Former cricketer Virender Sehwag in a series of tweets has lauded India’s forest man Jadav Peyang. Peyang had been given the title of India’s Forest Man by former JNU vice-chancellor Sudhir Kumar Sopory. Peyang has single-handedly created a 1,360-acre forest, which incidentally is bigger than New York City’s Central Park, on a barren sandbar in the middle of the Brahmaputra. Peyang, who has been awarded India’s fourth highest civilian award, the Padma Shri, has been planting trees on the island since 1979. The forest man began planting trees on the desolate islands after he spotted many snakes which had been swept ashore but supposedly died as they could not find any shade due to the absence of trees on the island. Peyang, then approached forest officers seeking help but they asked him to plant trees himself. And he did, according to India Samvad and succeeded in creating this wonder of a forest .
Jadav’s island forest first came to the notice of authorities in 2008 when they were trying to track a herd of over 100 elephants which had vanished into the forest after damaging property in a nearby village. The forest department has been visiting the forest regularly ever since. The Assam government is very appreciative of Penyang’s work, as per the report.
You can watch a video on Jadav Peyang here
In his tweets, Sehwag said that he salutes the spirit of people like Payeng, who have sacrificed so much to save the environment.
Have you heard of this incredible man, Jadav Payeng ,the Forest Man of India ?
Almost 4 decades ago,as a teenager,he started planting Bamboo pic.twitter.com/JI7XxGfMLn— Virender Sehwag (@virendersehwag) July 2, 2017
Sehwag went on to add that the Padma awardee has single-handedly carved out a 1,360-acre forest which is home to many endangered species such as tigers and rhinoceros apart from other animals.
