A little over 30 years ago, a teenager in India began burying seeds along a barren sandbar near his birthplace to grow a refuge for wildlife.
“The snakes died in the heat, without any tree cover. I sat down and wept over their lifeless forms. I alerted the forest department and asked them if they could grow trees there,” he told the Times of India. “They said nothing would grow there. Instead, they asked me to try growing bamboo.”
Jadav “Molai” Payeng decided to dedicate his life to this endeavor, so he moved to the site where he could work full-time creating a lush new forest ecosystem. Incredibly, the spot today hosts a sprawling 1,360 acre of jungle that Payeng planted single-handedly.
(READ the story — where else? –Treehugger!)