Ever imagined a Nagpur sans oranges? Not until now, I bet. And from now on, you need not imagine as it is slowly but surely turning into a reality. With a failure in blooming of oranges coupled with the warmest and shortest winters in over 30 years, Nagpur is showing definite symptoms of a victim of anthropogenic (human induced) climate change. As the mercury maintains an arrogant stand close to 40 degrees C, and you beat the heat in the comfort of your ACs and water coolers (syn. to doing nothing!), here is your chance to bring in some hope; make an investment for the future.I have a neem tree in front of my house which bears fruits in summers. A sinful delight, it attracts bulbuls, mynas and koels. After a sumptuous meal, the birds visit my water cooler for a sip and subsequently vomit or defecate the seeds out. Here their role as seed dispersers (a job well done for thousands of years) ends. But having dropped the seeds on concrete, courtesy my home; the seeds do not sprout’ unlike what happens in nature where birds drop them on soil, until monsoon brings life to them. So, mine is a house which should not have been there, and so are many other Indian homes. This is where Nature hands over the baton to you. You simply have to collect the seeds, keep them dried till monsoon and eventually sow them. This is my 'Let the Seed Sprout' campaign. (read postscript)
At strategic locations, seed collections (for neem) can get higher than 50 (!), hence rooftops are the most convenient places to create nurseries. Birders to note- these are great haunts for wagtails. To make things ‘eco-friendlier’, you could devise methods for reusing or recycling water while watering the saplings. I placed a tankie under my water tank, wherein all the water that overflowed got collected in addition to some rainwater. This, I used to water my plants (it surely isn’t the most efficient of methods). Apart from this, some other precautions that need to be taken are-
1. only seeds of native trees should be planted; exotics and ornamentals to be avoided strictly.
2. seeds should be kept dry till monsoon.
3. having a variety in the nursery is preferred.
4. any kind of chemical fertiliser / pesticide should not be sprayed.
5. sapling plantation (after 1 year preferably, in monsoon) should be done in suitable areas and not more than 3 saplings of the same species should be planted in a small patch; variety preferred.
Rest all depends on your gardening skills, which in my case are poor!
So it is basically about adopting orphans who ask only for a few cups of water, some shade and lots of love and affection, yet in return; apart from all the uses you studied in school, they sequester carbon.
So go ahead! Make a meaningful contribution in stabilising our climate!
Postscript: I sincerely feel I'm not the only one doing something like this. There might be, and infact there are many people / organisations in India who are collecting dropped neem seeds and sowing them. However, I know none of them. So at the end of the day I do not wish to be dragged into a controversy regarding a stolen idea or publicising my work using other's ideas. I've just given it a name in order to brand it as a campaign and promote it for the cause of tackling climate change.
