Jadav " Molai " Payeng (born 1963) is an environmental activist and forestry worker from Jorhat , India. Over the course of several decades, he planted and tended trees on a sandbar of the river Brahmaputra turning it into a forest reserve. The forest, called Molai forest after him is located near Kokilamukh of Jorhat , Assam, India and encompasses an area of about 1,360 acres / 550 hectares . In 2015, he was honoured with Padma Shri , the fourth highest civilian award in India. He was born in the indigenous Mising tribe of Assam. Jadav Payeng belongs to the Mising tribe in Assam, India. He lives in a small hut in the forest. Binita, his wife, and his 3 children (two sons and a daughter) accompany him. He has cattle and buffalo on his farm and sells the milk for his livelihood, which is his only source of income. In an interview from 2012, he revealed that he has lost around 100 of his cows and buffaloes to the tigers in the forest, but blames the