Lesson two: Learning from Nature
Mary Vattamattam and Bablu (known more formally as C.K Ganguly) are permaculture designers with a long history of development activism, working with marginalised people in this region. After years of radical activism, they decided to get to the heart of the problem, and change their practices and priorities to sustained direct efforts - which resulted in the birth of The Timbaktu Collective, a not-for-profit organisation working towards sustainable development.
Mary and Bablu decided they would devote their efforts to learning about the ecology of the area and acknowledge now that Timbaktu, in its infancy, was highly experimental - there was no blueprint for how to bring people and ecology together, and nobody had any concrete answers.
“Timbaktu was a learning ground,” admits Mary. “But this is the basis for all of life - plants, animals, bees, butterflies, water, soil - this is life itself. At first, we thought that there was no life left here, but we were wrong.”
After 25 years, Mary and Bablu say they have learned a great deal from both people and the Planet. And some of their learnings were about themselves. Mary fears they wasted too much time early on, and that she was too easily hurt when plans went awry. Bablu says: “One of the first things I learnt was that the Earth has this unbelievable capability to regenerate herself.”
He says that protecting nature and giving it space, while offering a little helping hand, has led to the kind of rapid regeneration that he has witnessed via the work of The Timbaktu Collective. Starting with only 21 species of flora, for example, there are now over 400 different plants established and thriving on the regenerated land.
As the land flourishes, so too do opportunities for livelihoods. People collect fruits in a sustainable way; date palm fronds are used to weave baskets and mats, and more biodiverse farmland has been carved out: millet, groundnuts, and rice are all harvested to support the farmers, and feed the community. The pollination services of butterflies, and the pest control activities of birds are also benefiting local people. The links between nature and society have become obvious.
Alongside regenerating the land, cultural systems are being remoulded too. Bablu says: “You have religion, you have caste, you have class, you have all these factors. So when you start dabbling with that, you start to see how people have been segregated. And we’re trying to pull them together.”
One person whose life has changed through the Timbaktu collective is Neelakanta. He started doing accounts for the Collective in 2001. Sitting in meetings, he was hearing about the organic farming happening all around him. Inspired, he wanted to become more immersed in nature himself. Now, he looks after plants and soil, experimenting with practices and seeing the rewards before his eyes, rather than hearing about them in meetings. Just last week, he harvested a paddy in an organic demonstration plot and led the creation of an enormous compost heap back at the experimental farm at the base of the group’s eco-restoration work.
“From hour to hour the work changes, and you’re seeing the benefits. It’s very dynamic,” he says in his native Telugu, which Mary and Bablu’s daughter Molly (who is also Siddharth’s partner) translates into English.
“If we don’t all see that regeneration is imperative, then everything is going to suffer.”
Neelakanta’s dream is to push the boundaries of who The Timbaktu Collective works with, bringing more people into the fold of regeneration. While Timbaktu currently works with the most marginalised people, he would like to see the Collective working with everybody, whether they are local marginalised people, or wealthy landowners.
For Siddharth, the work of local people like Neelakanta on regenerating the land is another thing of which to be proud: “It’s not the Government, it’s not an organisation, it’s actual rural, marginalised people who are protecting this region. And that is a huge achievement, because there’s no incentive for most people to protect any common property.”
Lesson three: Fighting to protect and preserve the land
Along the highway near Kalpavalli, a factory spanning 600 acres - an area the size of Monaco - is being built. Red flags mark out other areas of common land which will soon be turned over to industry. It is unclear whether the land protected by the Timbaktu Collective will always be safe from development, or how industrial development will affect the delicate balance of water in a drought-prone region. As India sets a course to become one of the largest manufacturing countries in the world, with it will come economic benefits and much needed jobs. However, the environmental pressures of such growth will likely be enormous.
Fighting for the land has not been easy, and the Collective has faced pressure from numerous industries, including mining. And whilst all at Timbaktu see the benefit of bringing nature back into the barren landscape, this is not always the view of those who see the value of the land in economic terms.
Despite the challenges facing the Collective, local people continue to defend the land. Siddharth says fighting for nature is something they have no choice but to do: “Why do anything you know is right? You do it whether you are winning or losing. Rationally, many times I know we might be on the losing side, but you do it. This land is important to thousands of people and it’s the lifeline of all these natural communities. You have to fight for it.”
Mary, Bablu and their colleagues have now spent 25 years fine-tuning the work of the Timbaktu Collective, from agricultural and ecological regeneration to the creation of both a farmers’ and women’s cooperative. What works here in terms of the landscape, the organisation admits, will not necessarily work everywhere. However, there are still plenty of lessons the world can learn when it comes to living in harmony with nature.
At its most basic, there is one thing that Bablu believes anyone can learn: “It’s so easy to live simply.”
He describes the early days of the Collective, when there was no electricity, so they used lanterns. He had very few clothes, so did not need cupboards. When material items are gradually eliminated, your needs become fewer and fewer, he says.
The next lesson comes from the dedication of the community. There are no fences or barbed wires anywhere across the regenerated landscape, and the only thing protecting the land is the people themselves.
“That is something people can be inspired to do,” Bablu says.
While humans are learning and benefiting from nature at the Timbaktu Collective, Siddharth has one final lesson to impart: “There’s also an intrinsic value in wildlife. It’s not just that it has to have a use to human beings, it has an equal right to be here. Diversity is beautiful, it’s not just that it has to be valuable to us.”
Back in “wolf country,” Siddharth points out places where he sometimes gets a glimpse of these large carnivores. Thanks to a regenerated landscape, the animals have a new habitat, and it comes as a benefit to both man and wolf. Once prone to attacking herds in the fields, wolves now have their own place to explore, hunt, and live. The animals are given their right to be there, and there is a mutual respect between humans and nature.
The Timbaktu Collective was a Lush Spring Prize 2017 winner, receiving £25,000 in the Established Project Award category. Applications for the Lush Spring Prize 2018, coordinated by the Ethical Consumer Cooperative, close on 10th December 2017.
Photos from top: The regenerated landscape at Kalpavalli; wind turbines near the regenerated land; a recently harvested paddy.