Varun Ravindra, a Chartered Accountant, saw his passion for environment protection early in his professional life. In 2009, he began working on the family farm, inspired by his father’s love of nature and compassion for animals, and began helping his father’s organic agricultural practises.
His goal had always been to conserve the environment, to offer a home for a wide variety of life, and to alleviate the ‘global warming’ that we now refer to as the ‘climate change calamity.’
Varun began to see a few public-owned (government-managed) areas being exploited and deforested about the same time. He believed that owning smaller parcels of forestland was the most effective way for many concerned persons to protect and reforest the land.
All about Vanantara
As a result, in 2016, he founded Vanantara by purchasing 100 acres of land along the Karnataka-Tamil Nadu border, which now has over 40,000 trees representing more than 250 species.
Varun wanted to provide people who choose this road but were too rooted in their cities to do so a “safe experience.” He also wants to make a substantial contribution to combatting climate change and preserving the earth’s natural biodiversity.
Before encouraging like-minded people to join the movement, he and the Vanantara team first forested the area. They collaborated at Vanantara to create a forest ecosystem with scale, scope, and benefits that would not have been possible if they had worked alone.
In terms of farm inputs, Vanantara is completely self-sufficient. The site includes a nursery for young saplings as well as an animal barn.
The focus at Vanantara is mostly on soil stability and creating perfect circumstances for the development of different species. As a result of decades of heavy usage of chemical fertilisers and pesticides, most soils have become inert.
Some of the processes at Vanantara include composting, vermicomposting, the creation of fermenting bio inputs such as jeevamrut, feeding the soil with beneficial microorganisms, and the utilisation of foliar sprays that act as development boosters.
Vanantara’s animals contribute to the cycle’s closing by ensuring self-sufficiency. Both animals are not intended for milking or killing; instead, they graze and weed while providing farmyard waste.
Varun Ravindra plants over 40,000 trees across Bengaluru
A drip watering system has been constructed to ensure that the 40,000+ young trees continue to grow steadily while conserving water.
For the past three years, they’ve urged individuals to plant Miyawaki forests. Some of the trees in this forest have grown to be more than 18 feet tall. Professional ornithologists and herpetologists have been invited to visit the site and conduct on-the-spot biodiversity surveys.
Varun Ravindra and his crew have planted 40,000 trees in Vanantara as part of a traditional afforestation effort and another 40,000 trees in Bengaluru’s Miyawaki forests during the last four years.
Vanantara has also provided jobs for a number of local farmers and is unaffected by the erratic harvest cycles. These farmers are free to manage their crops during the monsoons while working at Vanantara the rest of the year, resulting in a sense of continuity and more stable incomes.
It also attracted a large number of people from Bengaluru’s corporate world and successful businesses, who see owning a piece of Vanantara as a way of giving back to the planet and a gateway to a more connected life.
Varun hopes that by establishing the green oasis, city inhabitants will be inspired to make a healthier lifestyle change and abandon their metropolitan lifestyles in favour of a quieter, more environmentally friendly way of living.
Varun Ravindra has planted over 40,000 trees across Bengaluru to create three Miyawaki forests to mitigate the effects of global warming.
Act like Varun to save our planet.
If you loved reading about Varun Ravindra, read 12-year-old Sri Nihal Tammana Recycled Over 1.5 Lakh Batteries To Make The Earth A Better Place
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