Meet the couple who saved a rainforest and brought the animals back

Pamela and Anil Malhotra have dedicated their lives to something very important.

In 1991, the couple bought some barren land in South India.

But they could hardly have imagined how the place would look 26 years later.

Pamela remembers how the original 55-acre plot of land looked when she and her husband, Anil, bought it back in 1991.

“I remember walking through the forest. You wouldn’t hear anything but the sound of your own feet.”

Now, 26 years later, the landscape is completely different.

Today, their forest is bursting with life.

Pamela and Anil have transformed more than 300 acres into a sanctuary for many threatened animal and plant species.

Here are some Asian elephants …

… Bengali tigers and buffalo. The nature reserve is a becaon of biodiversity.

The idea of saving the rainforest came when the couple saw how extreme the extent of deforestation was.

Before industrialization, about 13 percent of the Earth’s surface was tropical rainforest. Now there is only about 6 percent left.

Pamela and Anil were ready to stand up for Mother Earth.

“When we first came here, most of the lands that were sold to us were abandoned lands. Abandoned rice fields, coffee, and cardamom fields, as well. A lot of deforestation had taken place. And that took a lot of care and energy and time and years to bring it back,” says Pamela.

“Our aim is to preserve the flora and fauna, especially the rainforests, for the future generation,” Anil tells The Better India.

Perhaps the biggest reward was the seeing the influx of animals.

“We both feel a tremendous amount of joy when we walk through the sanctuary. I’ve never felt this kind of joy in anything else that I’ve done in my life,” says Pamela.