T he preservation and restoration of the Environment has been critical and infact has helped shape all of our initiatives - from teaching school children about the place of snakes in the natural cycle to dissuading farmers from growing the water intensive and soil destructive sugarcane.

W e do recognise that environmental issues are however not usually at the forefront of a villagers concerns when he is struggling to simply feed the family. It has been our position that we must link these issues - of environment and livelihood- to truly secure commitment to restoration. Thus a lot of our agricultural programs have an educational element as do our initiatives on irrigation, health and income generation. We have found that relying on traditional wisdom and myth, is usually helpful and often the most interesting and useful suggestions come from the villagers themselves!

W e are aggressive in initiating and funding Afforestation. In association with the forestry department as well as local governmental agencies we plant an average of 8,000 trees a year. We have discovered that planting is only a small part of the task - keeping trees watered and protected from grazing cattle is a far greater problem. Thus we have scaled back sheer numbers to focus on keeping the trees alive.

W e have also experimented with smokeless chullahs (cooking fires) which not only help prevent vision problems but also consume only half the firewood. They have been introduced in 2 villages so that we can deal with problems and overcome resistance before introducing them on a wider scale.

W e introduced the novel method of effective utilization of farm and household waste in obtaining natural manure rich in minerals known as Vermicompost. Using varieties of the common earthworm the waste is converted into a rich compost providing both an alternative to chemical fertilizers and to a cleaner living environment.

Some Milestones..........

T o conserve water we have created model drip irrigation plots as well as worked on introducing ferrigation (clay pots that gradually seep water into the growing plant).

A lmost 65 acres of land that previously grew sugarcane now grow more eco-friendly crops.

M ore than 80 tons on vermicompost- a natural compost have been produced and villagers are actually planning to manufacture and market this product.

O ver 20,000 trees have been planted and we continue to plan to substantially add to this number.