‘Each tree is worth over one crore’: Raghunath Maruti Dhole on his remarkable conservation model

“When I was a child, I saw my mother cooking with firewood. I realised she was cutting trees to feed me. Our 400 generations did this for survival, and now it is my duty to replant,” says Raghunath Maruti Dhole, 69, reflecting on his forest conservation journey.

- GNS News Agency, June 14

Today he is responsible for a veritable revolution in the preservation of native plants in Pune.Through the Devrai Foundation, Dhole has been working to revive barren land using the model of the Devrai, sacred groves traditionally protected by local communities for spiritual reasons. Though the Naigaon-based Foundation was registered in 2013, Dhole's personal efforts date back to the 1980s.

Dhole and his team including close friends—Dhananjay Shedbale, Suresh Namaji Shinde, and Uday Bhanudas Gujar-his wife and children developed a plantation model featuring between 119 and 190 native species of trees and plants. These species are drawn from sacred groves where no planting or cutting has taken place for centuries, reflecting the region's original biodiversity.“We studied sacred groves from different regions and created a plantation plan for one acre of land, selecting 119 appropriate native species from a pool of 500,” Dhole explained.Speaking about the importance of preserving native plants and the ecological consequences of losing these native plants, he says, “If a species of tree vanishes, one butterfly species also vanishes because each tree depends on pollination.”