Environmentalist seeks God’s intervention to protect trees

An environment activist from Uttar Pradesh has adopted a unique way to prevent deforestation. Paragdutt Mishra from Uttar Pradesh's Gonda has taken the help of God to protect the trees in the forests. No matter how unique or weird his technique seems to be, Mishra has saved more than a thousand trees so far by adopting it. Paragdutt Mishra is the chief of Wazirganj development block's Nagwa Panchayat and an environment activist who loves trees. Mishra says, "Forests are drastically being damaged in the name of development and road extension. Villagers have no knowledge about climate change and ecological balance. But pictures of gods and goddesses on trees are successfully deterring people, who believe in god, from cutting them”. But how does he take help from god to save the trees? Simple! He carves out images of gods and goddesses on the trunks of trees and paints them with vermillion and this prevents the villagers from cutting them. Instead, the villagers have often started praying to the trees. He says, "I have made deities the patron of trees”. Mishra tells that the entire process of painting and carving a single tree costs him about Rs 200 which he pays out of his own pocket. "Almost all trees have been cut down that we planted after I became 'Pradhan' last time. It was a heavy loss, now taking help from almighty is proving beneficial. The forest was towards the end at our panchayat following the blind cutting of trees. But my trick worked and now we are blessed with the nature.  We have a population of 8,000 in our panchayat while the number of trees has been reached around 10,000. But people are desperate to cut them; hence, we have started this campaign", says Paragdutt Mishra.