Abdul Kareem (71), was born into a humble family and developed a passion for plants since childhood. His father Abdullah met the needs of the family with a small business.

In 1977 he bought 5 acres of land from his neighbours for Rs 3750. And then he did what his family and friends thought was insane. He went about creating a forest in his land.

“I bought the land at the price they asked. People called me eccentric; they laughed at me, but I was determined,” he recollects.

Well, the locals scoffed at Kareem’s dream for a well-justified reason. Kasaragod’s terrain is sloping and made up of hard rocks, mostly laterite. The rocky surface had left the land barren and here was a man who wanted to create a forest on it.

“It was tough. I bought a rocky barren land on which growing any vegetation was futile. There was nothing but an abandoned well. It took me years to watch my saplings grow into tall healthy trees and it needed an army of human labour,” Kareem says.

Kareem’s first challenge was to get the locals to support him for labour requirements. He soon noticed looming unemployment and poverty in the area, and decided to employ locals to plant saplings and till the land. He paid them in cash and this helped them fight poverty.

Kareem with his army of men and women tilled the land and planted many saplings. Initially water had to be carried from miles away to nurture the plants.

“We had a tough time nurturing the saplings. While men worked on the land, women walked miles to fetch small barrels of water,” he recalls.

He expanded his land from time to time and today he is the proud owner of 28 acres of forest. And he lives in his own deep dark woods.

Kareem’s forest now produces hundreds of litres of water, saving an entire village from severe drought during summers. Many villagers and families take water from Kareem’s land for irrigational and household purposes. All for free.

Kareem also takes classes on conservation of forests in many schools in the state. He doesn’t ask for any remuneration and invites children to visit his woods.

Many awards have come Kareem’s way in the past years.

Trinity College, Connecticut, USA once visited Kareem’s forest to study the relationship between plants and religion. Every year thousands of students, environmentalists and scientists visit Kareem to discuss environmental protection, energy conservation, clean energy and climate change.

Kareem was also honoured in 1998 by the Kerala Forest Research Institute for his outstanding contribution to forestry.

Kareem urges people to help conserve existing forests before they too disappear.

“The call of the wild is in all of us. Never live in the present forgetting the past. We should act before it is too late,” says Kareem