KATHMANDU: Are you planning for your birthday celebration? If yes, what is your plan on your special day? Celebration with cake-cutting or any other creative works.

There is one unique option for the celebration and that is tree plantation. If you wish to plant a tree on your birthday or anyone dear and near to you, please remember environmental activist Anil Basnyat.

Nature conservation campaign contributor Basnyat visits you at your place with a tree sapling and helps you plant it. His service is free of cost. Have you decided on the way of celebrating your special day?

Basnyat from Bhimdutta Municipality-3 in Kanchanpur has been active in tree transplantation since he was a teen and has so far helped plant over 4,000 saplings. As he shares, any vacant public plot catches his attention and he promptly reaches there for planting tree sapling.

He also urges owners of private land for providing the space for tree planting.

His mother Devirani Basnyat and uncle (mother’s brother) Hikmat Bahadur Bista are his inspiration for what he has been doing regularly for years. “I have learned how to love and take care of plants, and the significance of tree-planting from my mother. She was a true nature-lover,” he added.

Since 1975, he took a break for a couple of years from tree-planting as he was busy pursuing his higher education. Wherever he reached in course of his official duty, he took no time to kick-start his campaign.

Social entrepreneur Basnyat works with the Family Planning Association of Nepal (FPAN). His campaign has been further encouraged by the partnership with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Nepal and the Population, Health, and environment Project run with the financial assistance of the Government of Finland.

“I used to think about how to make the tree plantation effective and how to popularize this pious campaign among the friends and globally as well. Thinking about this, an idea clicked to make a Facebook group to take ahead the campaign,” he said about the origin of his campaign on Facebook.

He created the Nature Conservation Caravan Nepal, a Facebook group. Through this group, Basnyat has been urging all to plant a sapling on their birthday. “I started getting much support and encouragement through the Facebook page group. Well-wishers not only from within the country but also from abroad joined the group. More than 6,000 people are linked with the group at present,” he shared.

In this connection, campaigner Basnyat has been lately running the campaign with a message: Plant a sapling on your birthday, share the photo on Facebook and get a free certificate. “This has been a remarkable success I have already provided certificates to around 200 people so far.” He has been planting tree saplings on his and his family members’ birthdays.”Family members have very much helped in my campaign of planting saplings on birthday,” he added exuberantly.

As he said, initially he had trouble explaining the campaign to the family members and the community, but people started taking interest in it gradually. Hemanta Raj Kafley of Nepalgunj is promoting the campaign of late. He has launched the ‘Eight Billion Tree’ campaign.

“I reach and plant a tree sapling for free when I find a public land or when someone asks me to do so in his or her bare land. I plant the tree saplings they wish. I purchase tree saplings with my own money. I have given tree saplings as gift to my friends on their birthday,” he said.

Basnyat, who works in Kathmandu, is however worried about lacking space for tree plantation.
At work, he has faced many difficulties financially and technically. “There are difficulties to grow a sapling. It is costly to purchase tree saplings. However, the campaign will continue until my death.”

He requested people to follow the link of the Nature Conservation Caravan (NCC) Nepal Campaign Nepal and plant tree saplings on their birthday. “I urge people to get certificates by posting pictures of them planting tree saplings in the group.” Interested persons can contact and join the group at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1574227522867032.

(Bishnu Nepal/RSS)