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KOHIMA— Now, you can help fight climate change in the comfort of your home from anywhere in the world, by planting tree saplings in Nagaland via online. You just have to tap the screen of your mobile phone or other electronic devices.
This is probably the first of its kind in the country as government agencies have not taken up such a programme.
Clicktoplant, an initiative launched by the Kohima Forest Division on the occasion of World Environment Day, has caught the attention of many as it provides people the platform to plant trees.
More than 60 people have participated in the campaign since Nagaland Governor La. Ganesan planted the first tree via online after launching the portal -- clicktoplant.com -- on June 5.
Sharing about the project, Divisional Forest Officer of Kohima Forest Division, Rajkumar M told Eastern Mirror that it is all about planting more trees.
Anyone from anywhere, who does not have space or time to plant trees, can now do so by paying INR 100. People can order tree saplings available on the website which will be planted physically by someone in Nagaland.
As a pilot project, Touphema, a tourist village, has been selected to execute the physical plantation of trees. The Ecotourism Committee, Touphema is responsible to ensure that tree saplings are planted in the fields as ordered.
[bsa_pro_ad_space id=1]The saplings will be planted only during the plantation season, that is, from April to June, though orders can be made anytime, Rajkumar said, adding that the government would ensure that tree saplings are planted.
The amount paid towards planting trees will directly go to the account of Ecotourism Management Committee, which in turn will be used for the project. On successful payment, participants will immediately receive a certificate, which is auto-generated, in their registered email address.
Since the plantation cannot be done on a daily basis, he said it will launch a mobile application in a week’s time to enable the committee take photos of the planted saplings and upload on the dashboard, which can be accessed by the participants using the account created for them.
[bsa_pro_ad_space id=1]‘The initiative is also a sort of ecotourism where others will get to know about Nagaland. Out here, forests and land are owned by the community, so they can maintain their forest as well as get some kind of benefit. They can plant in their own land and later it will be their own tree,’ he said.
Rajkumar, who is from Chennai in Tamil Nadu, said that he never had the opportunity to plant trees because of the lack of space.
“Out there (Chennai) one square feet is like INR 10,000; even buying a house is very difficult and people don’t have space to plant a tree or to plant something. We thought there was an option and slowly this idea grew,” he shared.
Initially, he along with his team wanted take up some ecotourism activities, and Touphema, being a tourist village, was an ideal place to start with.
“When we think about eco-tourism, we think about infrastructure but that is actually not eco-tourism. Eco-tourism is something where people learn something about nature and are involved in it, so plantation is something like that,” the forest officer pointed out.
They thought of some ‘memory plantation’ and then came the idea of the digital plantation where people from across the globe, particularly from the cities, can plant trees online.
Rajkumar, who was a software developer before joining the Indian Forest Service, thought of taking a photo as proof which led to the idea of developing a mobile application.
The idea of using a local-flavoured mascot struck to promote the clicktoplant, he said. A mascot by the name “Nino”, adorned in the Angami woman's traditional attire, can be seen in the promotional video.
The idea was improvised during the team discussion, he said, adding that they had been working on it for the last one year. The initial plan was to launch it during the Hornbill Festival last year but failed as the finishing process, which started in October 2022, took longer than expected. However, he said, it was able to take off on this World Environment Day.
The process of online payment gateway was quite challenging as all earnings would go to the committee which needed to be a registered society, revealed the officer. ‘Further, they did not have a big support team for a proper product like Clicktoplant. Nonetheless, this is our initiative,’ he added.
Though the portal was launched on June 5, the entry for orders started only on Tuesday night. A total 72 entries have been registered till Wednesday afternoon, with some planting as many 10 trees.
The saplings available online for participants to choose include monkey/stink beans (parkia speciosa), oak, cherry, jackfruit, Japanese pine, local neem, hog plum, bottle brush, cinnamon, gooseberry, guava, and wild apple.