For villagers in Tharabari, a remote village located close to Balipara Reserve Forest (BRP) in Sonitpur district of Assam, India, the forest that surrounded them has always been full of treasures. Other than firewood, they forage the jungle for medicinal herbs like seni bon, a cure for acidity, durun ful, a headache remedy and dupor tenga used to treat kidney stones. Over the years, however, the forest became severely denuded. So did these treasures and their livelihoods. This also led to soil erosion, loss of biodiversity and rise in human-elephant conflict. 

Could afforestation offer a solution? In 2017, Balipara Foundation, a non-profit working for community based environment conservation had transformed barren land in Udalguri in Assam into a full-fledged forest with local help. The transformed forest was soon restored as an active elephant corridor.  It also had experience running similar afforestation projects in other parts of the state. In Tharabari, however, when the Foundation initially explained the plan to afforest the area with indigenous trees, local attitudes initially proved to be an obstacle. Villagers feared that once this happened, their land would have to be handed over to the forest department. 

Lucky for them that a local student, 21-year-old Junali Basumatary, understood that perhaps by restoring traditional biodiversity to the area, local livelihoods could get a much-needed fillip. She persuaded Jermia, 43, a local farmer, to participate. Together, they convinced 150 villagers to join the drive and paved the way for the Foundation to start their work at Tharabari. 

The plantation drive had a three-fold strategy. “We started by offering them wages for the plantation that gave them livelihood. Then we asked them to build a community nursery from where we could purchase saplings,” explains Gautam Baruah, chief operations architect, Balipara Foundation. The project took off and today, planters and site supervisors earn between Rs 250-350 a day, considered a good livelihood here. Additionally, they also undergo training in multi-cropping and looking after the newly planted saplings.  

From 0.25 million in 2020, Jermia and friends have already reached the grand figure of 0.47 million saplings planted this year at Tharabari. The project however, is fully dependent on Balipara Foundation as of now. It needs time and perhaps more community support to become self-sustaining. 

Linking forest regeneration with livelihoods has ensured that villagers are not solely financially dependent on cultivating rain-fed paddy. It has also reawakened the community’s natural affinity for the forest. “It is unbelievable that we are managing to earn our livelihood without destroying the environment,” says Jernia. “The earth can certainly become a nicer place to stay if such efforts are replicated in other places!”

Author: Gurvinder Singh, The India Story Agency for Sacred Groves
Images Credit: Balipara Foundation

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The tiny ice crystals on the dark green leaves sparkle in the winter sun. Wolfgang Palme breaks one leaf off the palm cabbage to eat. “It tastes nutty, elegant and sweet”, he says, smiling. An icy wind blows over the fields. Wolfgang Palme pulls up the zip of his weather jacket. The agronomist and head of the Austrian Research Institute of Horticulture has come to enjoy the taste of winter. The cold does not seem to harm the vegetables in his field. Chard, spinach, purslane, radish, turnips, leek, herbs and many species of cabbage are surviving undamaged despite temperatures falling far below zero on the day we meet. Nearby, in unheated soft-plastic tunnels, salads, carrots, celery or pea sprouts are thriving. Wolfgang Palme and his team planted them in late summer last year. Now it is the end of winter. There is still snow on the mountains around the Zinsenhof, an experimental farm between Linz and Vienna. But the vegetables are ready to eat.

It is a boon for his community, where in winter, fresh vegetable consumption entails buying produce grown in faraway, warmer climates. In fact, this is how most of Central Europe sources vegetables in winter. These, however, come with hidden costs. According to WWF Switzerland, a kilogram of asparagus flown in from Peru results in 15 kilograms of carbon emissions, compared to less than one kilogram had it been locally cultivated in the field. Green beans arriving from Morocco emit more than 30 times carbon than those that are locally grown. And what is available in winter locally is typically grown in heated greenhouses. “On a cold winter night, a heated greenhouse of 1.5 acres emits as much carbon as a detached house in a whole year,” says Palme, adding, “mankind can no longer afford this”. His innovative farming techniques balance the need to save the environment with meeting the consumer demand for fresh produce.

Palme has identified and published nearly 80 varieties of veggies which stand the Austrian frost. The idea of growing them in sub-zero temperatures came to him by chance. In an experiment, Asian salad greens were surprised by frost. But in spite of minus 11 degrees they remained undamaged. The technical literature had stated that they could withstand frost of only minus three to five degrees. “Fortunately, the lettuce had not read the literature,” he quips. This experience made him realise that often the growing conditions listed on seed packets, especially about how much frost they can bear, is not wholly accurate. So he redefined it.

With his work, the scientist wants to provide practical knowledge to other farmers. He is presently working with seven vegetable farms all over Austria. “Winter vegetables are good for small and medium-sized farmers,” says Palme. “They can be grown on land and soft-plastic tunnels all year round and save energy. Even in winter, they can offer fresh produce from their own cultivation.” The all-important question is how these vegetables manage to survive the frost. Palme plucks a lettuce leaf and takes a nibble. “Many vegetables form a kind of frost protection in their cells, which is made of sugar.. ” he says, through happy chews. “This is the reason they taste so good…”

Author: Klaus Sieg, The India Story Agency for Sacred Groves
Images Credit: Wolfgang Palme

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As a child, 18-year-old British-Bangladeshi Mya-Rose Craig was as in love with nature as she was struck by the fact that the British countryside was preserved for people that didn’t look like her. “It seemed to be a space of whiteness and privilege,” she says.

When it comes to nature conservation, these raced roots run deep. Darwin and Wallace trotted the globe to find ‘animals unknown to man’, forgetting the indigenous people who had coexisted peacefully with them for centuries. US President Teddy Roosevelt famously said that Native Americans were the cause of such environmental and animal population decline, that the state needed to requisition their ancestral lands as national parks. This history, Craig says, has forged a narrative in which young people from visible ethnic minorities “simply think nature is not for them”.

The child of keen bird-watchers, Craig spent her early childhood trailing around the country in search of rare birds such as the cattle egret with her British father Chris and her Bengali mother Helena. At the age of seven, Craig featured in a BBC documentary Twitchers: A Very British Obsession on BBC TV. But it was her realisation that Britain lacked the opportunities and infrastructure for young people to get up close to nature, especially children from ethnic minorities, that motivated the teenager to act.

“In the US they have camps for nature lovers of all kinds, including camps run by world-famous birders and I was dying to do these,” Craid says. “But in the UK there was nothing, especially for city kids.” Frustrated, at the tender age of 14 Craig decided to organise her own nature camp and, not content with the roster of white teenage boys who signed up, Craig reached out to community leaders in inner city areas of the city of Bristol, to advertise the camp to children and teens from a range of ethnic backgrounds. The first camp, in 2015, was a roaring success, with campers documenting moth and bird populations, sleeping under the stars and enjoying a life-changing experience in the process.

“You get these kids who’ve never engaged with nature and they come and have a really good time and that makes me happy,” Craig says, adding that it’s often the boys who are full of bravado who are most squeamish about handling a wriggling bird, or dipping a pond to chart the biodiversity in its murky depths. “I love it when the girls chase them around with a bird in their hands,” she laughs.

In the last census (2011) 13 percent of the UK population, around 8.1 million people, identified themselves as black, Asian or minority ethnic (BAME). Yet a 2017 study by Natural England found that just 26.2 percent of black people spent time in the British countryside, compared with 44.2 percent of white people. Meanwhile, only one percent of visitors to UK national parks come from BAME backgrounds.

“Teens from visible minorities tell me they fear the countryside is very white and elitist,” Craig says, “and sadly their fears are confirmed when they experience racism and disapproval on campsites and at nature reserves.”

Black2Nature is now in its seventh year of camps and Craig also campaigns, through the organisation, to increase diversity on the boards of British conservation charities. Undeterred by the pandemic, in 2020 Black2Nature staged nature camps in Craig’s local Chew Valley, where families from socially deprived backgrounds got together in Covid-friendly bubbles to enjoy conservation activities such as bird-ringing and bird-spotting walks. Craig is heading to Warwick University in September 2021 to study politics, but, she says, that’s no excuse to relax her efforts to make the British countryside a welcoming place for everyone. In spring and summer 2021, Black2Nature is planning eight camps for five to 10-year-olds and city teenagers from London and Bristol and the first all-girl Black2Nature camp. In 2020 Craig was awarded an honorary doctorate in science (D.Sc.h.c) from the University of Bristol for her work with Black2Nature.

“There’s a lot to do,” Craig admits. “But the natural world and social justice, won’t wait.”

Author: The India Story Agency for Sacred Groves
Images Credit: Mya-Rose Craig – Helena Craig

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