Why tree plantation is more than planting trees

The number we are best known for — more than seventy lakh plants — is also the number most likely to mislead. A count of saplings put in the ground says nothing about how many are alive a monsoon later. The real question is never how many we planted. It is how many we kept.

That is why our approach begins with species, not spectacle. Native trees suited to the local soil and rainfall stand a far better chance than fashionable imports. Each one is geo-tagged, so a sapling can be found, watered and checked long after the drive has ended and the volunteers have gone home.

The ambition has outgrown any single city. Through the Global Tree Plantation Drive the same discipline now travels across seven countries — a shared method of choosing well, tracking honestly and tending patiently, rather than a race for a bigger headline number.

A grown tree cools a street, holds a slope, shelters birds and outlives the person who planted it. Getting there is slow, unphotogenic work. We think that is exactly why it matters.