Learn character from trees, values from roots, and change from leaves

What do you feel when you enter a forest?

For some, It’s just green, for some, it's leaves and trees, for others, it's a breathing soul, a window to another dimension. A forest has everything for each of us, trails of adventure, camping for an introverted soul, a feast for the eyes of a writer searching for that sublime inspiration. A forest greets you with the smell of damp moss, rain, and wet tree trunks. Mostly one feels like breathing for the first time in their life. 

Research has proved that just spending five hours per month in a forest can drastically improve one’s mental health! The declining forest cover around the world, under the garb of development, sends an alarming message making it mandatory to recheck our definitions regarding the same.

Nothing takes down a tree faster than a human being.

Forests absorb carbon from the atmosphere and store it in their trunks, roots, and soil. As we clear these forests we release all the carbon into the atmosphere which is now in dangerous amounts. Deforestation is a permanent destruction of the forest which can drastically impact the carbon cycle and the environment. Forests are crucial in regulating the earth's climate. There are many reasons for deforestation like logging fuel, wood, urban expansion, commercial agriculture, and so on. Amidst these endless causes, let’s try to find some doable and permanent solutions.

How can we save our forest and rewild our planet?

One of the ways is to use the forest carefully. The growing global population would need more wood. Wood is an excellent renewable resource. But natural forests are incapable of providing the wood that we need. So we have to FARM TREES just like other crops. It can help the locals and economists, these trees can be planted on existing cleared land so that it does not replace natural forest. These trees can be developed in degraded lands too.

There are countries where people plant millions of trees each year. Technology is a savior as it helps shoot seeds to far-off places. People have developed many indigenous groups that target planting and protecting trees and sponsoring trees and their upkeep.

An anecdote: Tree ordination

If you have ever traveled across the forests of Sri Lanka & Thailand, you must have seen orange-colored clothes tied to the trees. This is an initiative taken up by Buddhist sanghas and the locals of the given area. Upon seeing these trees marked in this way, the villagers respect this and leave the forest untouched.

These forests are also a refuge for the monks to practice their spiritual rituals. It also serves as a home for many tribal communities and other similar agricultural communities. So this has been a kind gesture by various people to preserve something they call ‘home’. 

Forests and ancestral knowledge:

The forest is the ultimate treasure trove for mental and physical healing, each grass in the forest sprouts with a purpose. Anything and everything you see in the forest is a solution to all the psychosomatic issues faced by us. Many of the primitive technologies that we see in the forest can give modern engineering and architecture a run.

Stressed by everyday work pressure? It is nothing when compared to the survival skills required for forest life. Just seeing trees over the windows and walking past trees on our way to work restores our mind and body. That is the magic of trees and when you are in a forest you can feel it. 

Go on breathe!!