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Molai forest is a forest on Majuli Island in the Brahmaputra River in Kokilamukh, Jorhat district, Assam, India.
Molai forest is named after Padma Shri Jadav "Molai" Payeng, Indian environmental activist and forestry worker. The forest was single-handedly planted by Payeng in a timespan of 30 years and encompasses an area of about 1,360 acres / 550 hectares. Payeng planted and tended trees on a sandbar of the Brahmaputra River turning it into a forest reserve.
Molai forest now houses Bengal tigers, Indian rhinoceros, over 100 deer and rabbits besides apes and several varieties of birds, including a large number of vultures. There are several thousand trees, including valcol, arjun (Terminalia arjuna), ejar (Lagerstroemia speciosa), goldmohur (Delonix regia), koroi (Albizia procera), moj (Archidendron bigeminum) and himolu (Bombax ceiba). Bamboo covers an area of over 300 hectares.
A herd of around 100 elephants regularly visits the forest every year and generally stays for around six months. They have given birth to 10 calves in the forest in recent years.
Filmography
Molai forest and Payeng have been the subject of a number of documentaries in the recent years. A locally made film documentary, produced by Jitu Kalita in 2012 The Molai Forest, was screened at the Jawaharlal Nehru University. Jitu Kalita, who lives near Payeng's house, has also been featured and given recognition for good reporting by projecting the life of Payeng through his documentary. Molai forest was also featured in a 2013 documentary Foresting life, directed by the Indian documentary filmmaker Aarti Shrivastava, and in William Douglas McMaster's 2013 film documentary Forest Man. People have pledged 8,327 USD on the Kickstarter campaign for the post-production of this documentary in early 2013, which was displayed at 2014 Cannes Film Festival.