By Dominick Rodrigues/Arunkumar Rao

Bengaluru: Union Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Prakash Javadekar said the last seven years has witnessed tree cover in India increasing by 15,000 sq kms due to various initiatives that included NGOs also. “Politicians have their limitations, but initiatives like +Cauvery Calling+ campaign don’t have boundaries in doing good work of creating green cover,” he said during the “Forest to Farm – the Way Forward” event held on the occasion of “International Forests Day” here yesterday.

“Ensuring a better life, physical progress for people is a politician’s job, but we should all ensure preservation of every rain drop of water that create rivers which have nurtured this civilization for thousands of years,” Javadekar said while lamenting the growing incidents of man-animal conflict in which 500 people are killed every year. “The Central government has launched a project to augment fodder and water in forests to reduce such incidents with the help of cutting edge technology that identify forest areas for augmentation.”

Karnataka Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa, while lauding efforts of farmers in the +Cauvery Calling+ intitiative, said that Karnataka’s emphasis on increasing its forest area in 2019 was the highest in the country as the Government distributed economically-important saplings to the region’s farmers — keeping in mind their financial development – alongside ecological development through the forest department.

Assuring the Karnataka Government’s total support to Isha Outreach’s “Cauvery Calling” project, the Chief Minister congratulated farmers, environmentalists and others for their contribution in increasing Karnataka’s green cover by more than 1000 sq km — the highest increase in the country. He also highlighted “Krushi Aranya Protsaha Yojane (KAPY)” which incentivizes tree-based farming for farmer prosperity and for revitalizing soil and water bodies.

Farmers from the Cauvery river basin districts of Karnataka who have adopted tree-based farming — the farming model promoted by Cauvery Calling – were felicitated at this event by the two Ministers and Sadhguru.

Meanwhile, urging for all wood needs to be met by growing wood for economic gain on private farmlands, Sadhguru said the way forward was in wood-based industries contracting with farmers for their requirement so that the 70,000 crore import of timber may be stopped and the revenue given to our farmers.

“Soil is the largest reservoir of water and 87% of all life on the planet thrives on 39 inches of topsoil,” Sadhguru said while observing that in the last 74 years of Independent India, the issue of increasing forest cover has not been addressed with the kind of significance and importance as in the past few years.

Advising the formation of a +tree ministry+ on the lines of agriculture at the national level and the post of tree evaluators being created at the state level, Sadhguru also highlighted the foundation’s eco-restoration project — for planting 2.4 billion saplings in the Cauvery river belt – where 3.5 crore saplings had been planted over the years . He appealed to the Karnataka Chief Minister to set up government posts of tree evaluators for creating a system to authenticate trees and their benefits to the soil.

Cauvery Calling — a ground-breaking eco-restoration project launched by Sadhguru– is a 12-year mission to revitalize the river Cauvery, recharge groundwater tables, restore soil health and make farming an economically-prosperous proposition for farmers. It will encourage farmers to plant 242 crore high-value timber trees on their own farmlands for economic gain. The Campaign has proven the economic and ecological benefits of this model over nearly two decades, which has seen farmer income rising between 3 and 8 times.

The Cauvery Calling — by using an Agroforestry model — is expected to be a game-changer in water crisis and farmer distress — while impacting 84 million people in India – to restore and revitalize a massive belt of 83,000 square kilometres along the Cauvery river basin that spans the states of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, The project aims to; Enable 5.2 million farmers to plant 2.42 billion trees along the Cauvery river, bringing one-third of the Cauvery basin under tree cover; Augment farmers’ income by 3-8 times through agroforestry ; Replenish the soil’s nutrients and carbon content and provide food security for the region; Revive the river and groundwater levels by increasing water retention in Cauvery basin by an estimated 40%; Sequester 200-300 million tonnes of CO2 by 2030, which is equivalent to 8-12% of India’s NDCs for 2030 under the Paris Agreement; Establish a model for river revitalisation in tropical and subtropical regions of the world.

The Project Update (2020) showed that, despite challenges posed by COVID-19, the Cauvery Calling campaign mobilized 33,000 farmers to plant an incredible 1.1 crore saplings, covering 28 river basin districts and 189 talukas in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. The Karnataka Forest Department Karnataka announced an incentive of Rs 125 for farmers for every surviving tree during its first three years – meaning Rs 50,000 per Ha for every farmer to establish the plantations in the first 3 years. The department also raised 7.3 million saplings of 14 high value species in 90 nurseries under the ‘Krushi Aranya Protsahan Yojana’ scheme. In Tamil Nadu, the Nursery team had saplings at full capacity and the total outreach achieved was around 5 million farmers in both states.

Besides over 120 volunteers being trained, the farmers’ +helpline+ dealt with 26,000 calls in barely two months and a back-end app was created in a matter of just 3 weeks. Experts on Agroforestry, top Forest Department officials and 250 farmers gathered for the first-ever training program held by Cauvery Calling in Karnataka on February 14, 2020.

The Campaign witnessed other efforts: Cauvery Koogu Facebook launched on Dec 2020 reached over 6 lakh farmers through 62 posts including 35 educational videos for farmers about post planting care of tree saplings, and natural farming; Two live webinars with the Agroforestry technical experts addressed farmers queries; 97 taluka-wise farmers WhatsApp groups created, and around 7,000 farmers engaged by the moderator volunteers on a daily basis, besides generous participation of 6.6 lakh donors from 166 countries.

The campaign’s 12-year mission to revitalize River Cauvery and transform the farmer community in the basin is now witnessing planning for the 2nd planting season, and the target has doubled. In 2020, Isha was granted observer status to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), and UN Environment (UNEP).