Episode 09: Sundarbans - Fresh Water & Community Systems of Change - Tridib Reeves
Sustainability isn’t just about plants and trees. How we live with our world affects every aspect of our lives… the food we eat, the air we breathe, our health, our livelihoods, our relationships with each other, and, as we’ll focus on during this case study, the fresh water we drink.
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In this week’s podcast episode, you’ll hear from Tridib Reeves, Project Leader of the Sustainable Water Resource Management (SWRM) team at Joygopalpur Gram Vikash Kendra, JGVK. This audio was recorded during an in-person presentation at JGVK by the SWRM team! I would suggest listening in tandem with the Case Study below - where you can learn about the efforts of their organization in much more detail.
Inside the Episode:
Tridib gives an intro to the SWRM project and their driving ideological approach.
He walks us through a high level overview of the challenges they’re seeing in the local water system today and how they’ve mobilized their community to come up with creative solutions like SRI, new crop rotation design, water catchment.
How he sees JGVK as an example for Community Systems of Change and his message for young people to work not for a degree but for the impact you want to see in the world. ‘Who’s side are you on… the haves or the have nots?”
I hope you enjoy!
Introduction: The Sundarbans National Park
About a 3 hour drive southeast of Kolkata in the state of West Bengal, India, is a region called the Sundarbans. Characterized and well-known for being the largest mangrove delta in the world, this ecosystem and natural embankment provides an essential defense system for the surrounding, low-lying wetland communities.
A few other interesting facts about the Sundarbans:
The mangrove forests are home to the Royal Bengal Tiger, of which I was lucky enough to catch a glimpse during my time there. Also unique to the area are the Gangetic freshwater Dolphins and the prowling 15 foot crocodiles that look like floating logs drifting down the rivers…
Sundarban honey is known as (some of) the best in the world. Local farmers trek deep into the forest to harvest small amounts and sadly are often killed by tigers who are known for attacking humans in the villages surrounding the forests.
The Sundarban National Park is like the Florida coast on steroids. Thousands of miles of rivers intertwine to create countless islands and wetlands… you’ll see mangrove roots (which actually grow upwards out of the soil instead of down to avoid the salt water and breathe the oxygen out of the air) signal the arrival of new protective barriers against the next round of cyclones.
The first climate refugee ever recorded fled from this region, highlighting what is still true today: low-lying wetland communities are constantly under threat and being hit hardest by climate change, especially as tropical storms and floodings increase.
The Sundarbans are a UNESCO Heritage Site and span across both India (40%) and Bangladesh (60%).
JGVK - Joygopalpur Gram Vikash Kendra
During my time researching in India, I had the opportunity and privilege to be invited to the Sundarbans to spend time with a local island community, Joygopalpur, hosted by an organization based there, JGVK.
Sandwiched between the Matla and Bidyadhari Rivers, the journey to JGVK’s campus is entrancing. You pass alongside beautiful banana trees and rice paddies for as far as the eye can see until, at last, you arrive at a gate and enter into what looks like a university campus, just miles from the Sundarbans National Park.
On our journey, I was accompanied by recent Calcutta University Masters graduate, Arijit Reeves, an incredibly smart and driven young man who also turned out to be a great friend. His father, Tridib, is the Project Leader of the Sustainable Water Resources Management (SWRM) project at JGVK and was able to give us a great introduction to the work they are doing today… I’m excited to share a bit about what I learned and how we can get involved in their mission.
April 20th: Presentation by SWRM!
The first day we arrived, the Sustainable Water Resources Management team sprung into action and immediately walked us through a comprehensive powerpoint presentation - I will break it down into three parts.
Tridib and his team preparing for the presentation
Identified challenges the community is facing with it’s fresh water system
Community solutions they have built to combat the challenges
Finally, and most importantly, how they are manifesting + implementing those solutions everyday in their work
Challenges
Above ground salt water level is rising.
Tridib and his team have recorded an incredible 4 feet increase in high tide water levels over just the last 7 years. Two Sundarban islands - Ghoramara and Mousuni - are already almost completely submerged after two cyclones last year, Yaas and Amphan. Residents have been ushered off the islands by the West Bengal government - adding to the climate refugee totals in the Sundarbans.
Underground fresh water level is decreasing.
The team takes monthly measurements of groundwater at ‘Tube Wells’, situated from village to village where the community comes to pump. Their year-over- year recordings of water levels show drastic changes… water was only 8.58 meters down in the well at its lowest level in 2015, 11.34 meters down in 2020 and a huge jump to 15.07 meters in 2021… this change compared to the rising sea level has eyebrows raised and Tribid’s team is asking questions…
Overnight shifts from drought to storm-level rainfall causes huge flooding
Rainfall has been lower than average over the last 7 years … but abruptly, 46cm (1.5 feet) can fall in a 48 hour period, as was recorded in 2021.
In drought, soil in the Sundarbans loses its permeability. So then when it pours, the rain becomes runoff into the ocean rather than filtering through the soil into the groundwater sources. This is another reason why the sea level has been rising so fast.
Water for drinking vs cultivation
70-80% of water in India is used for agriculture and this challenge applies to Joygopalpur as well. Based on the data they’ve gathered, there is a very strong correlation between the number of shallow pumps in a village (pumps used by farmers to distribute water into agricultural fields) and the number of dry wells nearby for drinking water… which makes sense because they both come from the same source.
Solutions
First of all, I was very impressed with their ability to collect such strong data without any support from the government… they were very excited to show me some of their homegrown tactics for providing data like their Rain Gauge, Tidal gauge, Water level meter - all built on their own or built locally rather than having to import from international companies who they said wanted to charge ridiculous prices...
The first priority, after analyzing their data, was that the community needed to find creative ways to USE LESS WATER! A few great examples/tactics below..
SRI Method - ‘System of Rice Intensification’
Before: Keep paddy fields full of water consistently. Plant 3-4 seeds per paddy.
After: Initial small level of water, wait for dry crack in soil, then refill back to small level. Plant 1 seed instead of 3-4
Resulting in higher output + much less water!
Crop adaptation and rotation -
After rice cultivation, mulch land and grow potatoes with remaining moisture.
Next come banana trees, marigold flowers (which are religiously important and can be sold in town), maize, high protein lentils, and mustard seeds.
By rotating crops, all of these can be grown on the same plot of land, increase the biochemical health of the soil, and use much less later.
Maximize all water sources
During rainy season, they use a water catchment system for domestic water use and are showing an example of how to do this successfully outside their school canteen.
Primary filtration with sand+stone, secondary filtration with biochemicals, then the water is ready for domestic use like washing hands and dishes.. This allows for a smaller amount of potable drinking water to be used on these activities instead of just for drinking.
Leveraging data signals to protect lives during the tropical storm season
Last May, readings from their tidal gauges showed huge swings in water levels, indicating a major upcoming weather event… and indeed it was true. They were able to warn the local villages early of the coming of Yaas, one of two major cyclones in 2021, and saved lives by spurring an evacuation of certain areas…
Many of these solutions seem like simple answers but they are all built upon creative identification of challenges and driven by sound data collection & analytics.
Then, to get these solutions to work beyond the gates of their campus, they have to actually get the community to buy into what they’re saying!! This process entails a serious ‘behavior change’ on the part of the community - and therefore a huge part of JGVK’s strategy as an organization includes methods to engage the villages around them to usher in a new wave of collective strategy.
As Tridib says, their strategy is to ‘educate [their] people on the basis of their own knowledge and day-to-day experience combined with data collected by [JGVK].’
How they are manifesting that everyday in their work
The heart of their organization is a School
As I told the staff, this is definitely a school that I would LOVE to go to. They are teaching these kids to be ‘stewards of our planet, not masters over it,’ emphasizing a holistic education that focuses on life skill and character building beyond just test scores.
They also try to work specifically with underserved kids, many of whom only have one parent or a grandparent… some students even live at the school based on their family situations. Incredibly, over 100 families in the larger surrounding communities have lost a father to a tiger attack, so they even have a specific program to support those kids.
They are teaching the community how to implement the success they themselves are seeing:
Biodiversity Education Park:
When you have an exciting example of success, share it! JGVK has built an incredible garden, poultry farm, and educational center… they are known for inviting people into the space to teach farmers and students about the new sustainable methods they are developing…… they will also be inviting university departments from Calcutta University (where I had the chance to speak with some students as well) to come for weekend trips.
Seed bank - they give out productive seeds to farmers FOR FREE as long as they return with double the seed after a successful harvest so JGVK can share with more and more farmers over time.
Community Organizing - not only are they doing incredible research and demonstrations on-site, but they are also going out into the surrounding villages to teach what they are learning. They even have a Farmer’s Field School!!
One amazing example is their Algae Farm! VERY simply put, their team learned that if you pull algae from the many surrounding ponds (most households have one in the backyard), you can dry it, mix it with fish feed, and see huge impacts on the size of fish you harvest at a fraction of the cost… the alternative is paying for pre-made feed which costs much more and doesn’t produce as healthy fish.
Getting farmers to adapt this new strategy was really tough… but as their Agricultural Specialist shared with me, their strategy was simple…start with 4 farmers, bring them onsite to teach them, then work with those 4 to reach a total of 25, then 50, etc. This beautifully simple method allowed farmers to teach themselves over time and encourage their friends to join the movement. This is helping JGVK build TRUST - which according to them and others I’ve spoken with, is at the heart of every community engagement project.
Food for Thought… JGVK ←→ Black Panthers?
This might be a stretch in many ways, but the work that they are doing at JGVK reminded me a lot of the work that was done by the Black Panthers… here are a few points of similarity I noticed:
They are not waiting for support or partnership from the government, they are building their own grassroots programming from the ground up and training the leaders of tomorrow on a different agenda…
They are also actively questioning global socio-economic relations … as Tridib Reeves suggests, ‘we all need to decide what side we’re on…the haves or the have nots.’
One of the combined efforts that the Black Panthers were known for was community food banks, free school lunch, and free health clinics… they understood the importance of building a social movement around politics, education, health, and encouraging a multi-faceted approach to community building.
‘In the struggle for existence’, as Tridib told me, ‘JGVK shows solidarity with women whom [we consider the key player in the development journey among the poor and marginalized.’
In a world where we are so often depressed about the government’s inaction on climate change, JGVK is showing us all an example of what we can do to create our own ‘community systems of change.’
Partnership Moving Forward
On the last day we were with them, they invited us to join their leadership group of teachers, administrators, community organizers and even their founders, Biswajit Mahakur and Ganesh Sengupta, for a ‘Feedback Session’... First of all, I love this concept just in general… they wanted to know what we thought about the experience of being there and what stood out to us. The overall goal? Brainstorming how we can work together in the future…
I told them how much I loved their model and shared a bit about Brym - the thing that seemed to really stick with them was the potential for young individuals, activists, NGOs, and others to come together and share experiences and expertise across community or even national boundaries… ‘A coordinated effort is missing’ according to their founder. ‘Plus, everyone at these NGO meetings is 75 years old and above.’
I’m excited to work with Arijit, and others I’ve met along the way in different parts of the world, to build a global coalition of young people who are passionate about addressing climate change in innovative ways that put local communities first. And what a visionary example to follow at JGVK that reminds us that sustainability doesn’t just mean one thing, it spans across community support for water, food, air, health, education, and impacts our common survival on this planet.
If you want to connect with Tridib Reeves, the Project Leader of the Sustainable Water Resource Management department at JGVK, please let me know… I know I’ll be staying in touch to brainstorm how we can learn from his team and build connections to others across the world who might be able to learn or teach something too.
JGVK is also an independent non-profit organization and relies on donations to support their kids - if you are willing and able to give, HERE is the link. I can also put you in touch with members of their staff if you would like to learn more before committing.
Thanks for reading!
