Piyush Manush
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- Social entrepreneur
- activist
Piyush Manush | |
|---|---|
| Born | V. Piyush Sethia |
| Occupations |
|
| Organization(s) | Coop Forest, Salem Citizens’ Forum |
| Known for | Environmental friendly activities |
| Spouse | Monika Sethia[1] |
| Awards | Bhoomi Award[2] |
V Piyush Sethia,[3] better known as Piyush Manush,[4] is an Indian environmental activist.
Coop forest
Along with few others in 2010, he formed the Salem Citizen's Forum, a collective of urban citizens that engaged in people welfare activities and improving public delivery systems.[5] The Forum adopted the Mookaneri Lake, a 58-acre located at the foot of the Shevaroy Hills, was conserved from massive pollution.[6][7] He initiated and has been instrumental in reviving water bodies such as Ammapettai Lake, Kundukkal Lake, Ismailkhan Lake, Arisipalayam Pond and Pallappatti well etc. across districts of Salem and Dharmapuri.[8] He also opposed commercial mining in Kanjamalai hills and stood against encroachments and land mafia.[9] He, along with others, received the CNN-IBN Indian of the Year award on behalf people of Chennai in 2015.[10]
He created the "Coop Forest" in 2009, an initiative for forest preservation, on 1.5 acres of hilly land in Dharmapuri which quickly expanded to 150 acres.[11] Over the years, the Coop Forest has turned into a home for bamboo (Piyush has planted 40,000 bamboo saplings) and guava, lemon, vilvam, neem, rosewood, pungam, custard apple, jack fruit, silk cotton, Singapore cherry, chiku, mango, and other varieties of plants and trees.[12] The Coop Forest experiments with finding alternatives to plastic, steel and cement.[13]