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 Vicente was not discouraged by the comments from his neighbours
Vicente was not discouraged by the comments from his neighbours

Man spends 40 years bringing forest back to life

Today, his efforts are being rewarded, as the completely stripped land he once began planting trees on 40 years ago, has become a beautiful jungle teeming with tropical wildlife once again.

It was 1973 when Antonio took up the challenge of restoring the forest on a 31-hectare piece of land that had been razed for cattle grazing.

Ironically enough, he bought the land on the outskirts of Sao Pablo, in Brazil’s Sao Paulo region, using credits that the military government was giving out to promote deforestation and investing in advanced agricultural technology. But Antonio had no intention of using the money to boost the national agriculture. He just wanted to revive the forest.

“You are dumb. Planting trees is a waste of land. You won’t have income. If it’s full of trees, you won’t have room for cows or crops,” Vicante neighbours, who were all cattle and dairy farmers, used to tell him. But he knew that the damage caused by deforestation was far greater than any financial profit, so he paid them no heed.

Vicente had grown up on a rural farm, and had watched his father and the other villagers cut down neighbouring forests at the owners’ orders, either for charcoal production or just to clear land for grazing cattle. He had watched the ancient water sources dry up and people struggling to survive.

“When I was a child, the peasants cut down the trees to make grasslands and charcoal, and the water dried up and did not come back,” he told the BBC.

“I thought: ‘Water is valuable, no one makes water, and the population will not stop growing. What is going to happen? We are going to run out of water.'”

With only some donkeys and a small team of hired workers, Vicente set about to bring back the forest to his land. What started out as a weekend hobby soon became a permanent way of life, and Vicente recalls often spending whole days and nights in his young jungle, surrounded by rats and foxes, and eating banana sandwiches for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Over the last 40 years, he has planted an estimated 50,000 trees on his 31-hectare land, which now make up a small oasis of rainforest, and a sanctuary for wildlife.

Credit:— odditycentral.com

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