Prakriti Vana- A Forest dedicated to Nature

Prakriti Vana (Nature’s Forest) is an idea to develop a forest dedicated to “Nature”- “Prakriti”. 

A place where we Humans shall not enter. It is a place for all living beings – besides Humans. It is a place where birds and animals can move and live freely. In ancient India, it was also called ‘Deva Vana’- God’s Forest.

To feed our stomach we have destroyed the forest and doing farming. To have a good shelter we have destroyed the forest. This is the same forest where birds and animals live and feed upon. We, humans, have destroyed the forests and made a place where we HUMANS can live comfortably. But in this process, we have destroyed the place where other living beings very much necessary for our co-existence like animals and birds are getting extinct. So, now we must take care of the forest along with animals and birds. This earth is beautiful because of all of us and not just because of us.

Now is not the time to plant just trees but to plant forests. And Dr Akira Miyawaki (a Japanese Botanist) studied nature (Forest) and indigenous and native trees for more than 30 years and develop a method where we can grow a forest with great biodiversity in a sustainable way. And that too in a very short time.

The Miyawaki Method consists of “native forests by native trees” produces a rich, dense and efficient protective forest in 20 to 30 years, where natural succession would need 200 years in temperate zones or 300 to 500 years in the tropic zones. He discovered that the world’s dense forest has 3000-5000 plants in 1000 sq ft area. Means, 3-5 plants per square feet. So, similarly, we can develop a forest by planting 300-500 trees randomly in 1000 sqft. Such forest develops rich flora and fauna.

This method has been successfully implemented in different parts of the world. Within a few years the forest becomes self-sustainable, means we don’t need to water them for a long period of time.

An article was published in newspaper Washington Post in the year 2015, a study from Nature. Nature is an English multidisciplinary scientific journal and is one of the world’s most respected scientific journal. It says that India has just 28 trees per person and the highest is was found in Canada which is 8,953 trees per person. India has 11,109 trees per sq km and Finland has 72,644 trees per sq km.

In the year 2014, only 3 of 74 Chinese cities meet air quality standard. In the year 2015, just 21% of 338 major cities had bad air quality that surpassed the national standards.

In China, they have set up Oxygen Stations across the country, so city dwellers can escape the smog. Visitors are given oxygen masks, so they can breathe the fresh country air. Air is sourced from the beautiful Laojun Mountains in Luanchuan county.

There are companies which are selling fresh Air Bottles in China captured from the top of the mountains. And the price of those air bottles is 50 times more expensive than a bottle of mineral water in China.

In a report published in 2017 by Greenpeace India, it says that Air pollution causes 12 lakh deaths in India annually. Delhi is said to be India’s most polluted city.

State Pollution Control Board assess the air quality across India. The assessments of 168 cities across 24 states and union territories say that none of 168 cities assessed complies with air quality standards prescribed by the World Health Organization (WHO).

Miyawaki forests are no substitute for natural forests. This should not be used to justify the cutting of trees and forests. Natural forests have certain qualities of a rich ecosystem. Natural forests are very dense with rich flora and fauna, a complex ecosystem. Nothing can replace them immediately, but these plantations can supplement and complement the Natural Forests. Old forests are millions of years old and they can never be replaced.

Prakriti Vana, Nature’s Forest is an effort to create more forests and not to replace the one which we have.

Now is the time to seriously think and take proactive actions towards a sustainable and better future. If we keep behaving the same old way of destroying and polluting nature, we may have unpleasant destruction and death sooner than expected. And these things could easily change if even take small steps like planting a seed or sapling and making sure it turns into a tree. By making sure that we are growing and giving more to Nature then what we are consuming from Nature.

We need to plant forests which would be our ‘Oxygen Parks’ and will make this world a better and beautiful place to live for our and coming generation. This is can be our greatest legacy to our children. So accordingly, on 12 July 2017 we planted a ‘Prakriti Vana,’ ‘Nature’s Forest’ a small forest in 1000 sqft by planting more than 25 varieties of 300+ indigenous, native trees along with trees which grows very well in this region at Homa Therapy Goshala, Maheshwar, Madhya Pradesh. Let us make this world a better place for us and our coming generations.