[Scpg] S. India planting trees to save its land and people

[LBUZZELL at aol.com]

_http://www.resurgence.org/magazine/article2886-Project-Greenhands.html_ 
(http://www.resurgence.org/magazine/article2886-Project-Greenhands.html) 
 
 
Project Greenhands
Clare Dakin explores the tree-based revolution of Tamil  Nadu.
When faced with the collective challenges of climate change, financial  
instability, energy, water and soil scarcity, poverty, malnutrition and  
ever-increasing numbers of environmental refugees, it can be difficult to  
envision the scale of interventions needed to address these issues. Project  
GreenHands (PGH) is an initiative that aims to resolve some of these concerns on  
a large yet appropriate scale. Through the auspices of the Isha Foundation, 
PGH  has enabled over a million volunteers to plant 7.1 million indigenous 
trees in  Tamil Nadu, southern India during the last four years, aiming to 
increase the  tree cover of the entire state back to its original 33% within 
ten years through  mass people-participation and the planting of a further 
114 million trees. 
The project is a direct response to increasing desertification in Tamil 
Nadu  due to over-industrialised farming, climate instability and the 
degradation and  suffering of an increasingly poor and marginalised rural people. 
At the core of the PGH strategy is the belief that social transformation is 
 fundamental to environmental transformation and vice versa, and this is 
achieved  by educating local people about the multiple benefits of trees, and 
then giving  free saplings to those who have pledged to care for them for 
two years. In India  trees can grow between five and twenty feet in a year, 
providing access to fresh  fruits that can reverse malnutrition. Trees provide 
free medicines and shade,  fodder for the cattle, green manure for the 
fields, fuels and  fencing.
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