Krishna Consciousness & Ecological Awareness

The forests of India are a critical resource for the subsistence of rural peoples throughout the country, but especially in hill and mountain areas, both because of their direct provision of food, fuel and fodder and because of their role in stabilising soil and water resources. As these forests have been increasingly felled for commerce and industry, Indian villagers have sought to protect their livelihoods through the Gandhian method of satyagraha non-violent resistence. In the 1970s and 1980s this resistance to the destruction of forests spread throughout India and became organised and known as the Chipko Movement.

The first Chipko action took place spontaneously in April 1973 and over the next five years spread to many districts of the Himalaya in Uttar Pradesh. The name of the movement comes from a word meaning ‘embrace’: the villagers hug the trees, saving them by interposing their bodies between them and the contractors’ axes. The Chipko protests in Uttar Pradesh achieved a major victory in 1980 with a 15-year ban on green felling in the Himalayan forests of that state by order of India’s then Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi. Since then the movement has spread to Himachal Pradesh in the North, Kamataka in the South, Rajasthan in the West, Bihar in the East and to the Vindhyas in Central India. In addition to the 15-year ban in Uttar Pradesh, the movement has stopped clear felling in the Western Ghats and the Vindhyas and generated pressure for a natural resource policy which is more sensitive to people’s needs and ecological requirements. (more…)

By Brigid Schulte, Washington Post

The idea seemed too crazy to Rod Simmons, a measured, careful field botanist. Naturalists in Arlington County couldn’t find any acorns. None. No hickory nuts, either. Then he went out to look for himself. He came up with nothing. Nothing crunched underfoot. Nothing hit him on the head.

Article from the Working Villages International website.

There are few places on Earth like the Ruzizi Valley. The average temperature remains around 80 degrees Fahrenheit (27 C) year round. There is plentiful water, rich volcanic soil and four growing seasons. Twenty years ago the valley was covered with fertile farms and pastures and healthy herds of cows. Ten years of brutal war destroyed all this.

Today, the people of the Ruzizi Valley, in partnership with Working Villages International (WVI) have begun implementing an innovative yet practical economic model of sustainable village development just outside the town of Luvungi. WVI is building from scratch a model village which will have full employment, and private ownership of small farms and businesses. It is a village designed for maximum harmony with the environment. This project is a practical demonstration that it’s possible to profoundly increase living standards in rural Africa by relying on local resources and skills, enhanced by modern appropriate technology. (more…)

On the Banks of the Ganga: When Wastewater Meets a Sacred River by Kelly D. Alley

Introduction: Field Method and Layers of Data

“I started this project about nine years ago while studying tourism and public culture in north India.  I remember the day that the original idea for this study emerged from a dialogue I overheard while touring the north Indian city of Benaras with several American and German tourists.  While boating along the river Ganga and watching Hindu pilgrims bathe in this sacred river, these tourists discussed the state of the river, expressing horror that the native population did not recognize its polluted nature.  One said, “I wouldn’t put my big toe in this river, it is so polluted!”  As an observer, I began to think about this Western tourist interpretation in the light of the Hindu practice of bathing in sacred rivers, and about how this view of pollution is juxtaposed against a view of the sacred.  Other questions emerged.  Are these differences in thinking and approach mirrored within and outside of India in other ways?  How should an investigation of these two perspectives, the one in relation to the other, proceed?  What shall the methodology be?”

Preview the book On the Banks of the Ganga here.

by Allison Aubrey, National Public Radio

When consumers pay top dollar for organic milk, they know they’re getting dairy that’s free of synthetic growth hormones, pesticides and antibiotics.

Now there’s a move to ensure cows are feeding on plenty of fresh grass if producers want to label the milk as organic.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has issued draft rules that would require cows to be on pasture during the entire grazing season. The regulation would also require that cows on organic dairy farms get a minimum of 30 percent of their diet from grazing.

The proposals are intended to close a loophole that has allowed some huge feedlots, with thousands of cows, to sell their milk as organic even though their cows rarely graze on fresh grass.

It’s not a perfect proposal, according to the organic watchdog group The Cornucopia Institute. “What we need to do is level the playing field” says Cornucopia’s Mark Kastel. (more…)

By John Nielsen, National Public Radio

The busy bee may be a cliche. But it turns out that bees are very busy on the world’s farms, pollinating many of the fruits, vegetables and nuts we eat.

But a major report from the National Academies says bees and other important pollinators are losing out to development and disease. The report’s authors warn the losses could have a big impact on some farmers, such as the almond growers of Central California.

Growers there depend on commercial beekeepers to produce their billion-pound nut crop, which is among the state’s most valuable agricultural product.

A Beekeeper’s Best Friend

Beekeeper Gene Brandi stores some of colonies in large white boxes not far from a sprawling almond orchard near Los Banos.

Last spring, his bees spread pollen from tree to tree in the orchard. Now, giant harvesting machines are moving through the orchard, shaking trees with a crab-like craw and making the nuts spill down to the ground.

Recently, Brandi was getting his hives ready for the winter. He wore a big round hat with mesh that kept the honeybees off his face. To keep the bees calm, he shot puffs of dark gray smoke into the hives, after dropping matches into a beat-up metal box called a smoker. “The smoker is the beekeeper’s best friend, other than the bees themselves,” he said. (more…)

The following list, compiled by BBC, is an index of the world’s most prominent religious traditions and their views on creation, evolution, and the care of the planet.

By Govind Singh, Eco-Worldly website

It took a radical fast-unto-death decision by a professor, playing the religion-political card and much activism, that the Government of India has now accepted the fact – otherwise as crystal clear as should have been the water of the Ganges – that the holiest of holy River Ganga is polluted, the Ganga Action Plan has failed and that constructing dams upstream of the river is only making matters worse.

Earlier this year, pained by the unrelenting destruction of the Ganga river, Dr G. D. Agrawal, India’s pre-eminent scientist and a legendary Professor of Civil & Environmental Engineering at IIT-Kanpur went on a fast-unto-death to oppose the river’s continuing desecration.

His campaign was taken up by leader of the opposition party who called for stopping all dam constructions upstream of the river and the Government of India (GoI) was quick to commit itself to ensuring perennial environmental flows throughout the river while also informing Dr. Agarwal the same. Now, the GoI has gone a step ahead and declared Ganga a National River. (more…)

By Reenita Malhotra, Eco-Worldly website

The mango is so widely available in India, that the fruit itself is named Aam which translates from Sanskrit as ‘common.’ Even though the Indian subcontinent is home to more than a thousand varieties of mango, most Indians identify the fruit with the Alphonso variety. Popularly regarded as the reigning king among Indian mangoes, the Alphonso has a unique flavor – sweet and sumptuous with an aromatic citrus overtone. Cultivated primarily in the state of Maharashtra, along the verdant shores of Konkan coast, the Alphonso mango fruit fills the narrow lanes of Crawford Market in Mumbai every year from March to May. (more…)