Helena Norberg-Hodge, courtesy of ISEC

In 1975, before India’s northern region of Ladakh became a popular tourist attraction; Helena Norberg-Hodge went with a film crew. It was here she first encountered a localized economy, planting the seed for her present work.

Now, nearly 40 years later, she is the director of the International Society for Ecology and Culture, an organization that began as The Ladakh Project in the Himalayan region of Ladakh in the 1970s. ISEC now works to renew ecological and social well-being through localization.

Globally, women are increasingly responsible for agriculture and food production as men move to cities and urban centers. As Bina Agarwal, an academic studying the Deccan Development Society in Southern Indian notes in Raj Patel’s The Value of Nothing, “as India urbanized, the business of feeding the cities is increasingly women’s work – 58 percent of Indian men work in agriculture compared to 78 percent of women.” Worldwide statistics also show a dramatic increase in the ratio of women to men in agriculture.

Perhaps because of this, the localization movement has continued to gain support from women. As Norberg-Hodge says, “For all my working life, almost 40 years now, women have always responded more strongly. Whether it be Ladakh, Sweden or America.” She adds, “I was never talking about women’s rights, but I was talking about values that are profoundly feminine.” She sees these values as being connected to others and valuing community and relationships.

Norberg-Hodge does not identify with the mainstream Western feminist movement, but instead she believes, “it is extremely important as part of the whole picture, that we recognize that we have to raise the status of the feminine.” Part of both men and women, “even the feminine in men, which has been squashed… That whole side has been squashed and starved, and urgently needs to be revitalized and strengthened.”

In addition to founding ISEC, Norberg-Hodge has also completed two films, which have been translated to over 50 languages. Ancient Futures (1991) and her newest film The Economics of Happiness (2011). In addition to her work with the International Forum on Globalization and the Global Eco-Village Network, she received the Alternate Nobel Prize for her work with the Ladakh Ecological Development Group. More importantly, she is working to bring people together to redefine happiness and work against the economic structures that have caused our current state of economic and environmental crisis.

In a Skype interview with Norberg-Hodge, prior to the Economics of Happiness Conference in Berkeley, from March 23-25, 2012, she was generally hopeful, but clear about the stakes involved.

The conference is part of, “ongoing work to build up a broader international dialogue about the need to shift from a centralized economy to decentralized local economies,” she says.

“Consumer monoculture is eradicating species as we speak. Decentralization is an absolute biological necessity. The central goal of our educational work—lectures, films, study groups, articles, conferences—is to build up an international localization movement.”

Norberg-Hodge urges people to take a two-track path. “We can make choices right now that can help us to take steps towards an economics of happiness. It means first of all reaching out to like-minded people in the area in which we live.”

The conference is also another step toward creating economic literacy. “People are beginning to wake up to realize that governments are not really representing them. We now need to wake up that it’s the pressure from global finance and corporations that is shaping policy. We urgently need economic literacy. Without that we’ll only see further breakdown and a bigger gap between rich and poor,” she says.

Norberg-Hodge says that the biggest problem is a lack of the bigger picture and about the way the system operates, “it is important to understand structures, and insist on changing these structures,” she says. “We need to focus on getting this connected picture out to social and environmental movements.”

She sees the localization movement as adding a dimension to the occupy movement. “I think we can add to the occupy movement, a tremendous message of hope and inspiration. It’s a message about regaining our human right to a way of life that is more human scale and more human paced.”

Norberg-Hodge urges people to take steps to increase their well-being by getting back to some basic activities like developing strong community, developing deep connection to the living world, taking time for exercise, song and dance, and quieting the mind. “Right now, if we make conscious choices, we can take steps in that direction,” Norberg-Hodge says. She also believes more intergenerational interactions would be beneficial for society.  ISEC has a study-group curriculum to deepen and broaden knowledge and understanding about these issues and what can be done to transform our society.

Education Panel with Manish Jain

In order to revitalize communities, she believes it is important to increase connections. Norberg-Hodge cites farmer’s markets as an example, as she says in her TedxTalk in Christchurch, New Zealand,“Studies have shown that when you shop in a farmer’s market, compared to the supermarket, you have ten times more conversations with people. Structurally fundamental to that, is the shortening of the distances.”

With extensive international experience, Norberg-Hodge points to the need for change in international and local trade laws. As she says, “as overwhelming, and as big as that issue can sound, once we understand how it works, it becomes very clear, what we need to do. We need to re-regulate global trade, and we actually need to de-regulate local trade.”

Focusing on the root causes, and the fact that economic law has to change may seem daunting, but Norberg-Hodge says says, “we simply need to focus on regulations, taxes and subsidies—the three things governments use to shape economies.”

As she explains, “What is simple is the actual practical structural steps we would need to take as governments. What is extremely difficult is to get people who are so marginalized now, and everyone running faster and faster, to get people to have the time and the strength to get together to force the change that is necessary. This is primarily about understanding. It is about ideas and awareness.”

While she uses film, lectures, study circles and continues to write articles, Norberg-Hodge says, “In order to see what we are talking about, you need to squeeze things together in time and space in a way that is hard to do in reality. I think film is the most effective.” While she would’ve liked to do an animated version of her most recent film, to illustrate complicated ideas, she was not able secure the funding.

Norberg-Hodge sees potential for vast social change, and recommends a grassroots perspective, “There’s another way of looking at the world. If you look closely at the ground, everywhere you go you see testimony to people’s goodwill and wisdom.”

Check out this real-time wind speed visualization for the US. It was developed by the brains behind IBM’s Many Eyes and Google’s “Big Picture” visualization lab. Not only does it show the tremendous potential of this renewable energy source, but watching it live is really, really hypnotic.

James Hansen, the eminent NASA climatologist, is sounding the alarm on climate change. Watch his latest TED talk for a succinct  synopsis of the state of climate change, ongoing climate impacts, and what we can expect in the near future (hint: it doesn’t look good).

As Hansen makes clear, if humanity does not address the growing threat to our global civilization very soon, the climate system will spiral out of control and condemn future generations to a planet that is vastly different than now. What is tragic is that we know what we need to do to solve this problem, but “the longer we wait, the more expensive and difficult it becomes,” he says.

“Imagine a giant asteroid on a direct collision course with Earth. That is the equivalent of what we face now [with climate change], yet we dither.”

This is a cross-post from The Climate Reality Project. 

What does it feel like when you realize the place you call home may disappear forever? The people of the Central Pacific island nation of Kiribati can answer that question. They are grappling firsthand with the climate crisis we’ve inflicted on our planet, and now face the prospect of their country ceasing to exist because of rising sea levels.

Fotopedia pic: © 2009 Yuichi Ichikawa/Fotpedia cc by nc 3.0

Even as we speak, the President of Kiribati, Anote Tong, is in talks with the government of Fiji to buy land to relocate his entire nation. If the deal is finalized, a segment of its population of over 113,000 people will resettle on less than eight square miles of land in Fiji.

President Tong revealed this latest development on Fijian TV and said: “This is the last resort. There is no way out of this one. Our people have to move as the tides have already reached our homes and villages.” In a desperate search for solutions, Kiribati has even considered constructing manmade platforms like oil rigs for its citizens to live on once the country is underwater. Kiribati hopes it will be also be able to purchase land in nearby Australia and New Zealand to relocate more of its citizens.

When I read this latest news I realized I should take the opportunity today to acquaint myself with this beautiful part of the world . After all, I may not have a chance to get to know these islands in the future. I listened to the voices of Kiribati’s men, women and children in this video from UNDP (watch it below), where they describe their years of struggle against the rising ocean.

flickr user jopolopy CC BY-NC 2.0

The latest science indicates that average global sea level rise is happening at a faster rate than the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projected in 2007 and could possibly be as high as 2 meters by the end of the century. None of Kiribati’s atolls rise more than a few meters above sea level. Two islands have already disappeared under the ocean. By one estimate, 25-54% of southern Kiribati and 55-80% northern Kiribati (PDF) could be permanently inundated by the middle of the century. Even areas that stay above sea level will become more vulnerable to extreme weather and dangerous king tides.

All of this adds up to one thing: that residents of Kiribati are losing their homes, livelihoods, history, traditions and their identity because the rest of the world failed to act in time. Most of us reading this post are far removed from Kiribati, both in geography and in our lifestyles. But no matter where we may be, we do understand the idea of belonging. We know what home means. What if this happened to your home or country? I think we’d all agree with the somber sentiment of President Tong: “It is not nice to be planning the demise of your country. Nobody wants to do that. Who wants to lose his national identity? Nobody wants to do that. But can you give me any other option, given the rising tide? No, you cannot.”

Or can we? What do you think? Write in and let us know.

China’s greenhouse gas emissions are continuing to grow at an alarming rate. In 2010, emissions were 20% higher than the United States’ but by 2015, emissions could top 50% higher, according to Ye Qi, the director of the Climate Policy Initiative and professor of environmental policy at  Tsinghua University.

Despite China aggressively reducing energy intensity and building renewable energy capacity, total energy use has grown dramatically. ”There is no question now China is the largest emitter, and the gap between Number 1 and Number 2 is enlarging,” Qi said as part of a Brookings Institution panel discussion on China’s low-carbon development.

Source: Climatewire

Source: World Bank Photo Collection

The Nilgiri Hills consists of a heart-shaped region rising almost vertically from the lowlands of the Southern Indian states of Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka in Southern India. In order to protect its unique population of plants and animals, it was one of the earliest places in the world to be registered as a World Biosphere Reserve Home. The Nilgiris are also home to indigenous populations of India, including tribes such as the Toda, the Badaga and Kota, among others. Today, more than 60% of the grassland has disappeared. These grasslands served as a tank, taking water from the mists and rains and releasing it slowly through the roots of the ancient shola tree throughout the year. Much of this grassland has now been covered with destructive forests of eucalyptus, as well as tea plantations. “The Nilgiris is like the heart of south India,” Founder and Director of Earth Trust, Vanya Orr says during an interview in Ooty, India. “It [the Nilgiris] is the shape of a heart and supplies water and energy to South India, it has a real function.”

Vanya Orr, founder of Earth Trust

Vanya Orr, now 77 years-old, came to India with her mother when she was 60. But her connection to India goes back many years before. Her grandfather was a collector in Thane, Pune and Bombay from 1889-1920. Her great, great, great grandmother came to the Nilgiris at age 7 in 1824, very soon after the first Europeans arrived. Though she never intended to come to India at all, the trip with her mother became a turning point for Orr, and she has been living in India, for the most part, since 1994.

About 20 years ago, a little earlier than Orr arrived in India for the first time, the village people of Cinchona, walked the 540 kilometers (or 335 miles) from the Nilgiri Hills to the state government in Chennai, Tamil Nadu to ask state leaders to intervene on their behalf. As Orr recalls, there was a bitter impasse following the closing of the Government Cinchona Department, and it’s adoption by the Forest Department. The people were required to leave their homes, but they were determined not to. As Orr recalls, “Nobody could move. It just needed one person to step in and shift the pieces.”

“There was a kind of war going on,” Orr says. “Everyone was very cross with everyone else.” The people were suffering, “they kept saying to me, ‘Your grandfather was Superintendent here. You have photos of your grandparents and our grandparents… we are all part of the same story, you have got to help us.’” Orr says she didn’t know anything about anything in India, including how the hierarchy and bureaucracy works, not to mention the language and couldn’t see how she would be able to assist the situation.

The Nilgiri Hills

Orr asked the local people to write down the names of the people in the village, what their skills were and what they wanted to do together, “they brought this list to me a couple days later and they hadn’t got anything in the ‘what they wanted to do’ column, so I said ‘that’s useless,’ I can’t tell you what to do. You have to tell me what you want.” And they said, “No, it’s not possible, all we have done is lost. Our children have no food. We are right on the cliff’s edge… How can we dream? There is nothing and no future for us.”

She went to see the local Collector and the Forest Officer, as she remembers, “You know in England you just chat to people. I wasn’t bothered by their seniority. I suppose now I would be more circumspect!” Unsure of what to do next, Orr spent three days in the house her grandmother lived in, trying to think about her next plan of action. She remembers, “If I came here, thinking I was going to solve everyone’s problems, if this was just an ego trip, what a complete waste of time this would be. I had to know it was more than that.”

After being unable to decide exactly what to do, she went back to England. Things fell into place when she was given 500 pounds to see if going back to India was really something she had to do.

Early on, she was told “You haven’t got any credibility as a foreigner, and even less as a woman.” But it was suggested that she set up an NGO with the women of the village in order to act as a facilitator between the village and the forest department. “In the end, with this group of women, I set up the first Medicinal Plant Development Area in South India.” Today, the women’s group has, more than enough to start their own new projects.

Orr continued to act as a facilitator to re-establish the aromatic herbal fields and nurseries under the auspices of the Foundation for Revitalisation of Local Health Traditions (FRLHT) and the Forest Department. Over the past several years, she has helped set up distillation units for essential oils, making linkages with the Spice Board and other outlets. After this, she left India for a year, but she continued to recall the story of a woman who poured kerosene over herself and burned to death from being desperately unhappy. A year later, the woman’s husband was run-over trying to stop a truck from stealing timber, “You don’t walk away from something like that when it happens, without it having some kind of impact.”After thinking about the people, the soil and the land, she returned from England.

This time, her aim was to give people tools for survival, for women who were in situations of inescapable stress and farmer training, in order to mitigate the destruction of the soil. With health programs, stress management, and organic biodynamic farming and gardening, Earth Trust has a variety of tools at their disposal. “People don’t drink, or become violent for no reason, do they?” she says, “It is a symptom, not a cause. A symptom of woundedness or where we find our companionship. This was the idea, that by introducing these nurturing techniques, it could help people feel as if they were worth something.”

Orr believes that, for Nilgiris, this is a critical time in history, “The whole system of everyday living is built on dependency, it’s so important for people to start taking charge of their own lives.” She adds, “It seems to me, this time, is about trying to enable people in rural areas to survive within compassionate communities.” She also wants to play a role in giving children a feeling that they are able to help build a future, and allow people to be able to return to “working with their hearts.”

When I ask her about her vision for the future, she says, “that there will be clear water flowing from the streams of Nilgiris without poison… that everyone will have their place; animals will have their place, and people will have their place.” I smile and tell her it sounds good. She says, “It is possible, you see, it’s possible.”

I hope so.

The Bainbridge Island electricity dashboard

Bainbridge Island, a short ferry ride from Seattle, was recently given a choice by Puget Sound Energy. Either cut electricity consumption or pay for a new electrical substation for the island to meet rising electricity demand. It turns out that the average Bainbridge household was using 60% more electricity than the regional average, meaning there was a lot of potential energy efficiency gains to be had.

With a grant from the Department of Energy’s Better Buildings Neighborhood Program, the city created an online information network to monitor island-wide electricity use and notify residents when peak demand was reaching the maximum allowed level. When this occurs (typically during a morning or evening hour in the winter), residents are able to view the island’s current electricity consumption with an online dashboard, and adjust their individual use accordingly. The first winter of the program, these efforts led to a 10 MW decrease in peak electricity consumption.

The program also offers free home energy audits (RePower Bainbridge has so far completed 41% of the island’s homes) which, along with energy efficiency upgrades, lower energy costs for residents. Check out the video from Climate Solutions below:

RePower Bainbridge from Climate Solutions on Vimeo.

Half of the world’s population now lives in cities. By 2050, it is estimated that this ratio will grow to over 75%. Put another way, 3.5 billion people live in cities now. Global population is project to reach 9 billion by 2050. That means that cities will need to the housing and infrastructure to absorb upwards of 2.5 billion people within the next 30 years. It is a staggering thought, and one of the great challenges of our time.

An excellent new film on this topic is Urbanized, a documentary by Gary Hustwit. Tackling such a broad subject of urban design in 90 minutes is an ambitious endeavor, but Hustwit largely succeeds.

Viewers are transported around the world, from the slums of Mumbai to the deserted streets of Detroit, where solutions of all scales are presented. From bus rapid transit and bikeways in Bogota to a guerilla art project in New Orleans, the key message from Hustwit is that people and the social fabric are what make cities great, and some of the best solutions to urban sustainability come from deep community involvement.

The film features interviews with some of the heavy hitters of urban planning and architecture, such as Rem Koolhaas and Sir Norman Foster. Many of the cities highlighted are familiar – for example the bike networks of Copenhagen or the High Line in New York. But the film also presents unfamiliar urban solutions, such as novel concepts for subsidized housing in Santiago, Chile and participatory community design of walkways in the townships on the edge of Cape Town.

With cities responsible for upwards of 80% of global greenhouse gas emissions, they have a major role to play in climate change solutions. Luckily, urban residents generally have a smaller carbon footprint than suburban and rural residents. By implementing greater building and energy efficiency improvements, cities could become a model for solving climate change. And guess what, all of that urban fabric will have to be planned and designed.

Plainly speaking, mixed-use developmentis the practice of having more than one form of “use” or activity (e.g., residential, commercial, office, recreational, industry) in a building or building complex. “Mixed use,” in city planning terms then, is a combination of these activities in one space. Some of the most common forms of mixed-use activity include residential/commercial (imagine multi-story buildings where commercial activity takes place on the first store, and residential units exist in the upper floors) or commercial/office space (commercial on first floor, office units on upper levels).

Mixed-use structures house multiple different activities in one building and typically make a great use of space within cities.

While it is important to separate certain types of uses (for example, residential activity from industrial activities such as sewage treatment or heavy manufacturing), in general, the combination of uses, when planned according to people’s needs, can create a more walkable, people-oriented space. They are also useful when it comes to overall city development — mixed use, when used at an appropriately large scale, can help cities avoid “urban sprawl” and make sure people’s needs, jobs and recreational activities, etc. are located close to where they need them and can easily access them via transportation.

The photos below depict forms of mixed-use buildings in Accra, primarily focused in the Kaneshie Market and Abossey Okai areas. These areas have seen a substantial amount of development with the growth of commercial activity, and they attract a large amount of human and vehicular traffic, so space in these two areas has become very much a commodity. What is also interesting to note is that much of these areas were initially mostly residential some two decades ago. A few months ago, I met with the city director of Town & Country Planning in Accra, and we had a conversation about how Kaneshie has developed and changed over time. Turns out the area was mostly residential, so most of the commercial activity that we see there today wasn’t present. Instead, it was mostly single housing units and multi-dwelling residential units. When the Kaneshie Market was built, it served as a magnet to draw more and more commercial activity, and the area became a bustling commercial center.

Dated multi-unit dwellings turned mixed-use structures, near Kaneshie Market

As commercial activity became increasingly profitable, residence owners opted to rent out their units — to business owners, instead of to apartment tenants. Space for activity would be limited mostly to what’s already available (due to the fact that it’s easier to change the activity in the space to accommodate for new needs, rather than to build an entirely new building or an annex to an existing one). That said, new development has occurred over time, some buildings have been demolished and new ones constructed, etc. But overall, it seems the net result has been not only the increase of commercial activity over time, but also the metamorphosis of the use of the buildings.

So, the conversion to mixed-use in many cases was a conversion from residential-only buildings (multi-story houses and apartment dwellings) to residential with the introduction of commercial, office and other activities. The photo at above of a multi-dwelling unit demonstrates how commercial activity has taken root in much of the building.

And I’m sure that once this mixed-use trend was started, new development was made in mind with the need for mixed-use development. Check out the photo below — we can tell it’s a newer building, and it’s built in mind with smaller individual units in the ground and second-floor levels to economize space for commercial activity. The top floor is probably residential, and may be one dwelling for the entire floor.

Three-story mixed use development, Abossey Okai: Bottom two floors consist of auto parts sales units (and possibly other activities, too), top floor is likely either residential or office space.

In many cases, as in the two photos below from Abossey Okai (the name for the large spare parts market sales area), commercial sales take place on the bottom level, while on the upper levels people live in the residential units. Abossey Okai is an extensive zone in Kaneshie where vehicle spare parts are sold – you could buy anything you need there, from a dashboard, to headlights, to an engine. The area has become the key center for secondhand vehicle parts sales in Accra. This photo below is another example of a house that was built before the major commercial conversion in the area. So the houses existing structure was used and new commercial activity replaced residential.

The interesting part of this phenomenon is that much of this mixed-use development appears to have taken place naturally (it has developed as a result of the sum of individual actions and behaviors over time), rather than in some locales where certain parcels of space are zoned as mixed-use and such development follows accordingly. This mixed-use development is common throughout almost all parts of central Accra, and it highlights an interesting overlap between two very different environments — African cities like Accra and cities in the United States (for example).

An older house turned mixed-use structure in Abossey Okai.

But, there are some key things that mixed-used development do have in common: First, this form of development makes work, shopping, play, etc very accessible to the average resident. These areas are more walkable (unless of course you are carrying heavy items) so it makes sense that mixed-use development are also often supported by public transit, that encourages walking around, instead of driving. Walking and bicycling also promote more social interaction, so as you can guess, these spaces are often accompanied by centralized parks or other public spaces (which, unfortunately, are not so common in Accra — at least not yet).

This form of development also helps to keep the city condensed thereby avoiding urban sprawl. Looking at the pictures again, you could just imagine how much space would be required if this development took on a “strip mall” fashion with individual buildings for each shop. So much space is saved by adopting a mixed-use strategy, and overall, this helps to prevent extensions of the city’s boundaries over time.

Victoria lives in Accra, Ghana, where she works as a communications and urban/community development consultant. Her musings on urban design, planning, and the built environment can be found at African Urbanism. Follow her @vickivictoriaO.

I have a love/hate relationship with the many contrasts in India: the bright green paddy fields next to red tile roofs, the smell of jasmine and fresh food mixed in with the scent of putrid sewage, and the polluted cities juxtaposed with the expansive sky from mountain tops.

The narrative of dams (and dams in India especially) is one stark contrast in development. It goes something like this: let’s drown fertile land and forests with a reservoir that will provide drinking water to a city far away. In the process, let’s displace a whole community of subsistence farmers in the mountains. The same story seems to play out again and again.

About 300 km north of Delhi in the Sirmaur District of Himachal Pradesh, a controversy is brewing over plans to construct the Renuka dam in order to supply drinking water to Delhi at a cost of 3900 crore ($860 million). The project will displace 750 families in 37 villages, and about 1600 hectares of fertile land and forests (including part of a wildlife sanctuary) will be submerged. Sirmour has relatively poor infrastructure and health facilities with nearly 23% of households residing below the poverty line. A report on the project says, as a result of submerging land, there is little doubt that the dam will “directly affect the food security and sovereignty of the families.”

Paying for Delhi’s water: Tara Devi, a dalit farmer, looks gloomily at her land. Thousands like her are left wondering why they must give up their land and livelihood in favour of an unjust act. (Photo by Neeraj Doshi)

A few weeks ago, I sat down with Neeraj Doshi’s, a photographer who created a photo exhibit that tells the story of the Renuka Dam site and the people it will displace, alongside Delhi’s water waste and rationale for the dam (click the link above for more photos). In addition to the photo exhibit, which will travel to other colleges and universities in Delhi, a short film by Tarini Manchanda called A Dam Old Story was screened, followed by a discussion at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi India on September 30, 2011.

Neeraj Doshi tells me that the photos are part of a broader education project to create awareness, “It will not change in a drastic way, there are many more Renuka [type dams],” Doshi says. This statement is sadly too true, as from 1947 to 2000, the number of dams has grown from 300 to 4000. He also explains how this dam is unique because it is “a very clear-cut thing: Delhi needs water, it is damming Renuka. Delhi wastes its water.”

The politics and controversy around the Renuka Dam Project are typical of many large dam projects throughout the world, consisting of three main issues: 1) land acquisition and project related displacement, 2) environmental concerns and 3) technical feasibility of the project itself. All three of these issues are controversial in Renuka’s case, questioning why the dam should be built in the first place.

In an open letter to Delhi Chief Minister on Renuka Dam citizens and groups in Delhi make the case against the dam, citing avoidable losses as well as the possibility for rainwater harvesting within Delhi, among many other things. The letter mentions the displacement and environmental destruction that past projects have created are “fresh in people’s minds and the number of sufferers keeps going up,” finally it asks, what right does Delhi have to demand more of such displacement and destruction?

Dehli Water Waste: Yet again, but this time it’s from the pipelines carrying potable water from Sonia Vihar Water Treatment Plant to South Delhi. Many more such ruptures leaking precious liquid can be spotted throughout the long stretch. (Photo by Neeraj Doshi)

The dam clearly threatens the livelihoods of the people living in Giri river valley according to a report published by People’s Action for People in Need called Dispossessing Mountain Communities: Who will pay for Delhi’s water? A Study of the socioeconomic and environmental implications of the Renuka Dam Project found that the most affected people will be dalits (members of the lowest caste in India), women, and children. As the study says, “decades of experience with large dams has shown that the costs outweigh the benefits… even if the environmental and social costs are excluded – the proposed benefits are almost always over-estimated to justify the projects.” The study mentions the cases of the Tehri and Bakhra Dam. The report also questions if this is the least cost effective option for Delhi’s water supply. Delhi’s per capita water consumption is 240 liters as day, but there is still a need to optimize supply and distribution losses, which have been cited as high as 40%.

The film, along with the report, seem to narrate a continued story of deceit and misinformation on the side of Himachal Pradesh Power Corporation Limited (HPPCL) detailing how at a public hearing, people were brought in buses by the project authorities and treated to a feast, but not informed of the process.

The Renuka Dam project is also based on 20 years of rainfall data until the year 1988-89. In a memorandum submitted  to Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dixit by Renuka Bandh Sangarsh Samiti (RBSS), an organization of project affected communities and Himalaya Niti Abhiyan, a coalition of community activists and organizations in the state, they state that “It will take years for a dam of 148 m to be filled… If after displacing 37 villages, destroying hundreds of hectares of forests and spending thousands of crores of rupees, the project is unable to fill its objective… who will be held accountable?” Chief Minister Dixit has shifted the blame to the Himachal government, arguing that Delhi is merely a “buyer” and thus the responsibility remains with the seller.

Delhi Water Waste: What would Tara Devi think when she finds out that both, her life and water have been snatched away for such careless wastage in Delhi. (Photo by Neeraj Doshi)

The report details a host of recommendations regarding the Ministry of Environment, the government of Himachal Pradesh, land acquisition and details of the Forest Rights Act but the final point may be most salient: “Delhi government should take responsibility for its water woes by looking at the consumption and demand issues as well as adopting an integrated water management approach for the city.”

As it stands now, there is a stay on construction, as the project must receive forest clearance before continuing to move forward. However, according to Nidhi Agarwal, one of the report authors, HPPCL has not stopped acquiring land and continues to go forward with preparations.

As Doshi says, “If this dam gets scrapped, which I think it will be, there will be precedence… Taking away people’s self-sufficiency isn’t survival.”

With the photo exhibit heading next to the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi, Delhi residents will have additional opportunity to see the exhibit and film, consider the contrasts and if they so choose, get involved.