Artists are depicting deities and scenes from Hindu classics such as the Ramayana and Mahabharata, or an imaginary scene showing an elderly woman restraining a man coming with an axe to cut trees.

These artists believe that the artwork will prevent the local people from cutting down the trees out of fear of incurring the wrath of the gods.

“We are using the deities as a cover”, said Shashthi Nath Jha, who also runs an NGO dedicated to empowering women and child labourers, while speaking to Reuters recently.

“We thought people will not do any harm to trees once they come across the images of gods and goddesses on them,” he said.

The area under forest cover in Bihar has come down to as low as seven per cent.

Reports said that the tree painting campaign began in September this year after Shashthi Nath Jha managed to overcome numerous local objections, including doubt that the campaign would last long, worries about how much the paint cost and fears the colours would soon fade.

“I had to convince them a lot before they agreed to join me,” Jha was quoted as saying. “I made several experiments to check the durability of the paint in the open. Finally we decided to apply a mix of natural and artificial paints to ensure the painting survives the fast-changing weather conditions.”

They work in the style of Madhubani painting. Jha said the initiative has drawn the attention of the international community as well, with a team from Switzerland recently visiting to study how art could be used to convey a strong environmental and social messag