Padma Shri Jadav “Molai” Payeng (Assamese: যাদৱ পায়েং) (born 1963) is a Mishing tribe environmental activist and forestry worker from Jorhat, India.
CAREER
In 1979, Payeng, then 16, encountered a large number of snakes that had died due to extreme heat after floods washed them onto the tree-less sandbar. That is when he planted around twenty bamboo seedlings on the sandbar. He started working on the forest in 1979 when the social forestry division of Golaghat district began a scheme of tree plantation on 200 hectares at Aruna Chapori located at a distance of 5 km from Kokilamukh in Jorhat district. Molai was one of the laborers who worked in that scheme which was completed after five years. He chose to stay back after the achievement of the project even after other workers left. He not only looked after the plants, but continued to plant more trees on his own, in an effort to change the area into a forest.
The forest, which came to be known as Molai forest, now houses the following species
Bengal tigers,
Indian rhinoceros,
Over 100 deer and rabbits
Apes
Several varieties of birds
Large number of vultures
There are several thousand trees, which includes
valcol,
arjun (Terminalia arjuna),
ejar (Lagerstroemia speciosa),
goldmohur (Delonix regia),
koroi (Albizia procera),
moj (Archidendron bigeminum) and
himolu (Bombax ceiba).
Bamboo covers an area of over 300 hectares
A herd of around 100 elephants repeatedly visits the forest every year and generally stay for around six months. Molai is ready to manage the forest in a enhanced way and to go to other places of the state to start a similar venture. Now his aim is to spread his forest to another sand bar inside of Brahmaputra.
PERSONAL LIFE
Educated upto Class (X) at a local school, Jadav Payeng, now 54 years old. Jadav Payeng belongs to a tribe called “Mishing” in Assam, India. He lives in a small hut in the forest. Binita, his wife, and his 3 children (two sons and a daughter) accompany him. He has cattle and buffalo on his cattle farm and sells the milk for his living, which is his only resource of income.
HONOURS
In 2015, he was honored with Padma Shri, The fourth highest civilian award in India.
source: wikipedia.org
