Project of PENNEES ROW

PROJECT OF PENNEES ROW (PERENNIAL TREES GROWING FOR LIFE)

A project on growing a kind of tree named willow tree which is one of the wild, colossal and easily growing species, would be conducted by 16 farmers families in their lands at few villages of Ladakh, a very cold, dry and high region as a desert in Himalaya, to improve their life and environment there.

The life span of this tree is possible up to the hundred year in Ladakh, but after three years of growing, they can give the branches as tall as columns that can make the wooden roofs of the local houses as well as other uses. Therefore the harvest will be conducted from three years on and continued later. The price for each branch of the tree could be up to 1USD or more 70 Rupees.

However, a problem in planting such trees is the land watering, especially in the winter (from November to March) where majority of the lands and river are covered by ice and snow, particularly the rivers, so the irrigation is a matter to think of in this project. In the summer, the ice is melting, so the rivers are fully of waters and their flows are very strong. So the problem could be solved by the traditional river irrigation in the summer. The drainage canals would be implemented since these lands are all along the rivers.

Another problem is due to the characteristics of this Himalayan region, majority of farmers there are poor and they often let their land be uncultivated and waste. Growing in such harsh wild conditions and with the destroying and exploitation environment, these trees are lesser and lesser.

That is why this project is thinking of and planning by Lama Nawang Kunphel, some monks of Thiksey Monastery and a group of 16 farmer families as a first step in a small scale, then the next step would be generated to other lands if possible in the near future.