Nonprofits make sure tree planting isn't just a Photo-op

LONG-TERM TIES Voluntary organisations choose locations carefully, plant right species and conduct regular maintenance drives

BENGALURU: On a Saturday morning, about a hundred people with mud on their tees, shoes, hats and sunglasses pose for a photograph after planting trees in the city. “Say Trees“, they say when the camera clicks. They have just taken the first step in turning a garbage dump to an urban forest.
What this city-based NGO `Say Trees' -yes, that's their name as well -does different is what makes the difference: they don't simply put saplings in the soil; they grow trees.

Choosing locations carefully , planting the right species of trees and conducting regular maintenance drives has ensured an impressive 90% survival rate. Working with corporates, government agencies, villages, the railways and the army, they have grown 60,000 trees. Ecologist Harini Nagendra says, “It is really good that they concentrate on the long-term.They are learning from their own ex periences -they plant only one-yearold saplings, only native trees and working with the local community to ensure that the trees are taken care of.“ This year, the group adopted the Miyawaki method of plantation to grow denser and more diverse forests in a shorter span of time. It also ven tured outside Bengaluru to work in the villages of Anantapur and Chintamani. When Anantapur in Andhra Pradesh saw its first rain this year after 15 years of drought, farmers welcomed it with fruit-bearing saplings. Say Trees supplied the trees and helped nurture them as well.

Durgesh Agrahari, head of partnerships and projects, is Say Trees' only full-time organiser. The 26-year-old was not environmentally conscious before he started volunteering two years ago. “It changed me,“ says the former deputy manager at ICICI. The novice environmentalist now leads a sustainable lifestyle and says he is more satisfied (and better paid) in his current job.