Although the scale of the environmental problems seems overwhelming, nature conservation works.
This article is a part of the essay series: Not the End of the World: World Environment Day 2024
We may be teetering on the brink of doom, but we’re starting to step back onto firm ground. That is what data scientist Hannah Wright tells us in her book “Not the End of the World”. Her research in global data shows there is hope—she says, “Over the last 10 years or so, according to the environmental data, there have been signs for cautious optimism. It’s not inevitable that we get there, but I think there’s an opportunity for us to do so … The feeling of “it's too late” just leads to inaction and paralysis.”
Although the scale of the problems, mostly arising from climate change, seems overwhelming, nature conservation works. Interventions designed within the local social and environmental context, led by communities, have been proven to be low-cost, sustainable nature-based solutions.
In the Indian context, smallholding farmers in many settings have tackled their environmental problems with heartening levels of success, with clear, verifiable results in drought resilience, water management, restoration of degraded land and push-back on desertification. They show the success of public–private partnerships where communities, organisations, and government all buy in, contribute and collaborate. Their actions are effective, scalable models for tackling the impacts of climate change in regions most hit by extreme heat, erratic weather patterns, land degradation and desertification.
In the Indian context, smallholding farmers in many settings have tackled their environmental problems with heartening levels of success, with clear, verifiable results in drought resilience, water management, restoration of degraded land and push-back on desertification.
Water is the lifeblood of survival. In the severely drought-prone Jalna district in Maharashtra, 330 villages that needed 90,000 tankers of water a year now need none. Individuals, organisations, and government partnered to rejuvenate water sources and desilt old water bodies; 427 km of nullahs (water courses) have been opened, 19 ponds brought back to life, and a total of 79,7443 cubic metres of silt removed in the last six to seven years. Sparkling ponds and recharged groundwater have transformed lives, providing water for homes and agriculture. Girls who had to carry water miles now go to school; farmers fertilise their fields with the rich excavated silt and produce crops carefully watered from the reserves they created; some agroindustry has moved in, providing employment. Labour migration and farmer suicides are down, and the once-brown, arid land is now green and fertile.
In the severely drought-prone Jaln district in Maharashtra, 330 villages that needed 90,000 tankers of water a year now need none.
It is more sustainable and equitable to revive old water sources, with their immediate benefits for local populations including the most vulnerable, rather than to start new projects which are expensive and can have negative social impacts such as displacing people. This model can be quickly scaled at a low cost to give water security to drought-prone areas. The Indian planning body, Niti Aayog, has bought into this model for replication across India.
Agroforestry is an effective nature-based solution which localizes SDGs for land restoration, climate resilience and creating carbon sinks. The Bagepalli and Chintamani taluks in the southern state of Karnataka are a semi-arid, drought-prone dryland, with erratic weather exacerbated by climate change, leading to crop losses. The people are agricultural labourers or hold tiny agricultural plots of 1–10 hectares. The agroforestry project here began in 1997 with 78 farmers which increased to 1,352 by December 2021, of whom a third are women. They have planted 334,166 trees, with a 61-percent survival rate. An estimated 22,800 tCO2 had been sequestered by the end of the fifth year, and 5,700 tCO2 annually. Besides improved incomes from fruit trees and intercropping, the farmers have also received direct financial benefits through carbon revenue from the sale of Verified Emission Reductions (VERs) to private sector organisations. Smallholding farmers are leading landscape change that can provide a blueprint for grassroots-level action.
The dry, rocky, hilly terrain of Karauli and Udaipur districts exemplifies Rajasthan’s title of desert state. Farmers grew barely one crop a year, which often failed because of erratic rains, which could be too little or too much and lost in run-offs, carrying precious soil with it. Community workers were identified and trained to build awareness in selected villages about water management, soil conservation and climate-resilient agricultural practices. Communities built 13 pokhars (earthen rainwater-catchment structures), capable of harvesting 65 million litres of water, and 60 pagaras (soil-conserving farm bunds) that allowed double cropping on 52 hectares; 10,983 cubic metres of silt was removed, creating 10.9 million litres of water storage and providing rich soil for farms. Farmers dropped unsustainable agricultural practices and adopted climate-resilient ones. From growing barely enough grain to survive six months, farmers now harvest a mix of crops that is enough to feed their families and even sell surpluses, and there is enough water for the community’s needs.
Farmers in Anantapur in Andhra Pradesh have fought back against erratic rain and desertification with regenerative agricultural practices, using natural fertilisers crop diversity and agroforestry. The project includes 60,000 farmers across 300,000 acres of land. They plant crops alongside trees and other plants, in a changing cycle through the year, so soil nutrients are restored. Soil, once killed by chemical fertilisers, has come back to life, spongy, rich and teeming with earthworms. Scaling up requires financial support, as is the case for all such community-led climate-adaption and restoration projects, but a fraction of what top-down projects would cost.
Similar adaptive practices and crop diversification have transformed farmers’ lives and the landscape in arid Solapur, Maharashtra. An organisation partnered with the state to develop a farming model to increase incomes and provide climate resilience. With diversification, farmers have the security of at least some crops at any time doing well and fetching good prices. This model has been extended to over 500 villages of five drought-affected districts, Osmanabad, Beed, Washim and Hingoli of Marathwada, besides Solapur.
Similar adaptive practices and crop diversification have transformed farmers’ lives and the landscape in arid Solapur, Maharashtra.
However, arid regions are not the only victims of climate change and anthropogenic damage. Forests have been destroyed. Forest restoration requires more than protection or replanting – invasive weeds have to be removed and plants and trees reintroduced based on unspoilt ‘benchmark’ forests in similar areas and conditions. The long-term ecological restoration project in the Annamalai hills in Tamil Nadu does just that, with the vegetation plot at the heart of monitoring the project—these plots are several pieces of land of fixed dimensions, in randomly or systematically selected locations. They are monitored by measuring trees, counting seedlings, weighing leaf litter, collecting soil cores and various other methods of data collection to appraise the condition and quality of the ecosystems the plots represent. Additionally, fauna, mainly insects and birds, are bio-indicators.
Researchers found that restored forests had more trees in number and diversity, with denser canopies, and hence greater carbon stocks. Native birds were more abundant than in unrestored forests, although not to the level of the benchmark rainforests. Restoration efforts are succeeding at overcoming some of the barriers that prevent degraded rainforests from recovering on their own.
The final word by the restoration researchers applies to every aspect of land restoration: ‘Restoration is a tool we must use for reviving ecosystems that are already degraded, but we should not expect restoration (or tree planting) to compensate for further annihilation of intact natural forest ecosystems.’
There is hope. We can be optimistic about repairing our planet, provided we do it mindfully and justly. We can fix a lot that is broken, but we must stop breaking any more.
Vikrom Mathur is a Senior Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation.
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Vikrom Mathur is Senior Fellow at ORF. Vikrom curates research at ORF’s Centre for New Economic Diplomacy (CNED). He also guides and mentors researchers at CNED. ...
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