Human-centric society considers every natural resource for their selfish consumption. Humans are blindly exhausting the resources which are meant for every living creature. The problems of climate change, global warming, acid rain, floods, deforestation, long dry spells, droughts are the outcome of unethical exploitation of natural resources.

Most conservation efforts start with big announcements, but it loses its momentums in due course of time either because of lack of support or commitment. Caritas India’s FARM Northeast programme has taken this mission to bring sustainable change by conserving nature through the plantations.

Tezpur Social Service Society (TSSS) is a new entry to the ongoing FARM III programme. The TSSS programme villages need special attention as far as the conservation aspects are concerned. The villages are mostly running dry of green cover and TSSS took this opportunity to involve community members in conservation activities.

“FARM III is a completely new, yet interesting programme for us to implement to support the poor for agricultural activities and motivating them to take steps for environmental conservation in the areas under our Diocese”, said Fr Biswajit Ekka, Director of TSSS. The programme is implemented in 14 Adivasi dominant villages of Biswanath district in Assam

A fresh ground team of TSSS with support from the Caritas India started is working with the communities in the programme villages. While carrying out regular activities, they also tried to sow the idea of conservation among the people. Greenery in the programme villages was mostly a thing of the past due to anthropogenic activities over the years in that area. The TSSS team worked on this to generate awareness among the people about the need to conserve the natural resources to address climate change.

“During our interactions with the farmers, they indicated several instances of impact on agricultural activities which could be directly attributed to climate change and this has helped us to promote the idea of conservation”, said Wilson Kandulna, Programme Coordinator, TSSS. FARM programme asserts the need for empowerment of the communities through collective actions and while implementing such actions, Caritas India supported her partners to motivate their communities for environmental conservation.

A newly appointed fresh and vibrant team of TSSS is has been toiling hard in the field since November 2019, when the programme was launched. They have been able to reach out to the community and share the basic concept of the programme and motivating people for collective actions. TSSS has reported instances of collective action of communities in maintenance of roads within the villages.

The organization while organizing event like Earth Day Network (EDN), World Environment Day, Laudato Si Week and Green Sundays etc urged the community to think beyond and work collectively for their good. The community within a span of 7 to 8 months have reacted to such appeals and are working together to address climate change. They are motivated and acted to plant more and more trees in households, school premises and community lands.

“We get everything from trees, shade in the summer and warmth in the winter. If we keep destroying forests, the earth will become very hot and no one will be able to survive”, shared little Angela Kandulna, a student from Samukjuli village school during an interaction. Through these small initiatives, there is a realization among the community, Bosco Narzary, a farmer from Jerusalem village said while planting a mango sapling “the world will not end with us, we have our sons and daughters and we need to plant more trees for the for a better future. TSSS is one of the six partners under the ambitious Green Belt initiative. TSSS has set a target to plant 28,000 trees in the programme villages during the project period“.

Under the FARM programme, while supporting the partners, Caritas India has always taken extra efforts to promote environmental conservation and TSSS was no exception to this. Caritas India talks about environmental conservation beyond any event and is constantly working with her partners to promote collective actions towards environmental conservation and this story supports our commitments towards environmental conservation in North East India.