The Environmental Crisis

Program Partners in Action
One of Grace Trust’s women’s self-help groups prepares nursery beds with trees.

While almost one million acres of land in Assam , West Bengal, and other regions in Northwest India and Bangladesh get flooded almost annually, the people of Tamil Nadu in southeastern India , 1000 miles away from the flood zones, are struggling with drought and a lack of fresh water. Trees have been cleared, water is stripping top soil from farmlands, and little, if any, rainwater is getting channeled back into ground aquifers. In the end of 2004, the great tsunami hit Tamil Nadu causing further destruction to an already struggling region.

Our Response

We are continuing to work with farming communities, schools, and women’s groups through a network of over twenty local organizations to address the water crisis that is punishing the region’s agricultural production and the health of the people. We are also providing planning support for communities requiring timber, soil stabilization, and income generating activities in the aftermath of the tsunami. The local population is interested in planting a variety of fruit trees, timber and non-timber species suitable for the degraded red soil - with the emphasis being placed on planting fast-growing, multipurpose species that are supplying a wide array of products while serving as barriers to minimize further erosion.

Training in sustainable agriculture
The majority of all our work over the last two years has been in the region of Tamil Nadu, the southeastern region hit hardest by the devastating 2004 tsunami.

Update: May 2007

Our main field representative in the area is Subramanian Periswamy, whose organization, the Rural Development and Aforestation Society (RDAS) is spearheading our tree-planting efforts in the region. We have developed an in-country seed distribution network, utilizing the seed resources of the Palini Hills Conservation Council, a local NGO based near Dindigul. Gorav Seth, South Asia Program Coordinator, spent 18 days on-site in January 2007, where he helped to conduct a two day agroforestry training course in conjunction with RDAS and John Button, an Australian permaculture instructor based out of Tiruvannamalai.