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https://reasonstobecheerful.world/the-reappearing-forests-of-west-bengal/>
"Three decades ago, when Mira Mahanty arrived as a bride in her husband’s West
Bengal village of Jharbagda, she immediately began to worry about the bare,
stony hills that surrounded it.
The barren, boulder-covered foothills reflected harsh heat waves at the village
all summer long, and during the wet season monsoons sent rainwater tumbling
wastefully into the gully below.
“There were a couple of small, thorny bushes here and there, and just one tree
on top of the hill,” recalls the 52-year-old mother of three. “Summers were
unbearably hot then.” Coming from a family of traditional farmers, Mahanty was
appalled to see how the rainwater could not be utilized or stored. She also
noticed that the village’s farms were struggling. “It became hard to dig
wells,” she says, noting that the region’s water table had plunged by 40 to 50
feet.
Two decades ago, however, the region began staging a dramatic green revival.
Propelled by the collective effort of over a hundred villages, the hills
surrounding places like Jharbagda are now deeply forested with native trees
that provide fruit, mitigate heat waves and contribute to water retention. With
some 5,000 acres already reforested, their mission continues to this day.
The reforesting of the area that surrounds Jharbagda shows how even a region
denuded for decades can still make a dramatic comeback if certain practices are
followed. Learning these practices is of global importance, because while
adjacent communities may be the direct beneficiaries, from a climate
perspective reviving tropical forests is a global concern."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
