A Tree Plantation Program was organized on 29th April 2019 at Koilapani, Makaibari Tea Estate, Darjeeling by ATREE in collaboration with Sikkim University, under the project funded by National Mission on Himalayan Studies. The program was organized after consultations with the Management and the Community members of the concerned Tea Estate.

The key objectives of the program were – i) to promote conservation of biodiversity; ii) to involve community members in conservation, and iii) to create awareness about the importance of forests.

Preparation of the plantation site started at 8:00 am.

A degraded patch of the forest was chosen for plantation after consultations with the local community members and the management. The degraded patch was cleared of bushes and holes were dugout with the help of three workers provided by the management and few community-members who actively participated in the program.

The Manager of Makaibari Tea Estate was invited as the chief guest for the program. He was accompanied by the Assistant Manager and a member of Joint Body of the Tea Estate. 210 saplings of trees were purchased for the plantation program. Each participant of the program has given a task to plant four saplings each. However, since the prepared patch of forest was too small for all the saplings to be planted, the remaining saplings were distributed among the local community members who volunteered to plant them in other forest patches of the tea estate.

The plantation of saplings started with the manager planting the first sapling. This was followed by planting the saplings by the other participants. The plantation of saplings was over within an hour. A total of thirty-four members participated in the plantation program. Three participants belonged to the management while the remaining were local community members. All the participants were made aware of the importance of trees to the villagers, tea bushes and the animals residing in the surrounding forests. They were urged to plant trees and protect the forest.

The Manager of the Tea Estate, Mr. Sanjay Das, thanked the project team on behalf of the management. He thinks that this kind of programs will not only help the community members but will also help the tea bushes. He talked about how trees act as windshields which protects the tea bushes and villages from destructive winds from the plains. He emphasized that creating awareness among the locals is very important for the conservation of biodiversity and expressed his desire to extend help and support to the project team in future programs. He suggested that if the project team plans to organize another plantation program, the management would like to contribute equally to such programs. He also suggested some other patches where tree plantation can be done in the near future.

Id	Title	Author	Date submitted
1	The Hunter Dog	Ananta Rai	5th March 2019
2	A field day looking for bats and small mammals	Thangsuanlian Naulak	6th March 2019
3	Tree Plantation in Makaibari T.E.	Aditya Pradhan	17th July 2019

Key Ecosystem Services and Biodiversity Components in Socio-Ecological Landscapes of Darjeeling - Sikkim Himalaya

Deriving management & policy inputs and developing mountain biodiversity information system