They say the second half of the year is all about making new connections. I say, hell yeah! Every day of the year is all about meeting new people and gaining insightful perspectives. Last month, I had the good fortune of E-meeting the charismatic and environment-loving Bremley Lyngdoh; the founder and magic-maker at the Worldview Impact Foundation, a super NGO that aims at afforestation and reforestation as a way to save our dear, lovely, old and always blue planet Earth.
While we sipped our afternoon coffees on either side of the screen, there was so much I learned about how trees hold absolute impact over our livelihoods and the simple fact that we get to live ‘one more day’ every day. Here’s a quick peek into our little question-answer session, while you sip your morning tea!
A: What was the thought behind starting Worldview Impact Foundation?
B: So, before I went to study in the United Kingdom, I met an amazing mentor with great intuition; he was a Norwegian who led the democratic party of Norway and was a journalist back in the 60s. I met him at a UN meeting on the Right to Development for Indigenous people and their work back in 1999. I travelled with him all over Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal before heading to the US to study environmental policies and then at LSE to study agriculture and forestry.
When I came back to India, to Meghalaya, I saw that the SC had put a ban on logging and was targeting villagers for it. I began a movement to induce the habit of reforestation and agriculture and began by helping villages plant guava, pineapple and papaya trees. Since 2009, I have been working with communities in Eastern India to grow and cross breed fir trees, pineapples, papaya, banana and other citrusy fruits.
When Mohit and Gouri got in touch with me, I was so happy because we decided to begin our journey together with temperate trees like plums, pears, kiwis and integrating them with cauliflower, lettuce, tomatoes and chillies. Permaculture and regenerative agricultural techniques created jobs for the villages, so that they do not have to go into cities and ruin their lives with slogging, bad habits and being away from their families. Here, we teach them to be self-sustaining and helping build a business out of their plantations.
With Mohit, we have a target of planting at least 50, 000 trees all over India, starting from Meghalaya. And I hope to reach that target sooner and sooner!
A: What has been your life’s journey so far?
B: Over more than a decade, I have been working on creating presentations and pitches to various governments and foundations, in an effort to make them realise the important of reforestation, afforestation and agriculture. So far, we have planted 17 million trees in South East Asia just after the Burmese government opened up to us. The goal is to reach a number of at least 1 billion trees being planted in South East Asia.
As of now, we have completed and are continuing a large-scale mangrove restoration in the Delta region of Myanmar!
A: What inspired you to look into climate change? There are concerns all over the world for basic animal welfare and humanity, so why this?
B: Have you ever wondered how much planting one tree offers to our environment and our ecosystem? No? One mangrove tree which is as cheap as 1 dollar provides almost 100 dollars of total ecosystem services; not just carbon footprint, but flood control, water flow control, storm defence, tide regulation, oxygen production, water vapour production, fish stock recharge, medicinal purposes, and so much more. Imagine this.
In Bombay if you cut down your mangroves to build your bullet train, then you will be losing 100 dollars of ecosystem value per tree per year. Multiply that and you will be amazed at the loss the city will face just for some urbanization.
So this explains how planting trees is just as essential as other environmental issues.
A: How old is the organization? What have you achieved so far?
B: I finished my research work at the London School of Economics in 2007, so we started our operations concretely in 2008. Africa, Latin America, India, South East Asia; these were the countries we worked with closely initially. We trained them entirely and then worked closely with institutions as well as governments to grant them aids and support.
We also worked closely with the European Commission to build exchange programs for young entrepreneurs across Europe to build incubators, focus on social entrepreneurship and environment entrepreneurship. We also engage at policy level with European legislators to work on policies that help aid the environment, oceans, land and other multiple ecosystems.
A: When would you say WIF has achieved its goals?
B: There will never be a completion of our goals until the world is new again. By 2030, I hope to have planted a billion trees, our entire organization would be ecstatic. There are 17 Sustainable goals that the UN has set for the governments of every country and we are trying hard to help them reach it, in whatever little way we can. Of course, COVID has derailed these plans quite a lot, but we will always strive to complete these goals, despite having less than 10 years left to achieve them!
A: Are you planning to expand operations into other areas that need support?
B: As of now, in Khasi, we have managed to create a wonderful model of farmers that have been able to practice 100% organic permaculture and with a bundle of farms and replications, in other areas, we will be able to link them to their own food production and cater to various social communities too!
We also want to bring in the concept of agro-tourism in a big way, so that when people visit, they can see how villages and farmers are soon going to be self-sustaining!
A: How many countries do you service as of now? How many do you want to cover 10 years from now?
B: When I was in the US studying in Columbia, I began engaging young students and led the Global Youth Service, and began planting trees slowly in neighbouring states from 25 to 75 to 200 trees and so on. As of now, we service 175 countries and if all our farmers switch to regenerative farming, then our entire planet will be brand new again, our soil will be perfect again!
A: Is there scope for children to learn at your organization?
B: In Myanmar, we try to engage the village children to plant and take care of their own mangroves, and their winning prizes are usually solar lamps, because lighting and electricity is a major issue in the area. So, they keep crossing goals, maintaining their mangroves and keep winning solar lamps so that they are able to play, study and conduct other activities with ease!
So, while I ponder over how my favourite fruits are being planted in the far east of India, I also keep on thinking about how plants play such a major role in our lives. Imagine a world without soil, without forests and without any clean air. You would die, I would die, no one would be alive. The world is evolving. Are you?
Written By Anisha Masand
Week 45, November ’20
