A Profitable Journey

From a rocky barren soil to a wooded fertile land

 

Introduction

Earth had thick green cover and rich fertile soil till the last two lakh years. Then the human being evolved followed by civilizations. He evolved in the northern Africa which was then a thick forest and now the Sahara desert. This is because the “Civilized Humans” live by killing and burning. Civilizations kill animals and burn forests. The indigenous tribes, forest dwellers however have a lifestyle that is in harmony with nature.

After turning the North Africa in to Sahara desert ‘great’ human civilizations moved towards the Nile, Euphrates and Tigress, Sindu and Saraswathi in India, and the yellow river of China. Now there are vast deserts on the banks of the huge rivers of this mother Earth. But for man and his civilizations, why would there be deserts on the banks of such vast rivers?

Now there are people all over the earth and the Earth is desertifying very fast. Across the last four decades alone, human population has doubled, but the number of bugs, beetles, worms and butterflies (micro fauna) has declined by 45%, says Rodolfo Dirzo, a professor of biology at Stanford University.

It is as if we simply have a license to kill.

Now taking a look at the future, I have no doubt that this Earth will get back its thick green cover, fertility, the flora and fauna. But this can happen in two ways i.e.

1. Man realizes his mistake and reverts back this desertification by creating back what he has destroyed (or)

2. The desertification continues finally leading to the extinction of Man. Of course once man is extinct the Earth will slowly get back its greenery, fertility and life.

I have been working since the last 25 years on option 1 above with the selfish interest of having me and the other humans survive. Here is the story of my efforts in growing 50,000 trees profitably and contributing my bit to this mother earth.

Background

I am a farmer by ancestry and a civil engineer by qualification. Since my childhood I have been observing the desertification of my own village – a tiny village in district of Kolar in Karnataka state of India. Just 40 years ago there were open wells with water just ten feet from the ground – we used to jump into those wells from the ground to swim. Now there are only bore wells with water at 2000 feet below the ground.

Then there were beetle nut gardens in my village with early morning dew drops on their leaves. But now there are no more gardens or dew drops. There are only dues in the banks and drops in the eyes.



Seeing this deterioration and in attempt revert it, 25 years back I bought some land took upon a project to grow trees. Here are the pictures of that land located just outside the Mysuru city.



Back then, I purchased thirty acres of this total waste land for a nominal price of Rupees twenty thousand per acre and showed this to my parents, my mother started crying and questioned me “Did I make you an engineer to buy this land and become a farmer again?” Now, 25 years later…



After growing this forest, I showed it to my mother and she cried again. But this time with happiness and remarked “I did not know one man could do all this. You have really put your engineering into use” Pleasing one’s own mother is easy but to please the mother earth by giving her greenery back allover is a tough task. But this article is an effort towards that.

Project EMERALD ENCLAVE

These 120 acres of land is named as EMERALD ENCLAVE and is located just outside the Mysuru city, in a previously uninhabited village called ANAGAHALLY of Belagola hobli in SRIRANGAPATNA taluk. I started buying this land which was then totally barren, dry and uncultivated in 1990 with plans of growing teak trees using ground water from bore wells and micro drip irrigation.

With the resources that I could mobilise I could buy up to 30 acres of land. But beyond that to grow the trees and to buy more land the constraint was money. It is to raise money that I designed this project EMERALD ENCLAVE. The plan was to,

1. Make plots land measuring 80’x120’,
2. Plant 100 teak saplings in them along the periphery,
3. Provide drip irrigation to the saplings through bore wells and
4. Sell theses plots - for a fair profit - to people who are fond of greenery and afforestation.

When I started this project three types of people were laughing at me.

1. Sellers: It is only recently that some of the people who had sold the land to me revealed “when you were buying our land we were all laughing at you as what kind of person is this to pay valuable money and our useless barren land?”
2. Friends: Those with whom I would discuss my project were advising me, “When plenty of such land is easily available over there why would anyone buy it from giving you profit? And how can hope to make a livelihood out of it?”
3. Buyers: After buying the land, making neat plots out of it with well demarked roads and growing teak saplings to a height of 10’ it was a pleasant scene. Then I started showing it to prospective buyers. One of them an NRI, asked me “Mr. Venugopal, why is the price so low?” of course he bought three such plots. Well! To the next customer, I doubled the price. Even then the question persisted with customers. I doubled the price again. Then shortly afterwards, I was the one laughing, laughing all the way to the bank! And this is how I could buy more land and create 120 acres of forest land.

BEYOND MONEY – THE MULTIPLE BENEFITS

There is a long list benefits that are derived by turning a waste land into dense greenery. Mini Forest: Around 70,000 trees welcome visitors to the area, which was once a waste land.

The Air: The best thing the trees do is “absorbing carbon dioxide and releasing oxygen” with 50,000 teak trees and many others the Air here is cleaner and richer in Oxygen.

Upgradation of the quality of soil: The termites and microbes that thrive on the dropped foliage and tree bark turn the same in to rich fertile soil. Here in Emerald Enclave, over the last 20 years more than one foot of fresh fertile soil is formed.

Flora and fauna: Over the years more than fifty species of birds have moved in to this place and are growing into large numbers. They feed on the millions of micro fauna that are thriving on the food shelter provided by trees. There are squirrels, rabbits, wild boar, several types of wild cats. Trees result in more life.

Ground water: In this enclave we have completely harvested the rain water and not a drop of water flows out of here. The trees absorb the rain water as it drops and releases slowly. This has resulted in the rise of ground water to higher levels in spite of constant pumping from the ground. Further, small bunds on road side to prevent water from flowing away to low level area, has increased the ground water levels by recharging.

Jobs: This project has directly created over fifty jobs and indirectly around 100 plus jobs

Peace and Tranquility: The purpose of life is to be happy and make others happy. This project has done both.

ON A BIGGER SCALE

Now this is just a beginning and a study. The possibility is several thousand times in scale. There are billions acres of wasteland on this EARTH. Mere repetition of this project can result in prosperity in various ways. It takes nothing more than just the will to prosper. The skill, technology, the land, water are all there. We just need to do it and make this EARTH green all over again.

I can be reached at emeraldenclave@yahoo.com for consultation.