Strategic Actions

• RACHNA aims to achieve its goal through the following interrelated and interdependent work in a synergistic way.
• Aggregating, enhancing and marketing the existing tourism related assets and services such as traditional houses, available accommodations, community protected forests, waterfalls, trekking trails, folk songs, dances and human skills in the rural Himalayan areas. The vision and experience regarding the new economic productivity of these assets motivate the micro-entrepreneurs to come forward to take care of them.
• Training, capacity building and organizing the community leaders, especially women, doing exemplary work for environmental conservation and social change at the grassroots level.
• Promoting green businesses based on conservation of energy, biodiversity, water, art, and culture through providing the micro entrepreneurs a bundle of services i.e. training, business planning, credit linkages and marketing/advertising.
• Documenting and highlighting best practices of conservation, green businesses, exemplary grassroots level socio-political leadership and work for conservation of nature, art and culture.
• Providing relevant skills, knowledge and organizing support to the urban poor in small towns and cities of the Himalayan states in India and policy advocacy for ensuring environmentally friendly, inclusive and sustainable urban growth.
• Ensuring that the society is aware about and respects the needs and rights of children and the businesses do not engage them as labor.
• Enhancing cooperation and engagement of the business sector for sustainable development by providing them innovative programs, ideas and partnerships.
• Building a constituency of green entrepreneurs, grassroots leaders, community based organizations, NGOs, youth, schools, technical institutions, corporate citizens, media, international organizations and government programs.

Geographical Focus

RACHNA is developing innovative programs of research, documentation, exchange of ideas and promotion of best practices of green businesses, innovative ideas, leadership at the grassroots level and conservation action for nature; art; culture in the Himalayan region covering Afghanistan, Pakistan, 10 Indian Himalayan states, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Tibet (China).

For demonstration of models of sustainable livelihoods; conservation and green businesses, RACHNA builds on its existing network of people and institutions and understanding of the ecological importance of the headwaters of the Ganges and Yamuna rivers i.e. 5 districts of the Garhwal region.

Traditionally, livelihoods pursued by the Garhwal Himalayan communities were aligned to the mountain eco-system. For generations, communities conserved their local watersheds and bio-diversity to sustain their prime income sources – i.e. livestock raising, subsistence agriculture and transit trade. However in the last decades, the inter-linkages between conservation and livelihoods have been severely fractured in this part of the Himalayas due to the hyper exploitation of forest resources for commerce and subsistence activities of the growing population; the introduction of cash economies in traditional village settings; the breakdown of “green” community watchdog institutions, and Global climate change.

The result has been aggressive male out-migration, the feminization of labor, and depleting natural water sources due to which agri-based incomes can no longer be sustained in the scattered marginal land holdings.

In addition to developing innovative models of sustainable conservation based income and jobs, RACHNA works with other key stakeholders in Garhwal region such as green entrepreneurs, visitors, hydropower projects and other business corporations to protect this important water tower and its vital biodiversity, art and culture.