Why the wrong tree can starve a bird
When Aadya Joshi was a school student in Mumbai, she noticed something many adults walked past: planting trees does not automatically help nature. The wrong, non-native species can starve the insects and birds that depend on local plants.
As a junior at the American School of Bombay, she founded The Right Green to teach people — starting with children — why native plants matter, turning a garbage-strewn lot near a police station into a community garden along the way.
A database for biodiversity
Her bigger tool was data. Aadya built a database of more than 15,000 plant–insect feeding relationships from eco-regions across India, and created a BioPower Index that ranks plants by how much biodiversity they support, so landscapers, gardeners and civic authorities can choose what to plant.
In November 2020, when she was 17, the Children’s Climate Prize in Sweden named her its Changemaker winner for 2020, awarding her a diploma, a medal and SEK 100,000 to develop the project.
The jury praised how she combined “modern database technology with the traditional knowledge of native plants” to help communities act. After the prize, she worked with a large Indian media house on a nature programme for 700 schools in the Mumbai region. Aadya has given few interviews, and The Right Green’s later growth is only thinly documented. If you could plant one native species where you live, which local insect or bird would you be feeding? That is a question from us, not part of her record.
SOURCES
- Children’s Climate Prize · winners announcement, 2 November 2020 ↗ · Organising body release
- Children’s Climate Prize · official winners page ↗ · Organising body record
- Children’s Climate Prize · follow-up on Aadya Joshi, 6 April 2021 ↗ · Organising body release
- The Global Indian · profile of Aadya Joshi, 14 May 2024 ↗ · Profile report
