Environment Day : Swami Prem Parivartan, famously known as ‘Peepal Baba’ was born to an army officer’s family in Chandigarh in 1966. At birth, he was given the name Azad Jain. After his college and university education, Azad Jain came to be known as Swami Prem Parivartan as he took to teaching Yoga and Meditation as his career. Swami Parivartan holds a Postgraduate degree in English Literature from the University of Pune. He took to teaching university students in the morning hours and by evening he was a Yoga practitioner and teacher.
Environment Day : He started planting trees at the age of 11 in Pune. He planted his first tree at Pune Military Station on January 26, 1977. Inspired and motivated by his fourth-grade teacher at school, he went on a tree-planting spree since that day. He started a hobby club by the name Give Me Trees and gathered his friends and classmates, passersby and strangers, to plant trees and water them. Give me trees is now a fully registered charitable trust headquartered in Delhi.
He chose to plant Peepal and Neem trees. He planted so many Peepal trees that when newspapers and magazines started writing about him, they started called him ‘Peepal Baba’. He has devoted his life to save the fast dwindling peepal groves and forests, ancient peepal trees and is currently the world’s biggest name in peepal tree planting and conservation.
Peepal Baba has planted and conserved over 1.25 crore Peepal trees. He continues to do so every day and plans to do the same till his last breath. His organization Give me trees Trust has become the largest voluntary tree-planting movement in India.
Focussing on Peepal and Neem trees, the most important keystone varieties of the Indian subcontinent, Give Me Trees has over 11,500 volunteers all over the country. Give Me Trees Trust has been working in villages, along highways, ponds, rivers, mountain forest fringes, wetlands, wastelands and farmlands.
Reference links: http://peepalbaba.in/
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