Climate change is impacting the world. It is the poorest who suffer the most. Yet often rural Indians are leading the way in sustainable advances and trialling schemes that – if rolled out on a macro scale – can create real change in the environment.
Environment
Ambitious plans to reintroduce cheetahs to India
The world's fastest land animal is coming back to India as an ambitious plan is underway to reintroduce the cheetah back to the subcontinent. Village Square speaks with the man behind the mission.
Where the water monitor lizards have a free run
When man-animal conflict is on the rise, people in a West Bengal village co-exist with water monitor lizards. Thanks to their belief that the creatures’ pond is haunted, which besides other reasons has contributed to their conservation.
“India is the guru of tiger conservation”
India’s effort to save tigers, the national animal, has been a tremendous success in recent years. India’s current tiger population stands at 3,000. To understand how this feat was achieved and what this means for other threatened wildlife species in India, we spoke to Dr Samir Kumar Sinha, Chief Ecologist at Wildlife Trust of India.
Sustainable roofs make houses in informal settlements cooler during summer
In informal settlements where houses are built without considering atmospheric factors, and people have no means of regulating the extreme heat within, there are attempts to provide sustainable heat-proof solutions.
Floods in Assam fan out to new areas, cause more harm
While the intense rains and obstructions on river courses cause floods in Assam, the flood waters enter new territories, causing more damage than before.
A thousand ponds for this Maharashtrian village’s vineyards
When switching from water-intensive crops to grapes didn’t solve problems for farmers in drought-prone Manerajuri, they found a sustainable water source by digging farm ponds and harvesting rainwater.
A peek into rural India’s plastic waste
Government of India’s strict ban on the use of ‘single-use plastic’ comes into effect on 1 July, 2022. The notification permits jail term of up to five years, or a penalty of up to Rs 1 lakh, or both, for violators. As this ban is imposed, we asked our growing photo community to show us how plastic waste affects rural India. The photos show the prevalence of plastic waste and the toxic ways in which it affects everyone - humans and animals alike - in the rural ecosystem.
Sacred groves guarded by village deities need human help
Tamil Nadu’s disappearing sacred groves host some of the last remaining patches of critically endangered tropical dry evergreen forests, which - though guarded by the gods - need human help restoring them.
Rural youth turn to cool eco-tourism jobs in Chhattisgarh
Converted into an eco-tourism facility, the scenic spot near Kodar Dam in Chhattisgarh offers a perfect weekend get-away, while ensuring local employment for rural youth and better income.