Pradip Krishen interview: Ecological restoration is more than just planting trees
The filmmaker and environmentalist talks about his journey from making movies to ecological restoration work to writing books.
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A filmmaker whose work has won international and national accolades, Pradip Krishen is not your textbook environmentalist. Krishen stepped into the world of ecological restoration in unusual fashion in 1994 when he visited Pachmarhi in Madhya Pradesh to shoot his film Electric Moon.
That was the start of Krishen’s journey with trees, giving India one of its best ecological restoration experts. Krishen went on to shape the Rao Jodha National Park in Jodhpur and the Kishan Bagh nursery in Delhi, both considered pioneering projects in the field of ecological restoration.
When starting out at Rao Jodha Park, Krishen said the best bet would be to restore the natural ecology of the rocky desert area of pure rock, with hardly any soil. “I knew, unless we can grow things that can grow here alone, there is no point,” said Krishen. “This is 70 hectares. We can’t go around watering it.”
The first three years were slow: “learning by mistakes and learning by taking very, very careful notes”. Krishen and his experimented with potting mixes, plants and sites to uncover patterns and thus increase the survival rates of what they had planted.
“There is the whole question of people thinking of restoration as planting trees,” said Krishen. “Unfortunately, that’s the...
