Meet Janet Yegneswaran, A Bengaluru Woman Who Planted 73,000 Saplings In Memory Of Late Husband
June 5 marks World Environment Day Created by the United Nations to raise awareness of issues from air pollution to global warming. There are some who are setting a compelling example of this human-nature interaction. Meet 68-year-old Janet Yegneswaran from Bengaluru who is all set to the break the record for planting 75000 saplings single-handedly.
June 5 marks World Environment Day. Created by the United Nations to raise awareness of issues from air pollution to global warming. The climate today is unstable.
From extremely high temperatures, unreliable rains to a rise in sea levels, not one thing is going right when it comes to our climate. And humans are to blame for it.
But we can slowly begin to restore our climate if we start today. In the words of American environmentalist Aldo Leopold ¡°Conservation is a state of harmony between men and land¡±. There are some who are setting a compelling example of this human-nature interaction.
Meet 68-year-old Janet Yegneswaran from Bengaluru who is all set to the break the record for planting 75,000 saplings single-handedly, and all this, to honour the memory of her late husband.
According to Bengaluru Mirror, Janet Yegneswaran began the initiative back in 2005 soon after her husband, RS Yegneswaran, passed away. This tragic loss coincided with the time when Bengaluru was going through large scale tree felling in the name of development.
That¡¯s when Janet decided to turn things around. Instead of staging a protest, she headed into a more constructive direction and began a tree planting drive.
Janet first started planting trees in her own garden and gradually began to spread awareness among people around her. While some were open to the idea of planting and taking care of a sapling others were reluctant. But lack of support didn¡¯t dampen Janet¡¯s spirit.
She went on to plant trees all over Karnataka and parts of Tamil Nadu. When she first started the plantation drive, the money would mostly come out of her pocket, but today her initiative has gained such a large acceptance that she thrives on donations that are given by people.
Janet is also involved in planting trees to revive areas which have suffered destruction due to natural disasters. Her project named Thengaja involves planting 1,000 coconut saplings for the farmers affected by the Gaja cyclone.
Janet Yegneswaran who, studied landscape designing, has working knowledge of which areas to target for tree plantation and so her drive is extremely organised. She says that anyone who raises a request for tree plantation can get in touch, the only condition being they need to care for the plant and water it regularly.
Tree plantation on birthdays and many other important occasions is another beneficial factor. She told the daily, "a teenager approaches me everyday to plant 111 plant saplings on her birthday and her father contributes Rs 300 for the same."
Apart from this many corporate firms like KPGM and Nokia run paid plantation drives but when it comes to residents and farmers, plantation is mostly done free of cost.
Janet Yegneswaran took inspiration from 107-year-old environmentalist Saalumarada Thimmakka who was conferred with Padma Shri this year.
She is the oldest woman on the list for planting the 8,000 trees to fill the void that had been left after she realised she could not bear children. Thimmaka and her husband decided to plant trees from their village to the next village, while Thimmakka¡¯s husband passed away in 1991, she continues the initiative in his memory.
Meanwhile, Janet is inching closer to her goal of planting a total of 75,000 saplings in a few days.
