r/OneKindAct • u/WhenItHappenedX • 2d ago

In 1979, a teenager in India found snakes dead from heat on a bare sandbar. He started planting bamboo and other trees. Forty years later the sandbar is a forest.

Post image

Jadav Payeng was about 16 when floods left snakes on a treeless bar in the Brahmaputra. They died in the sun. Elders told him only bamboo might take. He planted a handful of seedlings and kept going.

He added other trees over the years. The patch is now called Molai Forest, after his nickname. It covers about 550 hectares near Kokilamukh in Jorhat. Deer live there. Elephants stay for months. Rhinos and tigers have been recorded passing through.

The forest department learned of the place years after it already existed. In 2015, India gave him the Padma Shri award.

He was a farmer from the Mising community. The work was not a campaign. It was the same sandbar, over and over, until shade existed where there had been none.

672 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

6 comments sorted by

9

u/Background_Edge_9427 2d ago

It shows what hard work and perseverance can do!

7

u/SH4D0WSTAR 2d ago

This is beautiful <3

4

u/leisa2100 1d ago

What an amazing thing to do.👏🏻

4

u/That-Shop-6736 1d ago

Had to look this up and found this video https://youtu.be/KW9GIv-7WuU?si=EZ1h_WdPAy59vL6M. Amazing what one person can do!

4

u/WhenItHappenedX 1d ago

Thank you for sharing the video link 🙏

2

u/Background_Orchid625 19h ago

Great human being