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It was a cool night in the Terai forest and it was very peaceful and 

quiet. This story starts in Nepal in part of a forest called the Terai 

forests. This is about a sad but truly remarkable story about 

deforestation in Nepal. It all starts out with a young but full grown 

Sal tree in the Terai forest. It was at night and the Sal trees were 

waving back and forth in the cool breeze. 

When it turned morning, Sal was wondering about what 

his day was going to be like. He always didn’t want to 

think of the night time because he didn’t want to be next 

on getting cut down. Sal missed a lot of his friends and 

wished that they were here but they weren’t. After a 

while a young boy came to sit under Sal. Sal had never 

seen the young boy before and was wondering what he 

was doing. The boy was talking to himself and asking 

himself questions about the forest. Sal could understand 

him and tried to answer. Suddenly the boy looked back, 

behind him, he saw nothing. He went on and on with the 

questions and Sal simply answered behind. 

“Some Indians and Nepalese were illegally entering Nepal and 

smuggling my friends. My name is Sal and I’m a Sal tree living in the 

Terai forest. I have been living in this used to be beautiful forest since I 

could remember when I was planted. I’ve been one of the hundreds of 

Sal trees left in this forest and we are about to become endangered if 

people keep cutting us down. A lot of my family and friends have been 

made into houses for tourism, burned to make heat in the winter or to 

heat food. Every night in the forest people come and secretly smuggle 

us. You can hear the terrible screeching sounds from their “saws”. The 

deforestation started in 1950 and has been getting worse since then. 

The government is trying to take care of the illegal smuggling by 

making headquarters at all of the National Parks and forest officials. 

They also put army and ranger posts to stop the illegal smuggling as 

well as poaching. I had a friend once that used to be an elephant; he 

used to hang around me in the mornings because of the heat. After a 

few weeks ago he never came back to visit me anymore. 

The People are ruining everything and because of that, it’s making 

more things worse than it should be. People are cutting too many trees 

down in the forests and they don’t even replant more trees to hold the 

ground together. If they don’t replant more trees in the ground, when 

the monsoon season comes it will cause avalanches. Then the 

avalanches will ruin the wood houses, perfectly good wood all ruined, 

and those were my friends and family! If the Indian’s and the Nepalese 

or whoever keeps cutting down the forest, animals run away from their 

homes in the forests and interfere with the people. They interfere with 

the people because they need food, and if they don’t have food they go 

and find food somewhere else. This is the result of poaching which is 

the illegal practice of trespassing on another's property to hunt or steal 

game without the landowner's permission. They also kill animals for 

their ivory like the elephants tusks. This is all a part of deforestation 

because one thing needs this to live or this someone needs to have this. 

Seeing trees get cut down or animals being killed and left in the open 

made me even madder that so many of my friends and family 

members or even animals have been lost in not even a year.”

The boy suddenly stood up and said, “Who’s there?” 

Sal replied, “I am here, I’ve been answering your questions. They are really 

good questions too. What is your name?”

My name... My name? Who are you? Come out and show yourself.” the boy 

said shivering.

“Yes your name. I am here with you. Do you have a name?” Smiled Sal. 

“Uhhhh… Uhhhh… Yes I have a name,” the boy gulped.

“So, what is it,” Sal asked.

“My name is Prem, and who are you?” asked Prem.

“I am a tree, a Sal tree,” answered Sal.

“Hahaha… Very funny, tell me who you really are,” Prem said.

“I’m not kidding. I’m a tree, I guess you can hear me for some odd reason,” 

replied Sal.

“Oh sorry about that, I didn’t know. What is your name then?” Prem asked 

softly.

“My name is Sal. I’m one of the few Sal trees still living. We are about to 

become extinct because of all the people who need us to build, making money, 

or anything of that nature,” said Sal.

As they got to know each other it was about time for 

Prem to go home. They said their goodbyes and went to 

sleep. It was another night of smugglers to come into 

the forest. Sal waited and waited and then… The saws, 

the saws were going on and on until almost morning. 

Every night Sal could hear the saws becoming louder 

and louder and getting closer and closer. 

The next morning Sal was wondering about the new 

friend he had made and if he will ever come to see him 

again. After a while he saw Prem running toward him. 

From then on they always saw each other every day. 

They speak about ways that they could help the forest 

by planting more trees or having more security. They 

also have debates on their opinions of poaching and 

smuggling. After a few days Sal thought that since he 

was spending so much time together that they were 

best friends. 

Sal and Prem were spending all their time together until… 

Prems Birthday was coming up and he was turning 19. He 

wanted to join the army to take care of the poaching of 

the animals. Sal started to get really sad because he 

could never see his friend anymore. He was all grown up 

and got a job of being a person taking care of the animals 

being poached. The only thing really wrong was that the 

Sal trees were getting smaller and smaller. 

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