CHENNAI: After her marriage in the 1990s, Valvarasi Pandian, who hailed from a farming family, moved to Chennai with her husband and gradually adapted to the city’s fast-paced life. Yet, the memories of her native Kamatchipuram in the Theni district, particularly of the agricultural fields she spent loitering around in most of her childhood and the proximity to nature, would keep replaying in her mind. From longing for the lush past in her village to planting hundreds of trees in 30 villages of Theni, she has come a long way.
Through the Green Life Movement, Valvarasi has planted more than 20,000 palm seeds and several varieties of native saplings like neem, sorghum, and pongam. Even in the concrete jungles of Chennai, Valvarasi did not leave behind her commitment to nature. Through tie-ups with local NGOs, she has planted over 500 trees in school and college campuses and private properties. To understand her mission today, one has to go back to her childhood in Kamatchipuram.
Her father, Thogai A Pachaiyappan, a farmer who had also served as the panchayat president of Kamatchipuram, played an important role in desilting water bodies and creating awareness about the need to protect nature and promote agriculture in the region. Growing up in this household, Valvarasi naturally had an early understanding of nature conservation. “That gave me an opportunity to understand and develop a close connection with nature,” she said.
The cycle has continued to the next generation. Valvarasi’s daughter, a botany graduate, also shares the same curiosity and fondness for nature and would have lively discussions with her mother about plants, seeds, saplings, and conservation.
“My daughter used to explain many things about plants and their importance. One statement of hers stayed with me: ‘Every plant has a story to tell; every plant is alive.’ Moved by those words, I recalled my childhood and my father’s work in the village; it has been the impetus for me to start the Green Life Movement in 2017,” Valvarasi said.
When she began her activities in Kamatchipuram, she received little support from villagers. But the intrinsic drive to walk this path made her invest her own money to desilt small waterbodies in the village.
She eventually managed to mobilise volunteers in the village to collect palm seeds and source other saplings from nurseries in the area. The next challenge was to ensure these saplings grow uninterrupted, said R Thalabathi Arumuga Perumal (48), a resident of Kamatchipuram and one of the volunteers associated with Valvarasi’s initiative. Protecting planted saplings was tough, particularly in rural areas, he said.
“Even when we plant saplings and protect them with fencing, cattle often damage them. Therefore, we began concentrating on planting palm seeds near waterbodies and burial grounds, where they are less likely to be disturbed. We are now seeing encouraging results,” he said.
The volunteers have also taken up the restoration of local waterbodies. Recently, two small tanks in Kamatchipuram were desilted and are now serving as reliable sources of water for irrigation. Seeing this success, residents from other villages also felt enthusiastic to extend their support in the conservation efforts.
Once the tree-planting and water conservation activities became self-sufficient with adequate volunteers, she began conducting outreach sessions at educational institutions. She would explain to the students about biodiversity, tree conservation, and maintaining a healthy relationship with nature. She hopes the younger generation will take up the responsibility to safeguard the environment and believes that without this awareness, it is not possible to build a lasting green movement.
In 2022, her green volunteers organised a palm festival in Villupuram to highlight the economic, environmental and cultural value of palm trees. A year later, they organised another one at Tirunelveli. Efforts to continue similar initiatives in other districts have been hindered by many challenges, the most pressing being the lack of volunteers in rural places. Perumal pointed out that many youngsters migrate to cities in search of employment, leaving fewer people to take care of agricultural activities.
Valvarasi has urged the state government to take stronger measures to implement stringent rules against felling palm trees and allocate more funds to desilt waterbodies. She said no voluntary initiatives can attain desirable results without institutional support.
Through planting seeds, increasing tree-count, and conserving water, the initiative also seeks to revive the bond people had with nature. “Protecting nature should be a collective responsibility, not the burden of a few individuals,” she said.