An island in the Brahmaputra goes with the flow
Jadhav Payeng, 62, considers himself a happy man. Of all the private rewilding efforts in the country, his has to be the most intriguing. The cattle farmer from Assam has spent over 40 years building a forest on an island in the Brahmaputra, where there wasn’t one before.
The 550 hectares of barren land that he regreened, using traditional knowledge from elders of his tribe, were prone to flooding and erosion.
Payeng was in his early 20s when he decided to take up where a government project had left off.
In the 1980s, a reforestation effort by the state forest department was meant to plant thousands of trees in a five-year period on the 200-hectare Aruna Chapori island in the Brahmaputra. The young Payeng was a labourer on the project. Two years in, the project was discontinued.
Payeng decided to keep it going, by himself. So little by little, in secret and anonymously, he tended to the trees that had been planted, and planted new ones. He consulted with the elders of his Mishing tribe on what plants to grow and how to care for them, prepared manure using cow dung and compost and set up an indigenous drip irrigation system made up of an earthen pot on a bamboo platform. Over time, the forest took on a life of its own.
“When I started to do this work, I faced some opposition from the surrounding villages, primarily because elephants started visiting the forest, and on their way they would raid some of the crops,” Payeng says.
In 2009, the local press began to cover his efforts. As word spread across the country and beyond, Payeng became reluctantly famous. He was nicknamed the Forest Man of India, and awarded the Padma Shri in 2015. Today, the forested island is referred to Mulai Kathoni or Forest of Mulai (Payeng’s nickname).
To Payeng, the most thrilling development has been the way the island has come to life. Rhinos come from Kaziranga, about 60 km away; elephants have been born amid the trees he planted; tigers visit and stay for a few days; wild buffalo and migratory birds, including pelicans and the rare Himalayan Griffon vulture, visit as well.
But since this is not a notified area, the RHINOS NOW VISIT FROM KAZIRANGA, ABOUT 60 KM AWAY; ELEPHANTS HAVE BEEN BORN AMID THE TREES; PELICANS STOP BY, AND TIGERS STAY FOR DAYS forest department doesn’t patrol it. So members of the Mishing and Deuri tribes defend the island, patrolling for poachers and timber smugglers and reporting them to the state forest department.
“It is a big problem and we have become unable to protect the forest alone,” Payeng says. “It’s time for the government to start providing protection.” Notifying the land comes with drawbacks that could restrict the community’s use of the forest and its resources. The struggle to keep the dense forest free, accessible and protected is Payeng’s ongoing mission.
He, meanwhile, lives in a bamboo hut in the forest, while his family, wife Binita, daughter Munmuni and sons Sanjay and Sanjib, live in his village 6 km away.
To this day, Payeng works from 5 am to 3 pm, planting saplings, collecting seeds and patrolling the 550 hectares. “I think Mulai Kathoni will be recognised as a rare achievement if it is not eventually destroyed by humans,” he says. (With reporting by Jitu Kalita)