Assam Agroforestry Development Board

We work out of Aranya Bhawan in the Panjabari area of Guwahati. It’s a bit different here compared to the deep rural farms because we are in the city, but our work is all about the trees and the land. There is a lot of time spent looking at maps and talking to people from all over the state about their land. The building is usually full of people coming in with questions about planting and how to manage their forest lands alongside their crops. It’s a lot of meetings and sitting at desks which can get a bit tiring when you’d rather be outside. Panjabari is a busy part of town so there is always a lot of traffic and noise outside our windows. We try to keep track of how the agroforestry projects are going in different districts. It’s a slow process because trees don’t grow overnight and neither does the progress we want to see. We have a lot of files and reports to get through every week. Sometimes we get to go out into the field and see the actual work being done, which is the part we look forward to the most. It feels good to see the green stuff growing in places that used to be bare. We are just a bunch of staff members trying to keep the wheels turning for the farmers and the environment around Assam.