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
Young twitcher becomes desert’s star birding guide
With a passion for birds, birding guide Musa Khan hopes his work will inspire other twitchers to become aware of rising bird deaths due to power transmission lines in the Thar desert.
UP’s young water evangelist
A young woman receives international recognition for her work ensuring 22 UP villages - and counting - get clean, safe water and learn how to fight against contamination.
Greening barren land – Bihar’s guava guru
Once a teacher fondly called ‘guruji,’ Satyendar Manjhi now turns barren land into guava orchards – all thanks to the inspirational advice of India’s ‘mountain man’.
Will Dhinkia lose its betel vines to steel plants?
Unwilling to give up their profitable betel farms, residents of Dhinkia are protesting against the acquisition of their lands for an industrial plant.
Forget logging or hunting – two Assam villages embrace ecotourism
Giving up hunting and tree felling, two Assamese villages are conserving their forest habitat rather than let their natural resources erode. With their villages now on the eco-tourism map, they are embracing alternate livelihoods.
Meet Similipal’s young forest “Protection Assistants”
Meet the youths working with the forest department – designated as “Protection Assistants” – to prevent poaching, stop illegal timber logging in Similipal National Park and spread the word about the benefits of park protection.
Ferocious river threatens potters’ livelihood
The 500-year-old legacy of Majuli Island’s potters is at risk as the River Brahmaputra slowly swallows their land and, ironically, measures to prevent erosion only add to the potter’s woes, never mind the next generation’s lack of interest in the art.
Small wetlands are being neglected
While larger wetlands are being protected and restored, smaller ones of vital importance to villagers are being ignored at best, encroached upon at worst.
Kashmiris turn to eco-treks
The pandemic-induced reflectiveness means more Kashmiris are taking to the hills – becoming eco-conscious trekkers of the mountains they were once content to just look at.