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https://reasonstobecheerful.world/india-village-tree-planting-ritual-daughters/>
"On a sunny afternoon, bright-faced schoolgirls chatter gaily as they walk past
a forest in Piplantri, a village in the Indian state of Rajasthan. “Here’s
mine,” shouts one, as she gently touches a young neem tree. “And mine,” smiles
another, under an Indian gooseberry that has scattered its tart fruit on the
forest floor. The woods are alive with birdsong and the girls’ laughter.
“Fifteen years ago, this was barren, dry land,” says Shyam Sundar Paliwal about
the area. “Instead of this forest, trees and the clean air you are breathing
today, all we had then, was marble dust.”
In 2007, he planted the first tree, a tropical evergreen called a kadam, in
memory of his 17-year-old daughter Kiran, after she died of dehydration. “The
transformation of Piplantri began with her,” he says. “If only she were here to
see it today.”
What Kiran would see is nearly 400,000 trees of various Indigenous varieties.
Their growth has prompted an improvement in the status of the village’s girls
and women, and is repairing environmental damage caused by decades of marble
mining."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
