Dhun Jaipur x Forest Project

Dhun, Jaipur has launched a community-led tree plantation initiative that allows people from around the world to contribute and co-create a forest of 1 million trees in peri-urban Jaipur, Rajasthan. Dhun will act as a facilitator in this drive which will be funded by the cocreators and executed by the local communities. These communities will be the direct beneficiaries of this initiative. The plantation process will be gamified in a way that is both interactive and educational. Cocreators can directly communicate with the locals which will bring ease and credibility to the process.

APPROACH

The chosen sites are largely barren or vulnerable landscapes like degenerated community pasture lands, roads, private fields, and
settlements. Planting trees here will protect the community's pasture lands from encroachment, safeguard water catchment areas,
regulate micro-climate, sensitize the communities, improve health and livelihoods, and revive natural ecosystems.

The plantation will be done according to the plans created by our landscape architect. Tree species will be chosen from the native Vegetation Palette was created by our ecologists upon an in-depth study of the region. Each tree sourced for the plantation would be 6-10ft tall and over 2 years old, ensuring a maximum rate of survival.

SO FAR

So far, we have planted 200,000 trees along the 12km boundary of our site using the Miyawaki plantation technique and 100,000 trees across the site using traditional plantation practices which include 4 food forests. All species are native to the region.
We have also created an integrated water system of 8 ponds, farm bunds, a swale, and 17 historic wells that collect over 400 million liters of rainwater annually.

Over 3000 trees were distributed at the cost of INR 10 per tree to the villagers of Raithal, Jaabad, Gohandi, Gulabpura, Heerapura, and Harirampura where they picked the location and took the responsibility of protection and maintenance.

In the past, the people of Gulabpura used to cut down whole trees. Today, the community pastureland of Gulabpura is being protected by a group of youngsters. So far, over 2000 trees have been safeguarded and 1100 new ones have been planted in the pasturelands of Gulabpura.

Once a dry, barren stretch of land, today the road connecting Jaabad and Raithal is a green, tree-lined approach. This 3 km long stretch of 350 trees is being maintained by the local villagers, led by the Sarpanch. We are going to increase the number of trees within the community in the coming months.