Name: Jadav Payeng

Background: Jadav Payeng has spent decades as a lone environmental activist, single-handedly turning a barren sandbar on the River Brahmaputra into a forest spread across more than 1300 acres. He started out by planting bamboo saplings and then planted other varieties of trees and other plants. Today the forest created by Jadav has become the habitat of Bengal tigers, rhinoceros, deer and various species of birds.