RACHNA

RACHNA works in partnership with the marginal farmer communities in three sites/ watersheds in the headwaters of the Ganges and Yamuna Rivers i.e. 5 districts of the Garhwal region in Uttarakhand state of India to demonstrate the models of lasting conservation of the Himalayan ecosystem. This ecologically-unique and vitally-important region contains the headwaters of the Ganges and Yamuna rivers and acts as a “water tower” supplying fresh water for 400 million people in south Asia.
works to develop ‘green’ livelihoods solutions interlinked to, and interdependent with, the ecological conservation of the region in the selected sites/watersheds to generate new incentives for local people to act as environmental stewards and engage other key stakeholders to support the local communities in their environmental action.

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 such as visitors, hydropower projects and corporations to protect this important water tower and its vital biodiversity.

Over time, RACHNA will document and replicate its success through its network in the Hindu Kush-Himalayan region – a region that provides water, ecosystem services, and the basis for livelihoods to aroundmillion inhabitants of the Himalayas as well as 1.3 billion people living in the basins of these rivers.