Threat of global warming and carbon footprints may all be just environmental hogwash for most of us. SankalpTaru thinks otherwise and is laying the ground for a greener planet in most difficult terrains yoking technology and people together.
A visit to Talupula, a village in perennially drought-hit Anantapur will you take you by surprise. The village lies like a green oasis in the middle of a vast desert, with cool breeze blowing throught the hot days and murmurings of thick foliages all around. Fruit bearing trees including mango, sapota, guava and jamun, medicinal plants like amla and neem and fodder producing plants including subabool, glesiridia and sesbania grow all around the village. The credit for this green island goes to Apurva Bhandari, founder, SankalpTaru, an NGO that yokes a patented online platform powered by GPS and social technologies to nature enabling people to plant trees from anywhere in the world at any location of their desire.
It was at the time of ‘planetary emergency’, when global warming was being recognised as the defining issue of our era that SankalpTaru Foundation came into being. Its mission was to empower the global public to protect our planet. Over time, SankalpTaru Foundation has evolved into an organisation of strength that nurses the environment.
Rainfall, like any other village in Anantapur and surrounding districts, is scanty in Talupula too. The people, mostly poor landowners, face drought or near draught-like situation often, leading to heavy losses for them. Consequently, the nature’s unrelenting onslaught has led to frustration and suicides among the farming communities here. It was such a scenario that SankalpTaru and Green Tree Foundation jointly worked out an action plan to bring collective benefits to Talupula.
The work was not easy though. The villagers were faced with many challenges, the major one being wind erosion. Since the westerly winds that blow across the district are strong, it contributes to a very high rate of soil erosion. Estimated soil loss due to erosion in the entire Anantapur district is around 91.7 lakh tonne per annum.
But the team behind SankalpTaru was not easily daunted. Bhabdari for one, born and brought up in Uttarakhand Himalayas, is not new to natural adversities. With a motto “Together we are all part of the same forest,” the team got cracking and with their innovative technology and farming techniques helped the villagers of barren lands plant greenery all around.
SankalpTaru started the villagers working towards adding trees and green vegetation to prevent soil erosion. New wind arrester plantation technique was used to prevent crop and soil from being depleted away. Since the area did not have sufficient water and nutrient retention, trees were planted around the fields to help improving moisture content and reducing water loss from evaporation.
Agro-forestry technique was used wherein Sesbania saplings were planted amidst crops. Leaves shed by these plants act as compost and also stabilise NPK (nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium) composition of the soil; hence resulting in improved land productivity. By developing water harvesting system and judiciously using borewell water ensured continuous irrigation source to planted trees.
Bhandari, the brain behind the project, was always inclined towards giving back to society and Mother Nature. After working for around 10 years in the corporate sector, he decided to go back to roots and took up this noble initiative for a cleaner, greener and a better planet by founding SankalpTaru, an entrepreneurial venture that building loyal followers.
The concept on which Bhandari founded is Green Planet dream was novel–virtual planting of trees—and clicked. “In a world when everyone is busy in their lives and miss out significant things in life, the concept came as blessing. SankalpTaru realised the helplessness of the people who want to do good things and created an online outlet, a platform, for such philanthropists and nature lovers to have their green run.
Through SankalpTaru, one can plant, gift or tag a sapling virtually, and the outfit will plant it on-ground for them. Every planter gets a picture of the tree he planted, and even gets to see where the tree is planted through a GPS satellite. “This helps us in maintaining transparency with the users,” says Bhandari.
Talupula, Anantpur, project is a drought affected region after Jaisalmer (Rajasthan). Here many tribal villagers were jobless. “Initially when SankalpTaru introduced project—Green Deccan here, people had apprehensions about our reasons for taking up such an initiative in their village. It was only when we sensitised the farmers about how and why this project would benefit them, that they accepted it,” says Bhandari.
SankalpTaru is an initiative to boost the morale of the farmers. It has donated mango and orange orchards for farmers in Talupula. Not only this, the organisation has also provided agricultural tools and irrigation facilities to farmers. “The farmers now have a source of income that comes from maintaining their green belt in Deccan,” says Bhandari. Rightly so, you agree after a visit to the green island of Talupula.
About other projects, Bhandari says, “Till now we have five project sites running in India including Talupula (Anantpur) Nijmula Village (Chamoli, Uttrakhand), Bagepalli (Chikaballapur, Karnataka), Sambhaji lake (Solapur, Maharashtra) and Barmer (Rajasthan). The unique model of SankalpTaru defines the need of each region through varied projects. Every region where SankalpTaru has its project has a different needs to cater to, thus, each site has its own theme.” Sankalp- Taru has planted 101,080 trees across India and empowered thousands of villagers, in a span of two years.
“SankalpTaru is amongst the first NGOs working and planting trees across the length and breadth of India, that is from the deserts of Leh, Ladakh in Jammu and Kashmir to the deserts of Thar in Rajasthan, landslide prone areas of Uttarakhand Himalayas to drought affected regions in Andhra Pradesh, along the seashore of Arabian Sea, regions in Maharashtra and now to, Chennai in Tamil Nadu,” says Bhandari. It symbolises the readiness of people everywhere to work to protect our collective home,” he adds.
The organisaton believes in taking the initiative to the youth who undoubtedly are the best brand ambassadors of any social initiative. It has adopted various schools across India including many government schools under its ‘Clean and Green Schools’ project where the SankalpTaru foundation plants trees inside the school compound.
The foundation creates environmental awareness among students and teachers by forming eco-clubs, conducting events and quiz shows. It has developed around 500 green schools till date in states of Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, Leh Ladakh (Jammu & Kashmir) and Andhra Pradesh.
It’s time we ‘clicked’ with such initiatives and took a sankalp (pledge) to extend this green cover across the globe.