With news coming in from the corners of the earth of acres of forests being felled to develop new infrastructure, a mystery man is seen sprinkling seeds of passion fruit (scientific name: passiflora endulis) on the floor of the dense forests beside the NH66 from Balli to Canacona.
The authorities have supposedly taken up various incentives to increase green cover, which is getting depleted due to human greed and unending necessity to cut trees to develop better infrastructure.
Citizens concerned with global warming and its consequences have begun to take the next step and are trying out novel and unique ways to plant seeds and saplings with some success of late.
However, most of the saplings die in their nascent stage due to harsh environmental conditions prominent in the State after monsoon ceases.
And as a contribution from his end, this mystery man is seen halting by the NH66 since the last month and can be viewed throwing the seeds of passion fruit.
When Team Herald intercepted him, he refused to come on camera and said that he does the noble deed, not for fame, but to do his bit ‘in this materialistic world where human beings only think of what they get in return’.
When asked for his objective, he said that people including Goans, complain of global warming and also about wild animals straying in human settlements. “If they don’t get food in forests, where they are supposed to go?” he argued, while adding, “ But in reality, they don’t stray, we have strayed into their homes”.
When quizzed on what difference his efforts would make, he added that as of now, he has sown about 5 thousand passion fruit seeds on the damp forest floor, beside the NH66 starting from Balli and Canacona.
“The idea was to sow 10 thousand but I am waiting for the seeds to sprout and I will sow more seeds in the months to come.
Since the rains have subsided, the seeds now will be sprinkled in and around the places, where moisture content is high; that is mainly near fresh water bodies, he said.
“My idea is simple, the forest, beside the NH66 road is dense so there is less scope to grow trees, so the passion fruit plant being a creeper can easily survive in the Goan climatic condition, this gradual experiment is in the beginning stage, he said showing his back to the camera.
When he was reminded that the passion fruit creeper is an invasive species and can disrupt the growth of every plant around, he added that he has done enough research and has come to the conclusion that growing this creeper is going to be a win win situation for everyone.
“The basic idea is that the fruit is beneficial as it can be consumed by not only humans but animals like monkeys, birds, rodents like squirrels and mice and also caterpillars and butterflies, which also feed themselves to the leaves.
“If the experiment goes as per the plan, in a couple of years, I believe that many trees in this region will have this creeper on them not only providing fruits but life giving oxygen too and that will be it”, he stated.
