The quiet acts that keep India’s forests alive

A few months ago, I received a phone call from a forest guard who had recently retired from service. He asked about my well-being, we exchanged a few words about his life after retirement, and I wished him well. The conversation brought back a memory from about four years ago, when he worked in the range where I was posted.

I remembered asking him about the rucksack he carried almost everywhere. Whether he was at the range office or heading out into the field, the rucksack was always with him. Curious, I asked him what he kept inside it.

He immediately opened it and began showing me what was inside. There were nails for repairing wooden fencing, a knife, a hammer, a lighter, a measuring tape and his lunch pack. Then he pulled out something I had not expected — a small packet of apricot seeds.

He told me that whenever he came across a suitable place in the forest, he would dibble some of the seeds into the soil. I was taken aback. A forest guard was carrying seeds with him — not as part of any task the Department had assigned to him, but because he wanted to see more trees growing in the forest. There was no target attached to it, nor any expectation that his efforts would be recorded or recognised.

The sight stayed with me. I was so impressed that I too began carrying tree seeds occasionally during my field visits, hoping to sow them wherever I found suitable spots. I could not, however, match his consistency. For him, it seemed to have become a natural part of his field routine.

Years later, another incident brought that memory back. Recently, a few young forest guards approached me with a request to depute some additional staff to a plantation closure (unit) for a day. A portion of its fencing had fallen and damaged, and they wanted to repair it so that cattle could not enter and damage the plantation.

It was their own suggestion. They had noticed the problem and wanted to attend to it. While arranging the additional staff, I came to know that these guards had themselves been sowing horse chestnut and walnut in and around the plantation. Their concern about the damaged fencing was therefore more than a routine maintenance issue. They did not want cattle to enter and damage the plants they had helped establish.

Forest guards spend much of their working lives in the field. They patrol their beats, keep watch over plantations, deal with grazing and other pressures, maintain forest infrastructure and respond to problems that arise on the ground. Because they repeatedly walk the same routes and observe the same areas, they often develop a detailed understanding of the condition of the forest.

Much of this knowledge does not make its way into a file or a progress report. A guard may notice a weak section of fencing, a patch of natural regeneration, signs of grazing or a place where a seed has a better chance of surviving. These observations may appear small, but they can be important for day-to-day forest protection.

What struck me about the two incidents was what the guards did with that awareness. The old guard carried apricot seeds with him and planted them whenever he found suitable places. The young guards noticed that a fence had deteriorated and repaired it themselves because they did not want the plants they had helped establish to be damaged.

Of course, repairing and maintaining departmental infrastructure is part of official responsibility. A damaged fence can be reported, a proposal can be prepared and the work can be sanctioned through the proper procedure. But there is a difference between carrying out a task because it has been assigned and taking an interest in something because you have begun to feel responsible for it.

This distinction is particularly relevant to plantations. Planting is only the first step. Young plants need protection from grazing and other pressures before they become established. For someone who has personally helped put those plants in the ground, a damaged fence is not simply a maintenance issue.

It becomes a problem worth solving. This kind of initiative is difficult to measure. A few apricot seeds will not transform a forest. Nor will one repaired stretch of fencing determine the success of a plantation. But forest protection is also made up of these small decisions by people who are present on the ground every day.

Formal systems, targets, inspections and reporting remain essential to forest management. They are necessary for managing large areas and numerous activities. But no system can instruct every person in the field to care about every tree, every patch of regeneration or every damaged fence. Some of that responsibility develops through experience and familiarity with the forest.

Perhaps that is one of the quiet strengths of frontline forest staff. Their repeated presence gives them a relationship with the landscape that is difficult to acquire from an office. When that familiarity is accompanied by initiative, routine field work can sometimes result in something more — a personal interest in what happens to the forest.

The retired guard’s rucksack taught me that four years ago. The young guards reminded me of it recently.

Neither incident was extraordinary in itself. A handful of seeds and a repaired stretch of fencing may seem insignificant in the larger scheme of forest management. But they reveal something important about the people working on the forest frontline: sometimes, their commitment extends beyond what they are formally required to do.

Such efforts may never receive formal recognition or appear in an official report. Yet they contribute to forest protection in ways that are difficult to quantify.

For those of us responsible for managing forests, perhaps this is one of the most encouraging things to see — not only staff who perform the duties assigned to them, but people who notice a problem, understand its implications and take the initiative to do something about it.

Views expressed are the author’s own and don’t necessarily reflect those of Down To Earth