Obsessive fanaticism is the key to a life not wasted.

It's slightly annoying that it literally says in the article that he has a photo album showing the growth of the area over time, yet the article chooses to use an AI-generated image at the top instead to depict that. An AI-generated image that looks like shit. What a way to represent this man's incredible accomplishment.

Hélio da Silva, o plantador de árvores

Looks like his real name (da Silva is the most common surname in Brazil) and nominative determinism: "Sun of the Forest". Silvicultura.

I'm trying to get some trees to grow - it's a lot of work: Hélio has spent huge amounts of time and money on it (average wage might be USD1000/month and article says he was spending 7000 a year and if that was in the past then amount is a lot more in today's dollars).

A similar story to Wendy's Secret Garden in Sydney, Australia?

https://www.wendyssecretgarden.org.au/

After her husband's death in 1992, Wendy Whiteley took to cleaning up an unused railway easement behind her house. It turned into a substantial garden. The railways refused to guarantee its future (it was on their land), but in 2015 it became an official park. Well worth a visit on a sunny afternoon if you are in Sydney.

There are a few one man army like this.

Dashrath Manjhi is best known for carving a 110-metre-long (360 ft), 9.1-metre-wide (30 ft), and 7.7-metre-deep (25 ft) path through a ridge of hills using only a hammer and a chisel, because his wife fell and died from injuries due to the ridge blocking easy access to a nearby hospital on time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dashrath_Manjhi

Time of India is such a shit news source that it should be banned from HN.

The ToI article is dated: 2026-08-01

In the article it says:

    > According to Forbes India, in 2003, Helio da Silva...

I Google searched for "Forbes India, in 2003, Helio da Silva" and found the original here: https://www.forbesindia.com/article/lifes/crazy-tree-planter...

Date? 2024-09-30

I guess ToI is having summer interns use LLMs to summarise old newspaper articles to produce more AI slop. Yay.

Typifies the old "you don't plant trees for you but you plant them for those who come after you."

The Man Who Planted Trees

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aY_zuNtf3_g

Love seeing stuff like this