: Lawyer Creates Forests With 8 Lakh Trees, Cuts Carbon Emission by 440000 Tonnes #IndiaNEWS #Environment Lucknow-born Sheeba Sen was aware that while she had been raised with a certain amount of privilege

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Lawyer Creates Forests With 8 Lakh Trees, Cuts Carbon Emission by 440000 Tonnes #IndiaNEWS #Environment
Lucknow-born Sheeba Sen was aware that while she had been raised with a certain amount of privilege as a child, not everyone had the same opportunities.
After graduation, she earned a scholarship to the UK, where she pursued international relations and law from Oxford University. Later, she worked as a corporate lawyer for three years in London. “I studied in prestigious institutions and received global exposure. But over the years, I began feeling like I had to protect the culture of my country and add value to it,� she tells The Better India.
“I was using my knowledge and skills to make rich people richer, and I wanted to make better use of my education and create a difference in society,� she says.
This solution came in the form of a unique revenue model that Sheeba has created, wherein villagers can plant trees on behalf of big corporations, while improving local biodiversity and kickstarting a regenerative economy. To kickstart this plan, she has planted over eight lakh trees across Uttarakhand, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh. With her enterprise Alaap, Sheeb says the trees have helped sequester 4,40,000 tonnes of carbon to date.
Monetising forests without cutting trees
Sheeba during one of the plantation drives.
In 2010, Sheeba moved to Mumbai and established a startup that worked in a ‘farm-to-cup’ supply chain for coffee. The initiative also presented her with the opportunity to interact with farmers from rural and remote parts across the country.
“I learned that these coffee planters were extremely poor and at the mercy of middlemen. The NGOs and other people’s efforts offered little help. The result was that they were stuck in an intergenerational poverty cycle,� she explains.
To make a difference at the grassroots, Sheeba continued her interactions with the rural populace and visited Nainital in Uttarakhand.
In 2011, she joined Aarohi, an NGO that works towards rural and grassroots development. “I designed and funded projects for effective transformation of the rural population. The experience gave me an exposure to organisation management, understanding funding, talent acquisition and other aspects of running an NGO,� she says.
She observed that the NGOs worked on a project basis rather than focussing on bettering the lives in rural areas. “They work on a philanthropy model which, even after spending crores, have not impacted the villagers in the long term,� she opines.
So she decided to take matters into her own hands, and help villagers create livelihood in the long term by planting trees.
In 2017, Sheeba planted 600 saplings on 200 square feet of land using the Miyawaki technique in Uttarakhand’s Satoli village.

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