Ok, I’ll admit it, I’ve become a total water and sanitation nerd 
My day visiting projects was basically epic and after being inspired by the people in Panoli, learning about watersheds, as I did in the next village, was almost excitement overload for me!
As we drove toward Sherikoldara, over the bumps in the road and through the dry, brown landscape, I wondered how long the pipe would have to be to bring water to this arid place. Little did I know that the type of projects WOTR specializes in, require hardly any fancy technology to bring prosperous and lush fields to whole regions. Quite honestly, until Thomas explained it to me that day, I had no clue what “watershed development” really meant, and if you are like me, prepare to be amazed!
First, we pulled over on the side of the road overlooking hillsides covered in long, parallel lines, that Thomas explained to me were stone bunts or rock dams. From photos I had seen in the office I knew that these trenches had something to do with watershed but then again, I didn’t even know what the word “watershed” really referred to or how it did anything for people needing water in this browning place. It turns out, the idea behind watershed (think: “shed” as in, to shed tears or, as the dictionary defines it “shed -verb :to emit and let fall”) development and rainwater harvesting is actually quite simple and fascinatingly brilliant!
The concept, as Thomas showed me, is to catch the rainwater where it falls and then control, through these trenches, how fast the water flows down the hill sides and how the soil absorbs the moisture. When it rains, water speeds down hills leaving no time for the soil to soak up that much moisture and, for it to be used to benefit communities. In fact, often over the past few years rainfall has decimated crops coming in one week instead of stretched over months and flooding out anything planted. Through creating rock formations, digging trenches, and planting sapplings, WOTR attempts to change this pattern by working with communities to completely redevelop their hillsides around their fields and valleys and, “make the water walk.”
These contour lines and simple landscape modifications that seriously require no high-tech or costly appliances slow the water’s run down so instead of speeding down hill with gravity, it sinks slowly into the ground. Each drop of rain is literally harvested or used like this to reduces runoff and, ultimately, increase the water table. By ending free grazing and planting saplings, the development encourages natural growth to create vegetative cover and even increase the water holding capacity of the aquifers.
The soil absorbs the moisture, the vegetation cuts out erosion, agriculture flourishes. Simple as that. As we wound around the hills to reach the valley, I saw how simply brilliant that method really is. We emerged from the dusty brown fields to a valley covered in a patchwork quilt of crops and lush green trees similar to what I’m sure the Great Valley from the Land Before Time must have been like!
WOTR’s particular approach has also been so successful because, as Shiwaji, the head of Sherikoldara’s watershed development, explained to me, everyone in his village had to come together and work for months to create the habitat they now benefit so richly from. Shiwaji told me the whole story about the village’s progress from convincing everyone to develop the land this way, all the way through to the benefits they receive now. He said that farmers who farm the now plentiful lands will receive 1,000,000 rupees this year for their onion crop! In a country where the average person earns Rs 36,000 for the whole year (less than $1,000), and drought conditions are making it so hard for farmers to make ends meet that they are actually committing suicide, this number is absolutely phenomenal!
Shiwaji also told me a fantastic story about how, since the approach that WOTR uses requires the whole village to come together uniting the poor and tribal parts of the village with the rich and higher caste members, now a member of the lowest caste, Adavasi, is going to university in Pune and, the whole village even paid for his education! Shiwaji told me that this young man hopes to finish school and reach the highest government office working for communities to come together over caste barriers. Amazing.
It was truly incredible to hear all of the success this village, in a flourishing valley and surrounded by thousands of acres of hillsides covered in man-made trenches, is enjoying. As the sunset over the hillside, I imagined what it would be like, after years of drought, to wake up in the morning after spending months and months digging around in the dirt on hillsides to see the sun pouring over the great valley that I worked with my neighbours to create. Of course, my imagination could never compare to the reality that the families bagging their onion crop were experiencing, but looking around, it was tangible how watershed development had transformed these people’s lives. The valley seemed to smile as the sun was setting on it and I was beaming after learning that something so technologically simple could have such vast impacts in every realm of life for a whole community.
I learned so much and was incredibly inspired both from meeting the women and families in Panoli and seeing such excellent innovation and land usage to create new opportunities in people’s lives. As in my day spent with the hydrogeologists and talking to Joe Madiath, my knowledge base of water and development was expanded tenfold through this field trip and, as dorky as it may sound, I love water and sanitation Now off to see some toilets in Mumbai!!
Egypt’s Nile v India’s Ganga: Practicality and Reverence
Egypt is the gift of the Nile. The world’s longest river is the source of life in an otherwise hostile (to man) terrain. Egypt’s civilizations have hugged the river. The ancient Egyptians worshiped it as their god Hapy. It enabled their civilization to rise to the zenith by providing water and transport. More importantly it served as the dividing line in their mythology. East of the Nile was this life. West of the Nile was the afterlife.
The later civilizations based on Islam and Christianity did not worship the Nile. Their monotheistic approach does not include reverence to Nature.
However, the Nile has still been preserved. Today the Nile is among the cleanest of the rivers in Africa and Asia. Very little sewage from the millions that live within a kilometer of the Nile flows into the river. Pollution is minimal and looks more accidental than deliberate. The cruise ships that plow the Nile do not discharge any waste into it. Save the fear of a parasite, the Nile is almost swimmable even at the end of its 5584-kilometer (3470 miles) journey. Not that there is nothing to worry about, the pace of development is putting pressures on the quality and quantity of the waters. Our guide on the Nile started his historical introduction with the observation that they were very worried that the source of the Nile – Lake Victoria – was receding at an alarming rate.
Two observations about today’s Egyptian society need to be mentioned: the presence of potable water across all towns in Egypt and the absence of destitution.
In India, the Ganga is revered – the holiest of holy rivers – even today. Its role in physical nurturing a several thousand-year-old culture is mirrored by its spiritual role in the mythology.
Great civilizations have come up along the its banks, used it for their growth, and even realized the impact they had on the river. The Gangetic plain was the site of the first national park in the world – Ashoka’s edict two and half millennia ago made the Ganges River dolphin (Platanista gangetica) a protected species.
However, today the Ganga is a closer to a sewage stream than a holy river. It is not swimmable even in the high reaches at the foot of the Himalayas. In Indian consciousness, the holy Ganga has been separated from the physical. They revere the spiritual image of Ganga emanating out of Lord Shiva’s hair, tamed. And they urge for the chance of taking a ‘purifying’ bath in it. However, today, the physical Ganga is seen mainly as a resource, a source of water, sand, and fish, and an outlet for all wastes: industrial and biological. The physical Ganga has lost its place in the mythology, its defilement causes no outrage to the vast majority of Indian society. This is true of all the ‘holy’ rivers: the Yamuna, the Brahmaputra, and the Narmada.
To parallel the observations about Egyptian society: a large fraction of the people living on the banks of the Ganga do not have access to safe drinking water, a majority lack access to sanitation facilities, and millions live below poverty: in destitution.
Ecology, deep ecology, and reverential ecology are supposedly progressive in terms our defining our thinking about nature, our feeling for nature, and our actions involving nature. It is thought that if we understand something we are unlikely to destroy it, if we connect with something we are likely to preserve it, if we revere something we are likely to nurture it. The case of the Ganga shows that thinking and feeling and acting can be a divorced threesome. We can revere something but at the same time rape it.
Manushi and Jal Biradari organized a three-day conference to discuss the Ganga and Yamuna Action Plans. Magsaysay Award winner Rajendra Singh led a discussion involving a small but diverse representation of activists, environmentalists, government officials, religious leaders, and academics. Minister for Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh participated on the last day. It was clear that many people understood the many acts that defile the river and also impact the communities along the river. Many in the room also understood preventing pollution was more important than cleaning it and that we had to return to revering the physical river.
However, India hurtles towards neoliberal capitalism eying everything as a resource to be exploited. A rise in the number and value of mutual funds betting on the exploitation of natural resources portend a speedier exploitation of the river. It is hard to find a silver lining in this dark stream. Clearly, until our both spiritual and practical thinking changes at a societal level to create action, no power can prevent the Ganga from becoming poisoned and thus poisoning us.
We still have time, we can clean up the Ganga and we can unite its holy spirit to a clean body. We can avoid the Cree prophecy of the wise Native Americans:
Only after the last tree has been cut down,
Only after the last river has been poisoned,
Only after the last fish has been caught,
Only then will we realize that money cannot be eaten.