Forest Man

 For over forty years, Jayadev Payeng has daily been planting a forest on the island of Majuli in the midst of the Brahmaputra river, in northeastern India.  Majuli Island is the largest river island in the world.  However, in the past 100 years the island has lost half its land mass to erosion.

This is the story of one man's endeavor to save this island.  By planting trees every day for decades, Jayadev Payeng has begun reversing the process and reclaiming lost land.  

If you've ever felt overwhelmed by the deforestation and plundering of the world, whether those forces were human greed, exploitation, and avarice -- or simply nature itself, such as monsoon flooding -- and you think there is nothing you can do to stem the tide, perhaps this story might inspire.  A single man took a simple step every day for forty years and rejuvenated a lost part of his world.  We may think him naive, but it's this very innocence that has allowed him to succeed.

The interview with him, and the specifics of his own story, begin about 5 minutes into this documentary, which was narrated by nature photographer and journalist Jitu Kalita, who discovered Jayadev's forest one day and who has helped bring his efforts before the public eye.