Pan Himalayan Grassroots Development Foundation

In the Himalayas, there is a persistent scarcity of water. Streams and springs are no longer flowing. Traditional water collecting techniques are no longer adequate to meet local needs due to the combination of an expanding population and a lack of vegetative cover, which is necessary to recharge basic water supplies. This contributes to the rise in water-borne illnesses and greatly hinders women's ability to gather water from far-off sources.

Infiltration wells for drinking water and rainwater harvesting systems for sanitation have been implemented by grassroots organizations due to the necessity for a dependable and easily available year-round water supply.

A unit of agricultural land should ideally be supported by six to seven units of forest land. Without it, the ecosystem is out of balance, which affects local livelihoods by causing water insecurity, decreased soil fertility, and decreased crop productivity. This ratio is 1-1 in several Himalayan regions. The impoverished are frequently compelled to overuse the scarce natural resources in the area in order to meet their immediate needs. They are, in a sense, both the cause and the sufferer of environmental degradation.

By including the local population in the restoration of their community woodlands, we hope to buck this unfavourable tendency. The villagers have set up nurseries to produce fully grown seedlings of native kinds of grasses, shrubs, and trees with large leaves, which they subsequently sow on degraded hillsides.

In this way, the protection of biodiversity not only helps to maintain mountain farming but also, in the end, saves vulnerable mountain springs.