Rejuvenation of Village Lakes/ Tanks / Rainwater Harvesting/Tree Planting

The Bengle village tank bed was silted up heavily and the silt-level had come above the sluice level. As such, there was no dead storage present in the tank, it resulted in an acute shortage of drinking water in the village. Depletion and degradation of water resources in Bengle had gone virtually unnoticed for a long time.

We helped villagers to understand the situation of the village lake, and take up rejuvenation through participatory processes. In all 17433 meters cube of silt was removed, out of which 3984 meters cube of silt was removed through community contribution. 2000 meters cube of the tank was covered with a stone revetment. Waste weir and sluice were repaired for water management and community members were trained on maintenance of village lakes.

TRDC - Environment project in Uttara Kannada and Mysore District is intended to address the climate change issues through regeneration, enrichment of plants and wildlife conservation, restoration of wetlands/water resources and also ensure involvement of youths and local farmers in the conservation of the natural resources, to reduce effects of climate change. The hills in Uttara Kannada were originally covered with evergreen forests. These tropical evergreen forests provided the micro-climatic conditions for the growth of various spices. Post-colonial forest policy further aggravated these conflicts and forest degradation which had begun in the colonial period adding to global warming and impacting negatively on climate change. Recently these changes have impacted in terms of increased floods during monsoon and drought situation with the prolonged summer season. Recently Karnataka has severely affected because of the climate change adversaries. Hence communities have expressed that they will work on activities which can reduce the effects of climate change in terms of their local livelihood security as well of others in the Global village. The project would focus on restoration of wetlands as natural solutions to enhance flood control, arrest water scarcity during drought periods. The project also aims at conserving forest trees yielding wild tropical fruits to improve the food security of the local community and also help wildlife to fulfil their nutritional requirements. All these efforts will reduce the effects of climate change and promote local actions with local as well as global benefits.

Village communities in the Bengle village have never experienced acute drinking water shortages. The Water Users Group is maintaining and protecting the tank. The community is getting irrigation water 2 times for their crops during the acute summer season. The impact of the programme has spread to the surrounding villages and they too have started rejuvenating village tanks in collaboration with local Panchayats and through their own efforts.