The Forest Rights Act empowers Odisha women to protect their forests

The forest rights act helps women take lead to protect their forests in Odisha

The country’s landmark Forest Rights Act of 2006 (FRA) was translated into formal rights for traditionally forest-dependent communities in the village of Kodalpalli in Odisha’s Nayagarh district in 2021. Following this, Odisha has launched a scheme to expand FRA coverage to 30,000 villages that are home to tribal groups and other traditionally forest-dwelling communities. 

While it has taken Kodalpalli villagers more than 10 years to get their claim validated,  the legal right has now helped to strengthen existing community based institutions and a women-led forest stewardship scheme called thengapalli that had been in place for about four decades, while opening up new livelihood opportunities for residents.

In Kodalpalli, Odisha, thenga means stick, and palli means turn or rotation. For decades, stick-wielding women here have taken turns every day to patrol and safeguard their woodlands (Mongabay, India).

Women help Ladakh villages to secure safe drinking water

Women in villages of Ladakh have come together to provide safe drinking water to the population in one of most difficult terrains in the country. The Jal Shakti Department has trained 815 women in the villages to test water in the villages and report if any discrepancy is found in the samples. The women have been trained under the Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) which ensures tap water connectivity to all residents.

The women have been given field testing kits (FTK) that they use in the assigned villages in the Union Territory to test water samples and of 6507 samples tested, 171 were found to be contaminated. As there are no major industries releasing effluents in the groundwater, the contaminations were mild and were corrected by the department.

There are a total 43,147 households in Ladakh out of which 37,127 have been provided with tap water connections under JJM. Till August 15, 2019 there were only 1,414 tap water connections in rural areas of the UT as per official figures (The Tribune India). 

Over 25 crore households in India have the potential to deploy 637 gigawatts (GW) of solar energy on rooftops: Report

Currently, India has installed 11 GW of rooftop solar capacity, of which only 2.7 GW is in the residential sector.  An analysis of 21 states across India shows that 60 percent of the residential roof top potential is concentrated in the seven states of Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Odisha, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. Residents in Gujarat are the keenest to install rooftop solar systema as compared to national average. Residents across the country perceive roof top solars as costly investments impacting their willingness to pay.

Rural areas show high technical potential based on residential rooftop area (363 GW) as compared to urban areas (274 GW). The capacity of solar systems that can be installed in urban and rural areas of India guarantee not only a transition to clean energy, but also access to power at a low cost. Solarising residential houses will also provide huge economic benefits to power distribution companies, says the report (Times of India).

Farmers in Karnal, Haryana are making rice sustainable by minimising water use

A group of farmers in Karnal, Haryana have succeeded in making rice cultivation sustainable by drastically minimising the use of water to grow their crop. To produce one kilogram of rice, the paddy fields have to consume 4,000 to 5,000 litres of water. The International Finance Corporation (IFC) and Olam launched the Sustainable Rice Project in 2020 in Karnal. 

Traditionally, rice farmers flood their fields before transplanting paddy. Now, farmers in Karnal have switched to sustainable techniques that include the wet-and-dry method, where a tube is dug into a paddy field to monitor the level of water. In addition to this, farmers also use a drip irrigation technique as well as laser-land levelling, which ensures water is evenly distributed throughout the paddy field using laser levellers and tractors. 

The project also provides opportunities for local women and now empowers women not only to reach out to farmers with the knowledge of sustainable farming, but to help them be part of the wider community and earn some money. These women are called Krishi-Sakhis, who are expected to help the farmers understand the advisory and operations on a day-to-day basis and  ensuring the amount of crop inputs in terms of water, fertilisers and pesticides, which need to be done on a regular basis (The National News).

Mangroves conservation aids shrimp farming in Sunderbans in West Bengal 

Shrimp aquaculture has been the primary occupation in villages in and around the Sundarbans and the incorporation of mangrove trees in the aquaculture process to encourage sustainable practices has only happened recently.

West Bengal ranks second to Andhra Pradesh which is the top state in shrimp farming in India which is carried out in the hundreds of farms located across North and South 24 Parganas and the Purba Medinipur districts, an area that spans some 50,000 hectares. 

However, widespread shrimp aquaculture after the 1980s had a severe ecological impact on the Sundarbans biosphere, where unsustainable, unchecked farming practices resulted in mass-scale deforestation of the mangroves. While shrimp aquaculture has been a highly profitable business, it has come under immense criticism globally for the disastrous impact that it has on the environment and water systems, particularly on mangroves. Estuarine and coastal areas like the Sundarbans, are traditionally not agriculturally productive and aquaculture can be highly profitable.

This method of shrimp aquaculture is called integrated mangrove aquaculture which focuses on mangrove conservation and its use for shrimp farming. The leaves of the mangrove that fall in the shrimp pond are a part of the cycle where they generate nutrients. Nutrient cycling occurs when the leaves rot in the water, releasing nutrients that are beneficial to shrimp, and are in turn beneficial to the water systems as well as the profits earned by the farmer. Mangroves have a lot of biochemical compounds that reduce diseases of shrimp farming,

The integrated mangrove system can also work to aid climate change adaptation and mitigation. The mangrove conservation and restoration that happens in this process compensates mangrove loss that have occurred due to shrimp farming, and it also sequesters and stores blue carbon (Indian Express).

This is a a roundup of news updates from 15th November to 30 the November 2023.