Shubhendu Sharma: Using cultural and historical knowledge to support regenerative reforestation
Shubhendu Sharma (@shubzsharma) is an industrial engineer turned reforestation expert. He's the founder of Afforestt (Instagram: @afforestt; Twitter: @afforestt), which is a social enterprise based in New Delhi and Bangalore, India that is committed to bringing back maintenance-free, native forests using the renowned Miyawaki method of reforestation.
In this podcast episode, Shubhendu sheds light on the intricacies that go into regenerative reforestation efforts that require a knowledge of bioregionalism and cultural and historic context of place; how scarcity really is a human construct; and more.
To start, get a glimpse below into the conversation between Shubhendu and Green Dreamer Podcast's host, Kamea Chayne.
Musical feature: Trust The Sun by Alive in the Wilderness by Endless Field
“You can actually revive the entire lost ecosystem just by going a little deeper into the history of your place.”
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This is a conversation on Green Dreamer with Kamea Chayne, a podcast and multimedia journal illuminating our paths towards ecological regeneration, intersectional sustainability, and true abundance and wellness for all. This preview has been edited for clarity. Subscribe to Green Dreamer Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any podcast app, and support Green Dreamer on Patreon so we can keep the show going and accessible to a wider audience!
On going beyond ‘planting trees’:
"A hundred years ago in the desert state Rajasthan, the Maharaja (king) of that state was exposed to a plant that could grow in the desert. He took lots of its seeds, and he sprinkled them all over the desert in Rajasthan.
This tree from South America has taken over as an invasive species. Now, it has spread throughout the country, gone into mangroves, converting these mangroves into another desert of this invasive species.
Because this tree is thorny and it has spread into the jungles, tigers are going blind and their paws are getting hurt. The tigers are then not able to prey on the deer as well, so the deer population is exploding, further hurting the ecosystem because the deer are over-consuming the herbs and not allowing other trees to grow. This is preventing the forest's regeneration and is converting the lush, green, dense forest into grassland—eventually into barren land.
[Invasive species] can be as devastating as the total collapse of the flora and fauna of a region. And there are hundreds of examples of this, such as eucalyptus, Prosopis juliflora, and a species called Conocarpus ruining the Middle East and Pakistan and now also India."
On the importance of contextualizing ecology with history:
"If you dig into the history of your particular place (if you are in America, you go to Native American history; if you are in India, you go to the Indian subcontinent history), we have such a great documentation of our native tree species in paintings, poems, epics, and many cultural relics.
In fact, 5,000-year-old coins from India have the species of our [native] trees so clearly shown that you can actually revive the entire lost ecosystem just by going a little deeper into the history of that place.
Because we have these samples available in all of the ancient cultures, it's not that hard to identify and find out what the right mix of species is for your particular place.
And if you're lucky, you may even have a national park or forest close to you where you can look closely and see what trees are growing in that particular place naturally. Those are the species you should plant, even if you plant just a single tree in your life."
Final words of wisdom:
"Don't wait for a miracle to happen. You have to take the first step of getting out and going to a natural forest. Try to learn about your natural forest. Try to identify the trees and the natural ecosystem that has always been there, wherever you are living in the world. And then try to replicate it.
Unless you go to a forest and learn from a forest, you will never be able to appreciate the true power it has."
