Designation: Environmentalist, Secretary Vana Charitable Trust, Mobile: +91-8197972207

Jeeth Milan Roche, better known as the Tree man of Mangalore has planted over 2,00,000 sapling in and around Mangalore since 2004. In 2023 Jeeth stopped the illegal felling of 6 acres of densely forested government land, an act which gave birth to the Kanthavara Forest Conservation initiative. Jeeth and his team now operate from the Kanthavara Forest Basecamp and monitor 2,000acres of Government land in Kanthavara village to preempt encroachers & illegal loggers. They have already reported and stopped 11 new forest violations since the first one in 2023.

Since Oct 2023 Jeeth has conducted educational Study tours for over 1,100 students and visitors to the basecamp

1. Broken Forest - Study Tour
2. Science of Laudato Si - Study Tour
3. Bamboo farming and applications - Study tour

Jeeth is also a member of national conservation organisations such as Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) & Bamboo Society of India (BSI)

Using Kanthavara as his base Jeeth is involved in the Aranya Mala initiative which envisages connecting several protected areas in the region to each other and further on to Kudremukh National Park by getting heavily wooded government lands between reserve forests notified as 'Conservation Reserves' and thereby affording wildlife a safe corridor for movement between forests. Fragmentation of forests and wild spaces has led to a dramatic loss of bio-diversity which in turn undermines the bio-physical foundations of modern civilization. Jeeth works in consultation with stalwarts in the field of conservation and also with several young interns and volunteers.

Click here for the Kanthavara Forest Basecamp story