ForestsByHeartfulness - Creating MiniForests of Indigenous and Native Species Across India

India is a megadiverse country with rich flora and fauna, but the biological diversity is in danger. 387 Indian plant species listed under IUCN Red List. Out of 387 plant species, 77 are ‘critically endangered’.

1. We are depleting the Earth’s natural resources, polluting its air and water, destabilising the climate, and driving many of its species to extinction.
2. The total forest cover in India is 80.73* million hectares which forms 24.56%* of the geographical area of the country. The country has lost 1.93 million* hectares of forest cover from 2001 to 2020.
3. Tree felling almost doubled between 2016-2019 in India: As per the Data from Environment Ministry, 76,72,337 trees were cut down between year 2016-17 to 2018-19
4. Air pollution on rise in Indian cities: The researchers speculated that increases in PM2.5 and NO2 in India reflect increasing vehicle ownership, industrialization and the limited effect of air pollution policies to date
5. North India staring at severe water crisis during summer 2021: The High temperatures in North India currently and in summer would worsen the water situation. IMD has declared that the March 2021 temperatures in Delhi were the highest in last 11 years.  

FBH is an ecological movement envisioned to create spaces where humans coexist in harmony with Nature. An initiative of Heartfulness Institute to partner with global communities to grow, nurture, protect and conserve native, endemic and endangered tree species while ensuring diversity, sustainability and longevity.

Diversity

• Through multi location enabled mini-forests
• Guidance of several agroforestry scientists, forest officers, academicians, and conservationists

Sustainability

• Focus on native, rear and endangered species
• Diverse plantation style in sync with local ecology
• Support of nationwide nurseries to grow highly resilient saplings

Longevity

• Careful selection of identified land
• Involvement of local community
• Focused aftercare and monitoring using geotagging/satellite imagery/third party audits

Our Focus is the creation of Ex-Situ conservation sites of Rare and Endangered Species from India’s Biodiversity Hotpots

Our projects and plantation drives have involved participants, volunteers and environment enthusiasts from all walks of life, nationalities, corporations, universities, schools, government including collaborations with other non-profit organisations

ForestsByHeartfulness has a large hub and spoke network of 18+ active nurseries across India

With Systems, process and related infra in place, FBH aims to rapidly increase production to 200 million saplings across more than 28+ nurseries by 2025 from its current 7.5+ million grown presently across Heartfulness centres, India wide to facilitate localised sapling production

1. Conserve endangered tree species: Most FBH projects have this as a key objective, and several endangered tree species are included during species selection.
2. Attract biodiversity: The forests are created with highly diverse tree species, native to that region. This results in a highly biodiverse flora attracting lot of birds, bees, reptiles, and small mammals within 1-2 years.
3. Increase in water table: Large FBH projects have witnessed tremendous rise in ground water levels owing to extensive rainwater harvesting and bio-mimicry methods.
4. Benefits to local communities: Most projects benefit the local communities through a favorable microclimate, supplying medicinal herbs & plants.
5. Sequester CO2: High dense forests are known to sequester more CO2 per unit area than traditional farming.
6. Agroforestry: To create additional income source to farmers through tree-based agriculture on farm lands.
7. Hill restoration: To green the barren hills of India to restore lost habitat