Three years on, the trees are bearing fruit

A sapling handed over at a camp is only a promise. Whether it becomes a tree is decided in the months that follow, in a village courtyard, by a family. That is why every Vriksh Mitra–Gram Mitra drive ends not at the camp but with surveys.

Between February and April 2022 our field team went village to village in Mathura district with a simple brief: find the trees, geo-tag them, and listen. Farmers walked them to guava and lemon trees taller than themselves, pomegranate bushes heavy with fruit, and young mango trees shading the courtyard. Across the drives, about 70% of the saplings have survived — a rate that holds up because every farmer takes an oath at the camp, a gram samiti of volunteers in each village keeps reminding families, and the fruit itself is the best reason to keep a tree alive.

The same visits double as the need assessment for the next monsoon. Surveyors sit with villagers, ask how much space they have and which fruits they would plant, and register the families who want trees. Those registrations decided where the 2022–23 and 2024 camps would be held.