Jadav Payeng, the Forest Man of India and a strong advocate for biodiversity has asked the world community to observe a lockdown every year in order to maintain natural balance and provide some respite to Mother Nature.
He advocated that a week-long lockdown be implemented every year to keep the Earth habitable.
It was reported that when the Union Government enforced a national lockdown, a term unfamiliar to the majority of people, to battle the current coronavirus pandemic, it considerably reduced pollution levels in several major cities such as Delhi. The lockdown had also revitalized our surroundings.
Payeng, who is also a UNESCO brand ambassador, has made this proposal to the world community. "We had seen that the lockdown brought some kind of changes to Mother Nature and our surroundings. It had made the birds of surroundings jovial. So, I think that every year a week-long lockdown is necessary for all of us. It would keep our Earth Liveable," he said to the media.
Payeng has created a forest near his house in Jorhat, earning him the title "India's Forest Man."
On a special invitation, India's forest-man will go to Mexico in September. Jadav Payeng's voyage from a remote part of the world's biggest inhabited river island Majuli to Mexico will be to help the North American country become greener. On December 7, Molai Payeng, as he is called in his native state, struck a deal with a Mexican NGO, Fundación Azteca, to collaborate on environmental projects in the North American country.
This Padmashree awardee specialises in transforming desolate terrain into a lush green paradise. Payeng is recognised for changing a barren sandbar of the Brahmaputra into a 550-hectare forest by planting trees on his own. Molai Kathoni is now home to deer, rabbits, a handful of regal Bengal tigers, elephant herds, and a wide diversity of native and migratory species. Jadav Payeng has demonstrated to the world what commitment and persistence can do, growing from 50 bamboo shoots in 1979 to a vast expanse of green.
Students in the United States (US) are taught about Padma Shri awardee Payeng fairly. Payeng's work is part of the sixth grade curriculum at Green Hills School in Bristol, Connecticut. As part of their ecological class, the students learn about Payeng's work.
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