Nursery of native Aravalli species

One of the challenges to afforestation in the Aravallis is finding native, Aravalli plant species.  Forest department of Haryana is cooperative but they too have very limited stocks and we end up with banyan, neem, etc., which are more urban, avenue trees and ill suited for afforestation.

Under these circumstances Rotary Shanti Van has decided to setup its own nursery for raising native Aravalli species at Pali Bani project site to support afforestation.  There are believed to be about 150 native Aravalli species.

Mahua/ Mahuwa (Madhuka Longifolia)

The green house will be ready in a couple of weeks.

Active planting of seeds should commence by January-February 2016.

In the next two to three years we expect the nursery to be well established and support our afforestation efforts.

One patch of our forest has been attacked by neel gai/ langoors

Neel gai/ langoors have vandalised a part of the forest at Pali Bani.  We had erected a keekar fence long back.  There was no protection for individual trees/ plants.

There was no attack during monsoon season - may be the animals had plenty of food, and now that winter has set in, they food supplies might have diminished, forcing them to our forest.

Today we have taken the steps of reinforcing/ expanding the patch fence.  We have erected the first individual tree fence using the thorny weed, vilayati keekar.

This process will be continued till all the trees are individually protected.

This is a major task, though!