It was in 2005 when I moved from Bangalore to Pune - the destination I thought I will "settle" myself.
Fortunately enough, the place I live (Shilpa Society then and now Sigma One) is surrounded by ARAI / Law College and MIT college hills - which actually is a valley. Although I always wanted to, was not really connected to any community or an NGO as such and was always (shyly) looking out for an association or interest to pursue my passion of growing trees and conserving nature - and as a result, did not really get anything concrete going for 5 years. During this time, did plant trees without much help from anyone (except my son parth who use to come to dig pits or water plants once in a while) on the Law College hills behind Shilpa Society.
Four of the 8-10 plants that I planted still survive. Gulmohor in the image above being one of them. Since the time the trees were planted, they faced several problems..
1. lack of regular care - water, manure etc. I had long spells of time when I did not get time and energy (at times interest) to visit and take care of the ones that I had planted.
2. lack of protection from forest fires and cattle - the major cause for the ones that did not survive
3. my lack of awareness and knowledge on best practices to plant and grow a tree - despite 4-5 years of work they continue to face this - never digged trenches for water retention, planted them at locations difficult to access easily (hill top)..
After joining the community, I have realized the importance of the community and a majority of problems I faced while planting these trees alone, are eliminated when there is a community. to support. Long live "Green Hills Group" and all other communities striving for "Greener Pune"...
No comments:
Post a Comment