Small but mighty efforts are brewing to bring back native forests in India

Godwin Vasanth Bosco, a naturalist and restoration practitioner, passes through native trees planted by him 10 years ago in Nilgiris district, India, Sept. 25, 2024. A worker arranges native tree saplings at a nursery run by a restoration practitioner in Udhagamandalam in Nilgiris district, India, Sept. 27, 2024. Workers pluck tea leaves using cutters at a tea estate in Nilgiris district, India, Sept. 25, 2024.

Scattered groves of native trees, flowers and the occasional prehistoric burial ground are squeezed between hundreds of thousands of tea shrubs in southern India's Nilgiris region — a gateway to a time before colonization and the commercial growing of tea that reshaped the country's mountain landscapes.