Meet The Man Who Chose Trees Over Friends: Imthias Kadeer

It was by chance that I got to e-meet Imthias kadeer. If fate had not intervened, there doesn’t appear to be any reason for our paths to have crossed. As a writer, I’m always looking for great stories to tell, so imagine my excitement when a dear friend of mine told me about Imthias .

Born into a prominent business family in Kerala, Imthias grew up amidst the lush greenery and beauty of ‘Gods Own Country’.

He wanted for nothing while growing up, skipping and breathing the joy of nature. He completed his schooling from Bhavans Vidya Mandir and then completed his Engineering from CVUT in Prague.

As a young man he joined his father in business for a few years and then being a passionate traveller, he relocated to Dubai which is hub for those who love to travel and is also a major point of transit, to start his own venture.

On one trip home to Kochi, Imthias looked around him and all he saw was destruction. Oh Kerala was still green and beautiful, for people who lived in, Delhi or Rajasthan. But for Imthias the green was no longer lush and the air and water, no longer clean.

He started to take an interest in the environment and he found that a lot of activity to restore the environment was already underway. Government sanctions had been taken and planting of trees were happening. So then how was it that this massacre of the environment continued?

He found out that just planting any tree will not help the environment. The tree planted in an area needs to be indigenous to that area, so that it can support the ecosystem like the birds , insects and soil in that region.

Plants like Eucalyptus ,Silver Oak and even Rubber are actually foreign plants brought in by the British and the Portugese. Yes, they are still plants but something indigenous would have done three times the wonder.

So about 12 years back Imthias founded Shades of Life, a community to inspire friends and relatives to plant an indigenous sapling and then nurture it. The project took shape on Facebook and anyone who wanted to become or remain friends with Imthias was required to plant a tree indigenous to the area they live in and share a photo on the Facebook page.

From Shades of Life grew another inspired initiative named My Tree Challenge where the tree planting concept was taken up as a challenge and had become viral worldwide.  Teaming up with a friend Abdul Manaf and famous actor Mammootty, this initiative was kicked off.

Imthias has inspired more than one hundred thousand people across the globe to plant a tree. On the flip side Imthias says, “You have no idea how many friends I’ve lost because I insisted that they plant a tree.”

It’s really not that much to ask for. In just 5 years he has converted the area around his Villa in Dubai to a lush paradise with birds chirping everywhere.

Let’s all participate in this wonderful initiative. After all, what air our children will breathe is a direct result of the actions we take today.

All images for this story were sourced from the My Tree Challenge Page on Facebook.