Our Mission

Research, Advocacy and Communication in Himalayan Areas (RACHNA) is an independent entrepreneurial nonprofit organization that works for promotion of green businesses, policies, practices and behaviors for lasting protection of the Himalayan ecosystems.

RACHNA is about making conservation work for local people in the headwaters of the Ganges and Yamuna rivers. RACHNA builds financial and managerial capacity in community institutions, provides environmental education, conducts policy research, engages concerned institutions and individuals in conservation activities and combines all these elements together in a strong network to advocate for enabling policy for ecosystem conservation in the Himalayas. RACHNA is a growing green business school of the Himalayas.

Why Himalayas ?

Why to Protect the Himalayan Ecosystems?

The Water Tower for 1.3 Billion People

Mountains play a central role in collecting and storing water- the most important element for life on earth. More than half of the world's population is dependent on the freshwater that accumulates in mountain areas. All the major rivers of the world have their headwaters in the mountains such as the Himalayas. Three of the world's major river systems i.e. the Indus, the Ganga-Brahmaputra, and the Yangtze take birth in the Himalayas. Around 1.3 billion people live in the basin of these rivers.

The water yield for a given input of rainfall from the mountains, like Himalayan watersheds, depends on the quality of its forests. The declining health of the Himalayan watersheds has been resulting in water scarcity within the region as well as in the downstream areas. The poor health of the Himalayan watersheds also results in floods during the monsoon season. Well-managed forests also contribute to soil erosion control and consequently in reducing the levels of sediments downstream. Thus, upstream management of forests strongly affects downstream uses of water resources.

Careful management of the sources of water such as the Himalayas has become a global priority in a world moving towards a water crisis in 21 st century. The following estimation highlighted by the World Water Council in its report in 1996 presents a terrifying situation of water availability in the world: "In 1950, only 12 countries with 20 million people - faced water shortages; by 1990 it was 26 countries with 300 million people; by 2050 it is projected to be as many as 65 countries with 7 billion people, or about 60 percent of the world's population, mainly in the developing countries".

The Hot Spot of Biodiversity

Himalayas are the hot-spots of biodiversity and a rich resource of food, medicines, fibers, timber and fuel. Remoteness and inaccessibility of the Himalayas could not shield its rich biodiversity from human-induced biodiversity destruction. In addition to large scale habitat destruction for terracing; mining; road and dam construction, poaching is also responsible for biodiversity loss. The loss in biodiversity has created nutritional imbalances and food insecurity for many communities in the Himalayas . Himalayan biodiversity protection warrant immediate attention from the stakeholders to ensure wise use, allocation and protection of the biological wealth.

Areas of Action

Home in the Himalayas

RACHNA's Home in the Himalayas program is about utilizing and transforming existing tourism market as driver for initiating a chain of positive social change, economic development, and conservation of natural resources in the headwaters of the Ganges and Yamuna rivers i.e. Garhwal region of Uttarakhand state in India.

Data of last few years shows that the number of tourists visiting the headwaters has been increasing every year at a remarkable growth rate of 25% per year. This growth of tourism is unsustainable in the region unless the behavior of service providers as well as tourists is not changed in a sustained manner. It includes decentralization of tourism activities, adherence to fundamental business ethics, enforcement or rules and regulation, public policy change and reverence for nature among the stakeholders.

RACHNA is implementing a home stay program to achieve all these together in a non-confrontational way- a win-win situation. RACHNA is implementing a design of community owned green guesthouses to promote a sustainable model of rural tourism, to generate revenues for the village forest councils, to link local agricultural production with rural tourism and to generate employment and income for the marginal farmers and rural educated youth in the headwaters of the Ganges and Yamuna rivers. Once this design is successful in generating income for the participating rural farmer families and forest councils, RACHNA will build partnerships with micro-finance institutions for providing flexible credit to the rural house-holds to scale-up the model. RACHNA and its NGO partners have been imparting intensive capacity building trainings to the family members in cooking, house-keeping, guiding and bird-watching skills with the help of experts as well as national and international volunteers. RACHNA has also been building partnerships with leading institutions of business, development and environmental education to join hands.

Community Forest Councils Program

Van Panchayats-VPs (Sanskrit for village forest councils) in Uttarakhand state of India function by a combination of traditions, social norms and state policy. This institution of public private partnership was formed by the British India government during 1930s in response to a popular demand by the local communities. Community based VPs ensure conservation of ecosystem for local food security i.e. supply of wood fuel, fodder and nutrients for agriculture fields. Through VPs, communities manage government owned forest lands by investing time, energy, cash and grains and enjoy higher security in terms of possession and management freedom. Around 7700+ VPs currently manage 5310 Sq. Km i.e. 15.31% of the total forest land and 22.19% of the actual forests of Uttarakhand.

The new state policy allows village communities to form VPs in new districts, but, currently the communities do not have enough resources and effective incentives to continue supporting VPs. RACHNA is using a unique methodology to build financial and managerial capacity of the Van Panchayats (Forest Councils) for encouraging community based conservation in the Headwaters of the Ganges and Yamuna rivers.

RACHNA is supporting Van Panchayats in developing and implementing systematic conservation work plans for mobilizing i) their own assets such as their successes of the past; social norms; networks; and entitlements, ii) resources from outside such as government programs, altruistic donors, carbon credits; and iii) partnerships with green businesses such as rural tourism and organic farming. These conservation work plans help fostering a synergistic partnership of key stakeholders for cost effective and efficient conservation action, evaluation and scaling-up.

Community Driven Tree Plantation

RACHNA is driving innovation for engaging local communities, schools, volunteers and visitors in developing plant nurseries, plantation of fodder and fruit trees on degraded lands and ensuring protection of the plantations in a cost effective manner. RACHNA is developing models for convergence of different government programs such as NREGS and Mahila Kissan Nurseries, community institutions such as Gram Panchayats and Van Panchayats to ensure that communities get benefits out of plantation activities directly and indirectly. RACHNA is also designing programs for mobilizing systematic public support from - schools, universities, private sector companies, temples, churches, and other civil society groups to mobilize financial, technical and human resources for plantation of native fodder and fruit plants.

Research and Advocacy for Preventing Monoculture

RACHNA has launched a study to understand the reasons of spread of conifer plant Chir- Pine (Pinus roxburghii) in the Garhwal region and its consequences on the nature, society and rural economy. The study will also analyze the policy framework that has been promoting the spread of Chir Pine in the Himalayas . RACHNA will build awareness regarding consequences of Chir Pine monoculture based on the findings of the study and will carryout a policy advocacy, if suggested by the study, for checking the spread of chir pine and developing a model of environmentally appropriate replacing of Chir- Pine by native plants.

Resources

To know more details about our home stay program please log on to:

www.homeinthehimalayas.blog.co.in

About Us

Genesis of RACHNA

RACHNA evolved itself as an independent tax exempt nonprofit organization in mid 2004. RACHNA's roots are in a special program of action research, led by the founder of RACHNA- Mr. Manoj Bhatt. The program came into existence in 1998 to support a special geographical region in the Himalayas i.e. headwaters of the Ganges and Yamuna rivers – a water tower for 400 million people in south Asia, to prepare its people for management of a new statehood in India (achieved by the people of the region) with relevant policies and programs.

RACHNA worked as a network of individuals and institutions, with fiscal sponsorship from Shri Bhuvneshwari Mahila Ashram (SBMA) - a nonprofit, and implemented a comprehensive program of research, capacity building and advocacy to strengthen decentralized community governance i.e. Panchayats and Municipalities. RACHNA as a network provided intensive trainings to thousands of functionaries, organized several regional and state workshops, implemented exposure and study visits of stakeholders to different states in India and built a state wide network of social workers, academicians and elected functionaries. RACHNA contributed in shaping the community governance policy including reservation of 50% seats in Village, Block and District level Panchayats and reservation of 67% seats in village forest councils for women in the youngest Himalayan state called Uttarakhand.

During her intensive work with the communities, government and NGOs, RACHNA as a informal network realized that every social change effort was irrelevant and ineffective in the Himalayas unless the systems of ecosystem protection are not strengthened- especially community based conservation. This Himalayan region has been facing a problem of migration of the most capable young males since generations making ecosystem management difficult for the overburdened women workforce left behind in the villages.

RACHNA realized that due to continuous degradation of local ecosystems, it was becoming hard for even a middle class person e.g. a retired armed force personnel getting regular monthly pension was facing difficulties in providing basic care to his grandson in the middle altitude Himalayan village due to scarcity of drinking water, animal fodder and wood fuel. Hence, despite his willingness to stay in his native village, he was forced to migrate to the nearby city. Due to this situation, not only the unemployed educated youth, but, the middle class villagers too were more interested in out migration than contributing in local community governance and forest management. RACHNA was alarmed by witnessing the downward spiral constituted by the degradation of local natural resources, fragmentation of traditional subsistence economy and depletion of health of local women and children due to heavy workload on them coupled with dropping nutritional intake.

With strong understanding of the possible consequences of the emerging situation in the Himalayas , RACHNA realized the urgent need of building a green economy as well as building financial and managerial capacity of local institutions of forest management such as Van Panchayats for lasting protection of the fragile ecosystems.

RACHNA has been incorporated as an independent nonprofit to work for lasting conservation of Himalayan ecosystem by facilitating development of green policies, programs, businesses and capacity building of community based institutions of forest conservation. To achieve its goal RACHNA's innovative methodology combines the energy of green businesses, policies, traditions, social norms as well as innovative enterprising ideas and concerns of people from around the world. RACHNA builds on the strengths of the Himalayan peoples' energy, institutions and traditions, the outstanding Himalayan geography and diversity, and RACHNA's own growing regional, national and international network.

People behind RACHNA

o Manoj Bhatt	o Cyril R. Raphael	o Manab Chakraborthy
o J. Bandhyopadhay	o Dinesh Godiyal	o Rakesh Nair
o Sanjeeta Bist	o Nitu Shahi	o Bachendri Pal
o Priya Vishwanath	o C.S. Sood	o Martin Pinto
o Rakesh Bist	o Amit Chakraborthy	o Ankush Nautiyal
o Shashi Bhusan	o Pradeep Anthwal	o J.P. Panwar
o Neelendra Joshi	o Dan Jantzen	o Daniel Taylor
o Kevin Starr	o Mukesh Gupta	o Neelam Bhatt
o Bharat Patwal	o Raghvendra Uniyal	o Ravendra Chuhan