A Tree Nursery in Chenni!

What an exhausting day today: transporting manure and filling bags and bags and bags…

Bags?

What for?

Well to plant trees!

Deodar, Kant, Ban… They are all ready to be planted in their new home: the Chenni tree nursery. And what a cozy home with its lovely door, its compost place and its little tool rack… here trees will be safe and protected from goats, cows, chicken and dogs. After one year and a half of this happy childhood they will be ready to be transplanted on the slope above Chenni. There they will maintain the soil, which is very unstable, and protect the village from a possible landslide. They will also provide fodder and fuel close to the village, which depends a lot on this wood. 

The wonderful little nursery space built by Johny

But this would never be possible without people to take care of them. Everyone in the Chenni community is aware of the nursery and very welcome to help, but Reena and Varsha in particular take care of the trees. They learn how to prepare the seeds and plant them. And Varsha never comes without her kids: Shanvi and Manvi, always very enthusiastic: “Louissse going field?” usually ask Shanvi when I go down to Chenni. In the picture below, you can see Manvi, very proud of herself: she just pied on the mixed soil! With her, the trees won’t lack nutrient! 

Filling bags activity

We also benefited from the help of the forest department, which gave us lots of information. We practiced the mixing of the soil in nurseries and had a little morning trek to fetch bags.

The nursery will soon extend with a new greenhouse and a bamboo growing area planned for next month. But as nothing goes as it was planned in EduCARE you will soon hear of the new adventures of the forestry team!

Louise Brunier - France

Forestry Project Manager, Naddi (Himachal Pradesh)