From the article "With a population of a little over 7,000, the village has more than 100,000 fully grown trees, mostly of mango and lychee.
From a distance, the village looks like a forest or a dense green patch amidst the parched and arid cluster of villages in the area.
'Great value'And most residents can be spotted sitting in the cool orchards outside their homes.
"Now, we've stopped doing traditional farming of wheat and paddy. We plant as many trees as we can since they are more profitable and dependable," said villager Shyam Sunder Singh.".
Disregarding the dowry cause attached with it, this seems like a relatively low cost way to achieve some financial and ecological benefits to local populace. And, something that can be done almost anywhere.
Not knowing the effort involved (land, planting costs, maintenance costs etc) I will refrain from commenting its viability. I would however be very interested in finding ways to turn it into a model that can be replicated in other places and the effort/cost that it may take to mentor such an initiative (say in one village) to a level where it is self-sustained.
I am also interested in finding out whether public land (eg land by the roadside) can be adopted by locals to plant and nurture trees (all rights on the tree remain with the landowner ie government) and what might be the downside of it. Just like people/entities do when 'adopting a piece of highways' in US and other places and put effort towards keeping it clean and trash-free - it adds to the social well-being of the community even if there is no financial gain from such effort.
Comments?
