Even the desert can flourish: this man planted almost 4 million trees and had them “adopted” by Indian families

In the arid heart of Rajasthan, India, where temperatures exceed 45 degrees, one man has proven that even the desert can flourish again. Professor Shyam Sunder Jyani, sociologist and environmentalist, has dedicated over twenty years to a project as simple as it is revolutionary: planting trees and taking care of them like family members. His initiative, called “Familial Forestry”, has changed the face of entire rural communities, transforming wastelands into ecosystems pulsating with life.

The idea of ​​the “Family Forest”

At the base of the Family Forest there is a family that adopts a tree, plants it near their home and looks after it as if it were a child. This approach combined environmental education, a sense of belonging and social resilience. In the village of Himtasar, where it all began, 120 families have joined the project, planting fruit trees that today offer shade, food and hope. Thanks to constant care, the survival rate of the plants went from a modest 30% to an astonishing 90%.

A movement that grows like a forest

Since the first experiment, the initiative has spread like a real green wave: over 3.8 million trees planted and more than one million families involved in 15,000 villages. The revegetated areas are now visible even from satellites, like a “green wall” that opposes the advance of the Thar desert. Jyani has been able to transform traditional holidays into ecological occasions, linking the gesture of planting trees to celebrations such as Diwali or Gandhi Jayanti.

The “Land for Life Award”

In 2021, the United Nations honored Jyani with the Land for Life Award, recognizing her extraordinary ability to unite science, community and love for the Earth. But his commitment doesn’t stop: in addition to trees, he promotes millet as a sustainable cereal and has even transformed an 84-hectare former mining site into an oasis of biodiversity. Today Professor Jyani’s dream is to create a true ecological civilisation, where every house houses a small forest and every family feels like a living part of the nature that surrounds them.

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