, so far the only recognition he has got so far for his silent, green revolution is the Gaura Devi Samman, an award commemorating the legendary Chipko leader Gaura Devi, which made him richer by Rs. 5,000.
His only other medal of achievement remains the Commemorative Shield, given to him by the Indian Army for taking part in World War II.
A true soldier protecting and nurturing the environment, Negi was a freedom fighter as he had worked as a soldier in the Azad Hind Fauj of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose during World War II.
Not surprisingly, there is a nationalist and patriotic fervor to his forest project as well, with each of its eight divisions named after Indian national leaders Bose, Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Dr. Bhimrao Ambedhkar, Indira Gandhi, Gaura Devi, Veer Chandra Garhwali, Govind Ballabh Pant. A temple has also been dedicated to them, where daily pooja (worship) of these nationalist idols is conducted.
Negi, who’s aware of the significance and usefulness of his enterprise to the community, believes local initiatives like his are key to food security and campaign against climate change.
“It’ll keep the climate undisturbed and give us pristine air, plus good food and fruits to eat,” he says exhorting villagers to raise own forests. “Look, how much the temperature has risen today and look at the scanty snowfall. Only a good forest cover can save us from the jalvayu sankat (climatic crisis).” (Global India Newswire)
(Laxman Singh Negi in Joshimath contributed to this story.)
Read more:
http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/124656/20110320/india-green-chamoli-uttarakhand-deforestation-environment-agitation-nandan-singh-negi-negi-s-forest.htm#ixzz1HDDMxqPw
