A little more forest, everywhere.

In mid-2020, I learned the concept of 'Devarakaadu,' which translates to God's forest in Kannada. I found the concept extremely fascinating. Back in the days, farmers with farmland would carve out a small portion of the farm to grow a forest, preferably with fruit and flower-bearing trees. The farmer and the farmer's family would not use this land for any other purpose.

When the trees bear fruits and flowers, they would start to attract birds and bees (monkeys too), which in turn struck a natural ecological balance on the farm. Most farm owners had Devarakaadu on their farms. Hence, there were abundant dense green patches amid vast farmlands. But somehow, with the need to farm and produce more, the concept of Devarakaadu disappeared, and the tradition was lost.

In November 2020, I decided to recreate the concept of Devarakadu on our small farm on the outskirts of Bangalore. We carved out a half acre of land, which was not used for farming purposes. The land was dry, with just a few plants. The farm's caretaker was overjoyed when I explained what I intended to do. He got nostalgic, narrating his childhood stories of the time spent in the Devarakadu his grandmother had created.

Luckily, around the same time, Rainmatter Foundation distributed free saplings to anyone willing to plant and nurture the saplings.

Since the idea was to create a dense forest, I got an assortment of 450 flower and fruit trees from Rainmatter nursery to plant on the half-acre land. Thanks to the folks at Ananas for helping me understand how to plant these saplings systematically and efficiently.

Fast forward to July 2022; in just about 1.5 years, the land has now transformed into a green patch.

Luckily most of the saplings survived the torrential November 2021 rain, one of its kind in and around Bangalore. The forest patch may be small, but I feel overwhelmed with joy wherever I visit the farm and see this forest grow inch by inch.

This will be a thick, dense forest in a few more years and will soon start to attract bees and birds. This little Devarakadu is my ESG investment, and I hope this has a far better societal and ecological impact.

By the way, the free saplings from Rainmatter are still available. Get in touch with them (email in the poster above) if you want to experiment with something similar or just want to create a green patch around you.

After all, we all need a little more forest everywhere.