HEALING THE LAND, HEALING THE HAND THAT FEEDS US

Environmental degradation and the demands of global capitalism have placed severe strain on ecosystems, disproportionately affecting those in the developing world who inhabit areas already suffering from poverty, disease, seasonal fluctuation, and relative scarcity. Consequences such as drought, flooding, soil erosion, and deforestation impact the livelihoods of the traditionally untergatherer tribal populations in the areas where PIDT works. Once resource-rich lands have been depleted, the spoils extracted by an elite few, leaving the toiling villagers struggling to eek out their meagre subsistence in conditions of squalor, the scarce groundwater polluted by chemicals and industrial runoff and the single-crop marginal yields inadequate to meet their basic alimentary needs.

Trees are the earth’s endless effort
to speak to the listening heaven.

-Rabindranath Tagore

We have the tools to heal the land and the people who draw sustenance from it. Using organic farming techniques, watershed development, reforestation, local crop reintroduction, rotation and diversification, and simple irrigation and sanitation systems, PIDT has overseen local efforts to re-green entire land areas that had been found arid and barren when we first began our work over twenty-six years ago. Back