{"id":60124990,"date":"2026-03-26T16:14:23","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T16:14:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/?p=60124990"},"modified":"2026-03-26T23:46:42","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T23:46:42","slug":"in-indias-thar-desert-trees-are-raised-as-family","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/forests\/in-indias-thar-desert-trees-are-raised-as-family\/","title":{"rendered":"In India\u2019s Thar Desert, trees are raised as family"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Anni Devi is beaming. At her home in Manafarsar, a village in north-western India\u2019s Thar desert, the 82-year-old welcomes her grandson\u2019s new wife as well as another new member of the household: an 18-inch sapling of jamun, the Indian blackberry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The tree arrives draped in a red veil. The newlyweds carry it to the backyard, pour sacred water into the soil and press it into the sand, as relatives chant and scatter petals. \u201cMay you be prosperous and beget many fruits and children,\u201d Devi says, blessing all three. The bride and the jamun join a growing \u201cgreen family\u201d \u2013 neem, guava, moringa, mulberry, Indian rosewood and Indian beech. Each planted on an auspicious day, each treated as kin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Across 18,000 villages in the Thar, close to two million families are now raising what they call their \u201cgreen sons and daughters\u201d. The idea is simple: if a tree is adopted as a family member, it will not be abandoned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The concept was seeded in the early 2000s by Shyam Sunder Jyani, a sociology professor who was trying to save a row of wilting neem trees on his college campus in the Bikaner district of Rajasthan state. What unsettled him when he set out to restore them, he says, was the indifference \u2013 \u201cthe apathy of the so-called \u2018educated elite\u2019\u201d despite practicing rituals of tree and nature worship in their daily lives, Jyani tells Dialogue Earth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So instead of framing his interventions as conservation, he began characterising them as familial. With students and villagers, Jyani created the first \u201cgreen family\u201d, linking saplings to households rather than to official programmes. The shift was cultural before it was ecological.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two decades on, more than five million trees have been planted across over 4,000 hectares, in a concept known as familial forestry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hanuman Ram Chaudhary, the chief conservator of forests in Bikaner, says that when patches of familial forests are nurtured, they develop into sustainable, viable habitats for native species. \u201cFamilial forestry has also [significantly] contributed to the increase in \u2018Trees Outside Forest\u2019 area in the state,\u201d Chaudhary tells Dialogue Earth, referring to trees planted outside all wooded areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
\n
\"A<\/div>
Local community members and village elders raise their adopted green \u201cfamily members\u201d at a gathering near the Dabla Talab (reservoir) in Bikaner (Image: Deepak Bhambhu)<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n
\"A<\/div>
Shyam Sunder Jyani walks through the vegetation of the Dabla Talab, grown as a result of the planting efforts of villagers in the surrounding area (Image: Deepak Bhambhu)<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Reports from the Forest Survey of India show that Rajasthan\u2019s Trees Outside Forest area rose from 8,272 square kilometres in 2011 to 10,841 in 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But statistics only tell part of the story. In pockets of the Thar, farmers and educators say the landscape feels different. There has been more green, more shade, and a shift in how communities relate to the land beneath their feet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reviving the land<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFamilial forestry is about the holistic healing of ecosystems by nurturing their health and strengthening the interdependence between habitats, flora, fauna and local communities,\u201d Jyani says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A recipient of the 2021 Land for Life Award<\/a> from the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, Jyani began the initiative in 2006 with 120 households in Himtasar village, near Bikaner city. Carrying the message of \u201cone family, one tree\u201d, he distributed native saplings: Indian mesquite, valued for its fodder and sangri pods<\/a>; rohida (desert teak), prized for its durable wood; and fruit trees such as jujube.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Initially, the undertaking was met with scepticism. Many wondered how trees could grow on desert sand. \u201cThis was a myth we dispelled through the traditional wisdom of local elders in desert ecology,\u201d Jyani explains, adding that he leant on the knowledge systems of village elders who helped identify native grasses and species suited to the terrain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThese days we exploit nature and deplete her resources, but here was someone who wanted to replenish the earth by creating multiple green families,\u201d says 67-year-old Bahadurmal Siddh, who became a key volunteer in the movement. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Siddh now oversees around seven acres of familial forest on community land. \u201cThe secret to rejuvenating such ecosystems lies in first establishing a perennial cover of drought-tolerant native grasses,\u201d he explains. Grass species such as sewan, dhaman (buffel grass) and karad (marvel grass) bind the soil with fibrous roots, prevent erosion and conserve moisture. As they grow and decay, they enrich the soil, creating a good base for seeds and saplings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis culturally rooted, community-led model of sustainable conservation is restoring degraded desert land and native biodiversity, integrating environmental care with traditional practices and everyday life,\u201d says Prabhu Dan Charan, assistant professor in the Department of Environmental Science at Maharaja Ganga Singh University in Bikaner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe can now depend on agriculture as a sustainable source of livelihood,\u201d says Onkarnath Yogi, a farmer from Lunkaransar village in Bikaner. \u201cSimultaneously, the fruits, fodder and medicinal plants from our backyard\u2026 are supplementing our nutrition and wellbeing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Women\u2019s participation<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

If familial forestry is reshaping the microclimate, it is also altering social realities, particularly for women long confined to the margins of public life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rajasthan has had a long history of gender inequality and the marginalisation of women, with customs such as child marriage and purdah<\/em><\/a> (the veiling of women) still prevalent in many rural areas. \u201cFor [women], even visiting cremation grounds was a taboo,\u201d said Kavita Jyani, a co-founder of the movement and spouse of Shyam Sundar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
\n
\"A<\/div>
Women carry pots of water with which to plant their new \u201cgreen family members\u201d on 17 June, the World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought, in the village of Bharpalsar (Image: Deepak Choudhary)<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n
\"A<\/div>
The women of Lunkaransar village play a key role in the area\u2019s familial forestry efforts by nurturing saplings and sustaining nurseries (Image: Devender Jakhar)<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

She remembers arriving at a familial forestry programme in 2016 with her two daughters, to find not one other woman present. \u201cBut as we continued to participate, it encouraged other women to step out and begin breaking social barriers,\u201d she tells Dialogue Earth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The purpose of the movement, Kavita Jyani says, was not only to combat desertification, but also to address malnutrition especially among women and children<\/a>, and to enhance food security through planting of fruit trees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, women lead rituals such as Familial Forestry Day on 4 August. Saplings are offered at Hindu temples, distributed as roonkh prasad<\/em> \u2013 a blessed offering that households take home as a new family member. During Vriksh Raksha Bandhan<\/a> \u2013 the green adaptation of the Hindu ritual, with vriksh<\/em> meaning \u201ctree\u201d in Sanskrit \u2013 women tie sacred threads called rakhi<\/em> around trees, which they would ordinarily bind around the wrists of their brothers, pledging lifelong protection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These rituals have also built a funding base. Since 2019, around 100,000 volunteers have pledged to contribute one rupee every day under Roonkh Reet (\u201ccustom for saplings\u201d in Marwari, a Rajasthani dialect). Through Lili Laag (\u201cgreen responsibility\u201d), families donate during festivals and significant occasions. Jyani notes that the movement has come a long way from its early days, when it relied largely on his salary and small contributions from friends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The trees are grown on private farms and in courtyards, but also in schools and public institutions. The familial forestry initiative team work with the institutions to identify suitable land for the trees to be cultivated. Students, teachers and staff then adopt the trees, taking personal responsibility for their care as extended \u201cfamily members\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What began as just a few neem trees on Jyani\u2019s six-hectare college campus has grown into the Gandhi Institutional Forest, which he estimates as formed of more than 3,000 trees spanning about 90 native and other species. Across the Thar, over 200 such institutional forests now stand, tended to by students and staff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018A paradise of nature\u2019<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps the most visible example of familial forestry can be found at Dabla Talab, an 84-hectare reservoir and catchment once ravaged by three decades of gypsum mining. The reservoir had dried up after mining cut 20 to 30 feet into its gypsum-rich basin, notes Bhagirath Motsara, a village elder from nearby Uttamdesar who is also involved in familial forestry. Dabla Talab is revered locally as the site where Baba Jasnath<\/a> \u2013 a medieval saint whose followers, the Jasnathis, still live in the region \u2013 was found as a newborn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In June 2022, Jyani, backed by the district administration and local communities, embarked on a 4,500-kilometre protest yatra<\/em> (procession) against the mining ecosystem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two months later, with the support of villagers from surrounding areas, he began planting native vegetation around the reservoir. For this effort, \u201cI received death threats through intimidatory calls and messages\u201d, recalls Jyani. Local media reported that Jyani and key members of the movement were met with lawsuits from individuals accusing them of encroaching on the land, with the cases later dismissed by the court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To expand the planting effort, Jyani enlisted the help of more than 100 villages surrounding Dabla Talab. The sacred site was fenced off, and a more intensive restoration began. Today, over 50 varieties of native plants and grasses grow across the revived landscape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDabla today is a paradise of nature,\u201d says Pratap Singh Kataria, head of the zoology department at Government Dungar College in Bikaner. Wildlife has returned: there are jirds, jungle cats, as well as lizards and foxes. Dialogue Earth noted birds like long-billed vultures, Eurasian collared doves and peafowl circling above several restored waterholes. \u201cThe landscape now supports a complete web of life that sustains the thriving species,\u201d Kataria notes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
\n
\"Man<\/div>
The 84-hectare Dabla Talab and its catchment area in April 2022. The reservoir had been degraded by illegal gypsum mining over the preceding three decades (Image: Mansukh)<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n
\"Aerial<\/div>
Dabla Talab and its catchment area in September 2025. Wildlife has returned, with animals such as jungle cats, jirds and various bird species observed (Image: Deepak Bhambhu)<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

To sustain the wider familial forestry movement, six public nurseries \u2013 each raising between 40,000 and 60,000 saplings \u2013 and 115 seasonal nurseries distribute trees free of cost. While most saplings are grown locally, some are sourced from government and private suppliers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But challenges remain. Jyani points to the need for sustained funding, greater awareness, a steady supply of saplings as well as continued threats from mining interests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet he measures success differently: \u201cFrom conservation to conversation \u2013 where families dissolve differences over the exchange of saplings and share a sense of belonging.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the Thar, trees rise from the desert sand, growing in courtyards, besides wells and on community land. They have been carried tenderly, planted and raised as family.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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