Giant Trees for Climate Change Mitigation in India

Dear Supporters,

We would like to present some important work accomplished by our field team in the last quarter. Our team undertook field surveys to scan the forest landscapes of two villages namely Jawali and Sakhri spread over 1200 hectares in Mandangad block of Ratnagiri district. We have been working in this block for last 2 and half years for mangrove conservation and realized that healthy watershed forests play critical role in health and diversity of mangrove ecosystem. Surprisingly, our team could find only 41 giant trees that we will be saving through this campaign.

While we do hope to come across additional Giant trees in these villages, the initial findings provided clear evidence of significant degradation of once healthy and dense canopy forests in this region. Our field team walked long distances through large patches of secondary forests belonging to local communities before they could meet the giant trees tagged during the survey. 

Our long experience in forest conservation has taught us one important lesson- old growth forests and old growth trees from the region provide key insights into ecological history of the landscape and biodiversity the entire forest landscape used to support / boast of in the past. Thus old growth trees form important pillars of ecological restoration of forest landscape in our opinion. There are serveral reasons for this.

Besides facilitating regeneration of rare and endemic trees in the surrounding forests through dispersal by frugivorous birds who often roost on these giant trees, they provide critical habitat to honeybees who pollinate many wild trees, nesting cavities to many small and big birds who further the work dispersal in the coming years and help establish a healthy food web for plethora of species such as reptiles, amphibians, mammals, insects and ants. All these species contribute to restoration of biodiversity in the surrounding landscape in their unique way. We will share a seperate note on this important function of giant trees in the next quarter. 

Through your generous support and keen interest in this campaign, we have signed conservation agreements with 6 community members who own the 41 Giant trees to ensure their long term proection. The 41 giant trees comprised of 7 different native tree species. Interestingly majority among these trees are wild mango trees. Wild mango trees have become a rarity now as they are felled for their use as a timber. Besides supporting other biodiversity, the conservation of wild mangoes will also contribute to preserving diversity of mangoes itself. It is increasingly becoming clear that wild mangoes possess essential minerals that we can not get in processed mango juices of hybrid varities. In other words for healthy food, we will need to preserve wild mango trees. 

We are also sharing few photos of the trees, communities and the map of the landscapes where the trees were found.

Thanks for your continued support.

Best 

Jayant Sarnaik