Trees are a vital part of all life forms on earth.  Living being’s survival is directly or indirectly relying on the forest.  Trees are natural quality controllers of elements like air, soil, water, temperature, and collectively, the climate of the planet. Trees have a social impact too. Starting from farmers, an entire range of human jobs and livelihood have dependencies on the forest. If there is one reason to protect the forest, it is for our own survival.

In the year 2018, the world lost a forest cover of a land size equivalent to Italy. The Global Forest Watch (GFW) announced a loss of 76.5 million acres forest cover, which indicates a nearly 50 percent spike in the deforestation curve.

Statistics of India are not telling a different story too. The per capita forest area in India is only 0.064 ha against the world average of 0.64 ha i.e. only one-tenth of the world average. After losing 29000 Sq. Km of large forests over the last 30 years, now Indian forest comprise only 2 percent (72.6 million ha) of the world forest area (FOA 2020). Nearly 0.15 million hectares of the land surface in India are turning barren every year due to deforestation (an avg of 2001-2010).

As a result of deforestation, the global mean temperature continues to increase, soils frozen for thousands of years (called permafrost) will release new viruses and bacteria trapped in them. The sudden changes in temperature and increased number of extreme weather events provide an ideal breeding ground conducive to virus manifestation and the emergence of infectious disease (Ref: Divecha Centre for Climate Change, Indian Institute of Science (IISc))

Deforestation and over-grazing have been causing tremendous land erosion and landslides. Deforestation has a major impact on the productivity of our croplands too. In the northeast region of India, only rainfall has declined 100-200 mm in summer monsoon due to loss of 20 % forest cover over the last 8 years.

2018, UN’s chiefs of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), development, and agriculture made a joint statement saying “Stopping deforestation and restoring damaged forests could provide up to 30 percent of the climate solution.”

‘Green Is Future’ has taken up 3 major actions

• Rejuvenate the community connection with tree and entire nature
• Create a shield against deforestation by developing awareness
• Plant native trees and help nature to regrow and restore its biodiversity

A fully grown tree inhales around 20.3 kgs of CO2 in a year and exhales enough oxygen for a family of four for a year.

RockyFeet Explorations & RockyFeet foundation has declared its goal towards a green future,

• RockyFeet Exploration is committed to planting 2 trees for each traveler who traveled with us.
• RockyFeet education will associate ‘Green is Future’ with every educational program 
• RockyFeet Conservation has declared a target of min. 500 tree plantation for our environmental year 2020 -2021 

• We will only plant trees native to the region. A diversity of plants will be kept in the list to support the entire ecosystem of nature.
• Trees are getting planted in the form of saplings or Seedlings.
• We are also using seed balls to increase green cover.
•  Also, we are distributing seeds to village households impacted by Corona and Amphan, to encourage them to grow their own food as a long term sustainable practice.
• In the case of Sundarbans among many native plants, mangrove plantation will have a priority with the objective of human habitat protection for the future from cyclonic disasters like Amphan.

The technique for creating seed balls was revived by Japanese natural farming pioneer Masanobu Fukuoka. The technique was also used, for instance, in ancient Egypt to repair farms after the annual spring flooding of the Nile.

We will use seed balls too for increasing green cover, considering the feasibility of plantation, soil, and climatic conditions.

No fence can protect a plant better than the love and care of the community.

Engaging the local community for every plantation drive is one of the core objectives of our initiatives. As a part of it, we are identifying foster parent for every plantation drive.  Foster parents will take care and update us on the health of trees planted.  We will extend support as required.

We are ready to plant trees everywhere. Regions with the impact of deforestation will be in priority.  You can suggest to us and share information about the area where you think a plantation drive can amazing.

‘Green is future’ is an ongoing program. Currently, in this phase I of 2020, we are planned to plant 1000+ saplings in 3 regions,

1. Sundarbans
2. Bankura
3. Purulia

We will pick up other locations in the next phases.

• West Bengal Forest Department
• RockyFeet Exploration Travellers family, who have contributed to the tree plantation by traveling with us.
• All of you contributed to our sapling and seedling fund.

• Download Bankura Segunsara Jun, 2020