As monsoon is arriving, every environmental group is planting as many trees as possible as it is apparently the ideal way of saving the environment from the crisis.

Tree Public NGO started their water conservation project with the core aim of planting maximum trees possible. However, they soon realised there were other ways, a rather even natural process to plant trees through birds. In addition, they also had the vision to create a biodiversity lake in the available space.

Seven years ago, they started their project in an open space in Aundh. Thereafter, they studied Ornithology, the study of birds and designed this open land according to Ornithology. The total area is around four acres. Initially, in the first phase, two and a half acre land was used to convert the area into a Biodiversity zone. Utmost efforts were taken to attract birds to the biodiversity zone so that trees were planted naturally.

The Founder-Director of Tree Public Foundation (TPF), Abhishek Kawitkar, explains the concepts of this unique biodiversity project in his own words. “Initially, when we started with tree plantation, the thought that who planted trees before any human did, came to our mind.
That is how we started the study of birds and thus decided to involve and make birds the heroes of our biodiversity project. To enhance this project, we designed the zone according to Ornithology which has increased the number of birds.

At present, we have five species of birds. To nurture these birds, we have planted protein trees so as to keep the birds healthy.”

He further added, “Environment is a problem of scale.

At Aundh, we have been able to pull off groundbreaking work wherein we have found some success in restoring biodiversity. Major and positive changes namely in the water table, increasing number of visiting birds are encouraging factors in continuing our work for the environment. To sustain all our efforts, we work closely with experts and researchers from the fields of Botany, Ornithology and Environment.”

The NGO has planted over a lakh trees in the new phase two biodiversity zone which is about one and a half acre in size. The lake in phase two can hold up to two crore litres of water and phase one can hold one can hold up to two and a half crore litres of water.

To execute a huge project like this, one needs enough funds. Cummins India stepped forward to contribute towards this eco-project.

“The biodiversity project is completely bird-centric and promotes water conservation and tree plantation. Therefore, any kind of human interference in this zone is prohibited,” Kawitkar added.

If people had a stronger awareness of conservation and the importance of these birds in their ecosystems and simultaneously, the importance of humanity, then may be we will still be able to have these birds around us.

However, after putting in so many efforts to build a biodiversity zone and get these birds back into our ecosystem, we should now conserve them. Without conservation, the ecosystems will fall apart and birds and animals will become extinct.