The short story "The Man Who Planted Trees" chronicles a shepherd's decades-long effort to reforest a barren landscape in southeastern France between 1913 and 1945. Over the years, the unnamed shepherd single-handedly plants and tends over 100,000 oak trees, transforming the desolate region into a thriving forest ecosystem and allowing the repopulation of nearby abandoned villages. Though his reforestation work goes largely unnoticed, the shepherd's selfless commitment to environmental restoration provides inspiration and new life to the area for generations to come.

1. The Man Who Planted Trees
a short story by Jean Giono
Dhanesh Sebastian

3. Jean Giono
a French author who wrote works of fiction mostly set in
the Provence region of France.
Outside France, Giono's best-known work is probably the short story The
Man who Planted Trees (and 1987 film version). This optimistic tale of a
man who brings a deserted valley back to life by planting trees reflects
Giono's long-standing love of the natural world, an attitude that made him a
precursor to the modern ecological movement. He thus declined to receive
any royalties from this text, and granted free use to anyone who wanted to
distribute or translate it

4. Jean Giono, the only son of a cobbler and a laundress, was one of France’s
greatest writers. His prodigious literary output included stories, essays, poetry,
plays, filmscripts, translations and over thirty novels, many of which have been
translated into English. Giono was a pacifist, and was twice imprisoned in
France at the outset and conclusion of World War II. He remained tied to
Provence and Manosque, the little city where he was born in 1895 and, in 1970,
died.
Giono was awarded the Prix Bretano, the Prix de Monaco (for the most
outstanding collected work by a French writer), the Légion d’Honneur, and he
was a member of the Académie Goncourt.

5. Notable works
Colline
Second Harvest
Un roi sans divertissement
The Horseman on the Roof

6. About
❖ The Man Who Planted Trees is a short story published in 1953
by French author Jean Giono.
❖ As an allegorical tale, it tells the story of one shepherd's long and
successful single-handed effort to re-forest a desolate valley in
the foothills of the Alps in Provence throughout the first half of the
20th century.
❖ It was written in French, but first published in English
❖ It is a tale of selflessness, patience and commitment to
a cause greater than yourself: a relevant and
touching theme to present to children.

7. “THE MAN WHO PLANTED TREES”
“The Man Who Planted Trees” is a short story published in 1953 by French
author Jean Giono. It chronicles a shepherd’s three-decade-long effort to
reforest a barren tract of land in Southeastern France. Spanning a time period
shortly before World War I until shortly after World War II, the story is both
an antiwar allegory and an environmental allegory. “The Man Who Planted
Trees” inspired numerous adaptations across various mediums, including a
1988 Academy Award-winning animated short and a 2016 sequel by
environmentalist Gabriel Hemery.

8. In 1913 an unnamed narrator hikes alone for many days through Provence, a
region in Southeastern France at the mouth of the Alps. As he runs out of
water, the narrator arrives at a barren, deserted expanse where nothing grows
except lavender. The only signs of civilization are a smattering of long-abandoned
houses and a crumbling chapel.

9. After five hours of wandering with no water in sight, the narrator sees a shepherd
surrounded by around 30 sheep. The shepherd, a 50-year-old man named Elzéard
Bouffier, wordlessly offers him a drink of water from a flask. The narrator follows
Bouffier back to his home, a sturdy and well-maintained stone house. With the
nearest inhabited village over a day’s walk away, Bouffier invites the narrator to stay
the night. That village, like all villages in this forbidding expanse, is populated by men
who work as charcoal burners and live despairing existences.

10. ● That evening the narrator
watches curiously as Bouffier
pulls out a bag of acorns and
separates out the 100 largest
and least damaged nuts. He
rejects the narrator’s offer to
help, claiming that he must
complete this task himself.

11. The next morning the narrator says he would like to stay another day with Bouffier
so he can regain his strength. In truth, however, he wants to see what Bouffier
plans to do with his acorns. Using a long steel rod, Bouffier creates deep holes in
the ground in which he plants the acorns. Over the past three years he has planted
over a 100,000 acorns this way. Out of those, he expects around 10,000 to grow
and survive as oak trees. Bouffier began this endeavor shortly after the death of his
wife and only child. The following day, the narrator continues his journey.

12. A year later in 1914, World War I breaks out. The narrator serves as an infantryman
for the next four years, forgetting all about Bouffier and his oaks amid the horrors of
war, particularly those he witnesses during the Battle of Verdun. In 1920, two years
after the war ends, the narrator returns to Provence—less out of a desire to check
on Bouffier’s progress and more because he longs for the peace, quiet, and clean air
of that desolate landscape.

13. As he traces the same path he walked five years earlier, the narrator finally
remembers the shepherd. He recalls, “I’d seen so many people die in the last five
years I could easily imagine that Elzéard Bouffier must be dead too” (16). Yet
Bouffier is alive, and so are thousands of his oaks, the oldest of which are taller
than either man. The reappearance of trees causes a chain reaction, replenishing
streams that had long run dry and rebirthing an ecosystem of willows, reeds, and
meadows. In taking stock of the region’s miraculous recovery, the deeply
traumatized narrator characterizes it as a “reason for living” (19).

15. Each year the narrator returns to check on Bouffier’s progress. By 1935, the forest
is under the protection of the French State, whose officials believe the revitalized
landscape is the result of natural phenomena. Bouffier’s work continues unabated
until the start of World War II in 1939, when massive demand for fuel causes
loggers to cut down some of the oaks. Fortunately, the forest is too isolated from
main roads for the loggers to make much profit, and they abandon the work.

16. ● The narrator last sees Bouffier in June 1945, when the shepherd is 87 years old.
The surrounding villages, once abandoned, now teem with young families.
Moreover, the desperate and despairing charcoal burners have abandoned their
trade to live off the land on quaint farms. The inhabitants of one village build a
fountain and plant a lime tree next to it, which the narrator calls “an indisputable
symbol of resurrection” (27). The narrator estimates that 10,000 people now live
happily in the vicinity of the Edenic forest Bouffier willed into existence.
● Two years later, Bouffier dies in a nearby hospice.

17. Thank You…