#GoodNews: Man Quits Business In Dubai To Nurture Forest In India
Abdul Kareem left behind his business in Dubai and came back to India in 1977 to pursue his rather unusual dream.
advertisement
Kareem was a little boy when he watched huge fires engulf the hilltops from his small house. In the impact, even tall trees fell to the ground.
Young Kareem did not quite like the sight of burnt twigs and branches, fallen trees and charred little creatures. He asked his mother who set the hill on fire?
As he grew up, he realised that it was the age-old agricultural practice of slash and burn. As a young boy, he wondered if plants ever felt the pain of the burns like we do.
Kareem grew up in a small village called Kottappuram near Kasaragod in north Kerala. During his school days, Kareem spent most of his lunch time in a sacred grove nearby, especially when he had nothing to fill his stomach. He was fascinated by the thick, dark green woods.
Little did he know that one day, he would create his own patch of green and lush woods.
How It All Started
In the 1970s, Kareem left for the Gulf in search of an opportunity to make some money for himself. In his early 20s at that time, he sensed he could have a stable family life if he was ready to work himself to the bone. He did many odd jobs to keep going, once even working as a ticket agent. Soon, he had made a considerable fortune for himself.
It was from Dubai that Kareem got the idea to create a forest.
Kareem left his flourishing business and came back to Kerala with an unusual dream. In 1977, he bought five acres of land from his neighbours for Rs 3,750. And then he did what his family and friends thought was insane. He went about creating a forest in his land.
Well, the locals scoffed at Kareem’s dream for a well-justified reason. Kasaragod’s terrain is sloping and made up of hard rocks, mostly laterite. The rocky surface had left the land barren and here was a man who wanted to create a forest on it.
A Humongous Task
Kareem’s first challenge was to get the locals to support him for labour requirements. He soon noticed looming unemployment and poverty in the area, and decided to employ locals to plant saplings and till the land. He paid them in cash and this helped them fight poverty.
Thus, amidst creating a forest, Kareem grew to be a lovable personality in the area who also paved the way for local development. He brought electricity and roads to the otherwise backward area. He even urged locals to send their children to school.
All this meant that most of the hard-earned fortune from his business was now fast disappearing.
Kareem with his army of men and women tilled the land and planted many saplings. Initially, water had to be carried from miles away to nurture the plants.
Kareem and his people soon decide to dig a well in his land. The effort proved to be futile. There was no water, but they continued to plant saplings and fetch water from far away.
Much to his surprise and the people’s joy, in a year’s time, they found water springs gushing out from the rocky land.
But their happiness was short-lived. About a year later, Kareem’s dream turned into ashes when his forest caught fire. The flames spared almost nothing in their path, leaving the land barren once again.
Since then Kareem did not look back; his dream started to bloom like never before. He expanded his land from time to time, and today, he is the proud owner of 28 acres of forest. And he lives in his own deep dark woods.
An Oasis In The Summers
Kareem has been living in his forest for four decades now.
One of the hottest places in the state, Kasaragod often suffers drastic water scarcity through the summers. This despite receiving an average of 3,300 mm of rainfall annually. The highly porous nature of laterite lets rain water escape as sub-surface flow, badly affecting the crops and drinking water availability during summers. A delay in the monsoon or a deficit of summer showers leaves farmers and residents in Kasaragod drought-stricken.
Kareem’s forest now produces hundreds of liters of water, saving an entire village from severe drought during summers. Many villagers and families take water from Kareem’s land for irrigational and household purposes. All for free.
Kareem also takes classes on conservation of forests in many schools in the state. He doesn’t ask for any remuneration and invites children to visit his woods.
To honour Kareem, the Govt of Kerala in 2005 decided to add a chapter on Kareem and his forest for the Class 6 Malayalam textbook. Recently, the CBSE has also decided to include Kareem’s forest as a chapter in the Class 4 syllabus in the coming academic year.
Kareem has received many awards in the past years.
Trinity College, Connecticut, USA once visited Kareem’s forest to study the relationship between plants and religion. Every year, thousands of students, environmentalists and scientists visit Kareem to discuss environmental protection, energy conservation, clean energy and climate change.
Kareem was also honoured in 1998 by the Kerala Forest Research Institute for his outstanding contribution to forestry.
Kareem urges people to help conserve existing forests before they too disappear.
This article has been published in an arrangement with The News Minute.
(Breathe In, Breathe Out: Are you finding it tough to breathe polluted air? Join hands with FIT to find #PollutionKaSolution. Send in your suggestions to fit@thequint.com or WhatsApp @ +919999008335)
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)