With increasing importance of climate resilience, it is becoming more and more necessary to integrate promotion and protection of rural livelihoods with this objective and this has become an important concern of rural development initiatives. No question of sacrificing any development opportunities of small farmers or other livelihoods is involved here. It is all a matter of more thoughtful planning to integrate various important objectives.

Speaking of integration of livelihood protection and climate resilience, it is useful and interesting to look at the rural development initiatives of those organizations which have been able to achieve this integration well in tune with emerging needs of humanity and indeed all forms of life.

Seva Mandir is a leading voluntary organization of South Rajasthan which has been able to achieve very good integration in this context. Interestingly this was not always planned as an integrating strategy as the work of Seva Mandir started way back in 1968 when the importance of climate resilience had not been so widely realized. However as the protection and regeneration of green cover with community participation had been emphasized from the outset, it so turned out that the integration achievement of SEVA Mandir goes a long time back!

A big achievement of Seva Mandir has been in the context of regeneration of pastures and village common lands. This appears even more impressive where watershed development projects have also been taken up. A number of water conservation works have been taken up such as digging of various kinds of trenches, gabion structures and anicuts, check dams, field bunds and above all planting of trees. Estimates of Seva Mandir tell us that so far over 13 million trees have been planted under its various initiatives.

All this has been good for climate mitigation as trees absorb carbon. Improved soil can also absorb more carbon. However water conservation and pasture regeneration also help villagers in a big way to adapt to climate change as they have higher capacity to withstand drought situations and increasing heat conditions as well as other adverse and erratic weather patterns. In fact water conservation steps help not only in better capacity of facing drought threats but in addition also help in reducing or preventing flood situations at the time of excess rains. This has also become relevant in recent times as Rajasthan has been rather suddenly facing more flood and excess rain situations in times of climate change.

Seva Mandir’s work on pastures and watershed development has also prepared it well for playing a leading role in securing recognition for community forests under the Forest Rights Act. With such recognition for nearly 38000 hectares of community forests in areas in which Seva Mandir has good strength in the form of community institutions, this can be a future area of exemplary work of regeneration of degraded forest areas. 

More recent natural farming initiatives of Sewa Mandir can contribute to reducing the burden of fossil fuels in several villages while also helping farmers to reduce their costs.

Many-sided water and sanitation initiatives of Seva Mandir have also contributed to climate adaptation capacity of rural communities. Its work has been helpful in presenting an improved model for the development of peri-urban areas in ways that reduce the heat stress and conserve water, while also improving sanitation.

Seva Mandir has persistently worked with small farmers to improve their income in sustainable ways by improving the water and greenery base, while simultaneously increasing savings with the mobilization of self-help groups, saving and small enterprise groups particularly of women. All this increases the capacity of rural communities to withstand adverse weather situations in better ways by utilizing their savings instead of getting trapped forever in high interest debts. Improving diversity of crops is also helpful from the point of view of saving at least some crops in adverse weather situations. 

Adaptation capacity of animals and birds has also been increased with many water conservation, tree planting and green cover increasing works.

Climate resilience must also be seen in terms of increasing community strengths and improved, non-discriminatory social relationships. Such communities are much more likely to act with unity and sincere cooperation for protecting common interests in adverse weather situations. Seva Mandir’s persistent work for ending gender discrimination and increasing the social participation of women has added greatly to the strength of women as well as entire communities to face any difficult situations.

The increasing mobilization of people for development work including voluntary work or shramdan has increased the ability of communities to take up community work, such as for protecting water sources, in difficult times. This has been strengthened further by the creation of over 1000 community institutions. These community institution continue beyond the period of any project based interventions and add significantly to the strengths of communities to face any difficult situations. Hence these have added significantly to climate adaptation capacity.

Building further on existing strengths, Seva Mandir is in a good position to work for the creation of villages where fossil fuel burden can be reduced to a minimum. The work for the revival of bullocks, for which a government scheme is available now, can also be integrated with this. Similarly more government help for encouraging natural farming is also available.

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Bharat Dogra is Honorary Convener, Campaign to Save the Earth Now. His recent books include When the Two Streams Met, A Day in 2071, Man over Machine and India’s Quest for Sustainable Farming and Healthy Food. He is a regular contributor to Asia-Pacific Research.

Featured image is from the author

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