This Labourer Helped His Village Grow 65000 Trees & Stay 3°C Cooler

In Honnakiranagi village in Karnataka, summer once arrived with heat, dust and departures. As temperatures rose, many families packed their bags for Bengaluru, where daily-wage construction work offered the income their own village could no longer provide. Back home, a 1,600-acre stretch of land lay barren after being cleared for a power plant project that never came up. What was left behind was a vast, exposed landscape with fewer trees, fewer livelihoods and little reason for people to stay. Among those watching this change was Sadashiva Hydra, a daily wage labourer who had seen hardship ...