Top Tree Plantation NGOs in Gujarat Making a Difference

When One City Decides to Take Action, the Entire State Senses It and now the entire INDIA..

Rajkot is a city of energy. Of business, energy and dynamism. And above the noise of one of the fastest-growing cities in Gujarat is a less dramatic, more desperate tale, the tale of escalating temperatures and depleting green spaces, of a generation growing up without a substantial number of trees to shade them, clean their air, and cool their world.

Somebody needed to do something about it.

Sadhbhavna Vrudhashram is an NGO based in Rajkot, which is based on compassion and serving the community, and it was resolved that there was no time to wait. Coupled with their all-too-human endeavor to take care of the weakest of the weak in the society, Sadhbhavna has adopted tree plantation as one of their missions – a living, growing investment in Gujarat of tomorrow. They have a very basic but deep belief: the society that takes care of its seniors should take care of the earth that the seniors will be leaving behind.

This is their story. And it is a tale that ought to be told.

The Green Crisis of Gujarat, and Why Rajkot Needs Green Non-Governmental Organizations Like Sadhbhavna.

Gujarat is the state that is the most powerful industrial state in India. However, that power has been very costly in terms of the environment. Gujarat is in a real ecological crisis with a forest cover of only 9.7 – less than a quarter of the national average of 21% and nowhere close to the 33% suggested by the United Nations.

This challenge revolves around Rajkot. With the city growing at an alarming rate, the green cover is being taken over by the construction work. It becomes even longer and fiercer in the summer, often exceeding 44degC. Life is more difficult due to dust, pollution, and lack of tree canopy, particularly the children, elderly, and daily wage workers who have no escape of the heat.

Trees are not a luxury. They are the infrastructure of survival. One mature tree captures up to 22 kg of carbon dioxide each year, lowers the temperature of the local surfaces by 2-8 degrees Celsius, replenishes the groundwater and harbors hundreds of species of birds and insects. When an NGO plants a tree in Rajkot in the present day, the good works silently for the next five to a century.

It is this very reason that the work of Sadhbhavna Vrudhasthram is of such immense importance–and why this of such importance just now.

Top Tree plantation NGOs in Gujarat.

Paryavaran Mitra

Paryavaran Mitra, one of the most well known environmental NGOs in Gujarat has been advocating the concept of urban greening over decades. With its headquarters at Ahmedabad, school children, resident welfare associations and corporate volunteers are coming together in their flagship Vriksha Vandana campaign to plant native species, neem, peepal, banyan, gulmohar, etc., in urban parks and roadside medians and on school grounds. Paryavaran Mitra has shown that nature does not oppose urban India as more than ten lakh trees have been planted in fifteen cities. They can grow together.

Sahjeevan – Pastoralism Centre.

Sahjeevan works in the ecologically sensitive areas of Kutch and Saurashtra and combines the livelihood of the pastoral and tribal populations with the planting of trees. Their traditional nurseries produce drought resistant native species which are very appropriate to the arid climate of Gujarat. In engaging communities as participants and not spectators, Sahjeevan has been able to recover more than 500 hectares of degraded land and in the process conserving time-old ecological knowledge that is invaluable and cannot be provided in any textbook.0

Gujarat Ecology Society (GES)

The Gujarat Ecology Society is an organization established by committed ecologists and conservationists and is closely partnered with the forest department of the state to organize massive plantation drives in North and Central Gujarat. Their Green Schools Programme is especially encouraging in that it has exposed more than two lakh students to native trees, ecology and environmental stewardship making classes and classrooms be seedbeds of environmental leaders of tomorrow. Children are raised to know the name of trees, and when they grow up, they are defending the trees.

Aarohan Gujarat

Aarohan Gujarat puts its efforts on the rehabilitation of the mangrove ecosystems in this remarkable coastline of Gujarat. Their trained community volunteers living in the coasts have planted more than 80,000 mangrove saplings in the Gulf of Khambhat and Kori Creek area alone in the past three years. These are not meaningless gestures. These mangroves will cushion fishing communities against cyclones, give juvenile fish a nursery where they provide livelihoods in the localities and keep carbon locked away to slow down the process of global warming. Aarohan is one of the most climatically pressing green actions that take place in Gujarat now.

Gujarat Foundation Vanmahotsav.

This Ahmedabad based foundation has created an elaborate bridge between corporate CSR funding and high impact plantation projects in the state based on India’s annual Vanmahotsav tree-planting festival. The difference is in accountability: each tree they plant is GPS-tagged and photographed, which is why the donors and the corporate partners of the company can monitor their trees growing in real time. The transparency of Vanmahatsav Foundation is quite refreshing and credible in a world where greenwashing is the order of the day.

Viksat -Nehru Foundation of Development.

With an operation spanning more than thirty years in a tribal belt of South Gujarat especially in the Dang, Narmada and Tapi districts, Viksat combines the tree plantation with watershed development, soil conservation and self-help groups of women. Their model of community-owned forests makes sure that all plants collected by trees are adopted by people living near them. Forests are preserved when the communities own their forests. The long-term strategy of Viksat is a masterpiece of long-term sustainable and people-centered environmental activity.

The Tree Plantation Initiative at Sadhbhavna Vrudhashram: Bio-Rooted.

Planting trees in Sadhbhavna Vrudhashram is not something that is done tokenistically or is an annual photo opportunity. It is a lifetime commitment with the identity and values of the organization.

The NGO holds regular tree plantation movements throughout the state of Rajkot and various other regions of Gujarat, which include volunteers, community members, local residents, and well-wishers who have but one aim, and that is to make Gujarat visible, meaningfully greener. All its drives are well thought out and the species used are native and suitable to the climate of Gujarat and will give maximum ecological value to the communities surrounding the drive.

The species such as neem, peepal, banyan, and gulmohar are selected not only due to their beauty but also because they have a purpose. Neem cleanses the atmosphere and provides deep shade. Peepal is a tree that emits oxygen even during the night and is culturally important to the Indians. Banyan trees make their own ecosystems and provide shelter to birds, insects, and human beings. All the trees that Sadhbhavna plants are not accidental – since deliberate planting produces forests, not greenwash.

The fact that Sadhbhavna is a community-first approach is what is especially effective about their approach. The organization does not just plant trees alone; it engages the locals at all stages, such as the process of digging them and planting until the process of watering the tree, and their future upkeep. A tree planted by the hands of a neighbor is a tree that will be preserved, cared and rejoiced upon by generations to come.

More Than Planting Building a Culture of Environmental Responsibility.

Sadhbhavna Vrudhashram knows something that purely transactional environmental programs often overlook: it is impossible to maintain a green movement without a green mindset.

This is the reason why their tree plantation activity never ends with the process of planting. The NGO actively creates environmental awareness among the communities of Rajkot – through plantation events which have turned into a celebration, through dialogues which bring environmental health and personal health into contact, and through the silent though eloquent demonstration of consistent appearance, season after season, with saplings and devotion.

When Sadhbhavna is planting a plantation, the mood is joy, mission and group pride. Volunteers do not simply plant a tree but they stake the future of their city. They go with a stronger attachment to the land beneath their feet and a vested interest in the green cover of their heads. It is that emotional attachment that makes a one-time attendee a life-long environmental activist.

Sadhbhavna is cultivating that community of caring, tree-wise, one plantation event at a time in a city and a state that desperately needs more individuals to care about the trees.

Partner With Purpose CSR Opportunities With Sadhbhavna Vrudhashram.

Whether to invest in CSR or not is no longer a question to businesses and corporations in Gujarat; it is where the CSR is going to have the greatest, most substantial, and measurable effect.

Sadhbhavna Vrudhashram provides one of the most viable and purposeful CSR partnering avenues in Rajkot to the companies that seek their environmental promises to be beyond a press release.

Reasons Sadhbhavna Is the Right CSR Partner to your Business.

Planting of trees under Sadhbhavna Vrudhashram would be counted as a legitimate CSR expense under Schedule VII of the Companies Act, 2013, that is under environmental sustainability and ecological balance. The giving of Sadhbhavna as a registered NGO also has tax benefits in Section 80G of the Income Tax Act and therefore corporate giving is not only effective but cost efficient.

However, more than there is the compliance checkbox, collaborating with Sadhbhavna implies that the name of your company is one that is linked to veritable, tangible, on-the-ground transformation in Rajkot and Gujarat. This is how the CSR partnership with Sadhbhavna Vrudhashram may be put into practice:

Branded Plantation Drives. Your brand is sponsored and co-organized to a tree plantation event organized by your company. The staff members give volunteer services with Sadhbhavna and plant native trees in community areas, school compounds, road-sides, or community parks in Rajkot. The event can be turned into a firm internal involvement activity and also a visible community declaration of your firm’s environmental values.

Sapling Sponsorship on a Grand Scale. It takes hundreds or thousands of saplings to be funded by corporate sponsors in just one donation – and each of them is planted, nurtured and monitored by the hard working team of Sadhbhavna. All trees that are planted are fully documented to your company with the location, species planted and several photographs to prove it has been planted all is required to report on the CSR and communicate the impact.

Employee Engagement Programmes. Sadhbhavna Vrudhashram is able to improvise tailor-made employee volunteering programs based on tree plantation to your employees. It may be a half-day plantation trip, an environment awareness seminar, an adopt-a-sapling team-building outing, whatever it is, such an activity boosts the morale of employees, their teamwork and their real sense of purpose which cannot be purchased in a boardroom exercise.

Green Partnerships in the Long Run. Sadhbhavna provides multi-year partnerships to companies that would have a long-term CSR story over financial years. Your brand is the same as the trees  really and reputarily. Annual impact report, social media coverage, and co-branded communication keeps your stakeholders informed and inspired in the process of the partnership.

One Last Word: Planting Hope in Every Season.

It is touching to the core to see an organization provide care to people at the end of life and at the same time, plant trees that will live longer than any person in the room. It addresses a philosophy which transcends charity – a philosophy of continuity, responsibility, and love of the world as it ought to be, not as it is.

Sadhbhavna Vrudhasram plants trees as they feel that the children of Gujarat need some shade. Since they consider clean air not to be a privilege. They hold the opinion that any planting that is done is an act of faith in the future.

Then have faith that, and Sadhbhavna Vrudhasram is your NGO.

Join the movement. Plant a tree. Change the soil of Gujarat is longing to be.

We shall turn Rajkot and Gujarat and all that therein into a garden, sweeter and fresher, more alive.