In Ethiopia, 6.2 million people are in need of immediate food assistance.
For families of herders and part-time farmers in the Oromiya and Tigray regions, the need is acute. Malnutrition levels among the poorest of them have climbed above emergency thresholds set by the World Health Organization. In addition to those needing this emergency assistance, the Ethiopian government is helping 7.5 million other people with food and cash through its Productive Safety Net Program.
Oxfam America is responding to the new crisis with a multi-part relief plan that aims to help about 350,000 people in Tigray and Oromiya. The initiative, which needs the financial support of donors to reach all the intended beneficiaries, includes supplemental feeding for mothers and children, meals for school children, a cash-for-work program that provides families with money to buy food in exchange for labor on community projects, and veterinary care for livestock. The latter will help to ensure cattle, goats, and sheep can weather the drought and continue to provide critical food and income for herding families.
“If we are able to respond in a timely way, we can reach these people, save lives, save livelihoods, and help people to be resilient to future shocks,” said Abera Tola, Oxfam America’s regional director for the Horn of Africa.
In parts of Oromiya’s Borena Zone, the pressure on dwindling resources has increased as migrating herders and their livestock have swept in from Kenya in search of pasture and water. An Oxfam assessment team, sent to the region in early August, reported an estimated 100,000 extra animals, mostly cattle, were severely straining the water supply around in the Moyale, Dillo, Dirre, Teltelle and Arrero districts. In Dillo, the situation was so dire that families in five different areas evacuated their villages.
“The ponds are dry. The land is barren. There is nothing green,” said Tola. “People are desperate.”
In the dry, rural parts of Ethiopia people have long lived with periodic drought, and they have found ways to cope, such as by selling a few heads of healthy livestock and using the cash to buy food. But with droughts becoming increasingly frequent, there is little time—or no time—between them for families to recover their assets and build a new buffer against hardship. Instead, each bout of dry weather pushes many people deeper into poverty, making them more vulnerable to the next round of trouble.
“Drought is like fire,” said an Oromiya elder looking back on last year’s severe shortage of rain. “It just destroyed every household.”
In the Liben district of Oromiya’s Guji Zone, the changes in weather patterns are pushing some herders to give up part of their old way of life—and turn to farming as a solution. Along the banks of the chocolaty Dawa River, Huka Balambal is growing onions and corn with the help of a small irrigation system he devised himself: A noisy pump connected to a long line of hose sucks water from the Dawa and spills it through a maze of muddy channels that Balambal has dug.
Tending solely to animals is what he had done all his life—until now. At 64, with no education and a large family to support, Balambal knew he had to do something different: the days of abundant milk from his cattle and plentiful grasses for them to feed on are gone. In the decades since he was a boy, the pastureland, and consequently the livestock, have declined, he said.
“I think, how can I survive this way?” Balambal asked. “How can I manage my family and care for my children. I look around and see the only solution is change of livelihood.”
Along another stretch of the Dawa, where Oxfam America is working with the Liben Pastoralist Development Association, or LPDA, to build a full-scale irrigation system for 200 families, Edo Godana voiced some of the same worry.
“During our father’s time it was very nice rain and a lot of milk and grass,” he said. “Now, things have totally changed. I’ve been trying to cultivate land by rain, and it frequently collapses. We have fear for our children. What’s going on?”
It’s a question that’s weighing on countless herders and rain-dependent farmers across Ethiopia as one difficult season gives way to the next. In the face of a changing climate, Oxfam has been working with people like Balmbal and Godana on longer-term solutions to the problems erratic weather creates. Pasture restoration, road construction, and helping people build small herds of milking goats are just some of the answers.
“Drought is a part of our lives,” said Kote Ibrahim, LPDA’s director. “How can we get out from it? We’ve reached consensus. We need sustainable development interventions.”
And, added Tola, the underlying causes of poverty, which make people so susceptible to drought, must also be addressed.
“Poor people need a voice,” said Tola. “Marginalized groups, like herders, need to be included in the development policies of the country. And women need an active role in development also.”
]]>We have been hearing a lot about the mangroves on this trip to the Pacific coast where countless families are struggling against a poverty that forces them to live where no one else will: in low-lying areas prone to flooding and along the sides of dirt roads that become hard to negotiate during heavy rains.
South of here, in a town called Metalío, we have just met with Francisco Calzadilla, a member of the technical team for Caritas, which, together with Oxfam America and three other donor groups, as well as six local non-governmental organizations, has joined a consortium called PRVAS—or Programa Reducción de Vulnerabilidades Ahuachapán-Sonsonate. One of its goals is to help communities carry out mitigation projects to reduce their risk in disasters. And that's where the mangroves come in.
"They serve as a natural barrier—to the waves and the wind off the ocean," says Calzadilla. "They also provide a food source. They serve as an ecosystem for shellfish."
The strip of mangroves Calzadilla is particularly concerned with, stretches for about 20 kilometers around Metalío. He estimates that about 50 percent of that stretch has been deforested as people cut down the trees for both construction material and firewood.
But in August, with support from PRVAS, community members took steps to recover some of those losses, said Calzadilla. They collected, sorted, and planted 20,000 mangrove seeds—they look like long, slender pods—along a two-kilometer deforested strip.
It will be a while—10 years predicted Calzadilla—before the seedlings mature enough to serve as a barrier against the onslaught of Mother Nature. In areas where the mangroves have disappeared and there is nothing to break the force of winds, small houses have blown away, Calzadilla said.
In some neighborhoods around Acajutla, El Salvador's largest port, mangrove forests have been severely reduced—replaced by fill and the simple homes of some of the country's poorest residents.
Further east in the department of Usulután, preservation efforts are underway for some of the mangrove forests in Jiquilisco Bay, where Oxfam America is helping local fishermen organize themselves to improve their production and protect their livelihoods. They depend on the resources that flourish in the dense tangle of roots, mud, and tidal water.
Deep in the pre-dawn gloom of one protected area in the bay, we can just make out a platform where watchmen keep round-the-clock guard over this watery haven supported by funds from the United Nations. Here, mollusks can get a solid start and help to increase the catch that local fishermen need to feed their families.
Later, after the sun is up and the tide has receded, the mangrove forests in Jiquilisco Bay come alive with the chirping and scrambling of wildlife. Herons pick their way over the mud flats. A raccoon darts through the exposed roots. A vulture studies us from his perch on a branch.
Juan Larín Rojas, a 54-year-old fisherman, eyes each one of them with delight. He knows many of their scientific names. This is his turf, and despite the challenges of making a living from these mangroves and the sea around them, he wouldn't give up this life for anything.
"I love fishing. I love the sea. I love feeling free," he says.
]]>The Yanacocha gold mine is currently operating on 26,000 hectares (about 63,700 acres), high above the city of Cajamarca in the Andes mountains of Peru. But that is just a small area: The government conceded a total of 282,000 hectares (690,000 acres, slightly , larger than the state of Rhode Island) to Minera Yanacocha, a company comprised of majority owners Newmont Mining of the United States and Minera Buenaventura of Peru. Yanacocha continues to be a significant part of Newmont Mining's global production, contributing about a quarter of the 5.3 million ounces of gold Newmont sold in 2007.
Minera Yanacocha is working aggressively to expand the mine. In 2004, the mine began exploring for gold on Cerro Quilish, a small mountain that comprises the top of the watershed supplying the city of Cajamarca and the rest of the valley. Dairy and potato farmers in the area and many others opposed to mining Quilish blocked the road to the mountain in 2004. There were weeks of violent confrontation between police and protesters. In the end, Minera Yanacocha stated publicly that it had underestimated the concerns of local people and asked the Ministry of Energy and Mines to revoke its permit to explore for minerals on Cerro Quilish.
The mountain remains in the mine's concession area. Many of the Quechua-speaking indigenous people in the area consider Quilish their apu, a mountain spirit, and a sacred place. "When the clouds gather above Quilish, we know it will rain," says Nelida Chilon, a 24-year old from Bajo Porcón, midway between the city and the mountain. "We want to protect Quilish, our source of water. The [mining] engineers tell us there is water, and no pollution, but we know the land does not produce as it used to, and there is less water than ever."
Local governments representing communities opposed to mining on Quilish also adopted laws to designate it a protected natural area. Other communities where the mine intends to expand have taken similar measures. Oxfam America's partner GRUFIDES is supporting efforts by local communities to protect their land, and provides training and other support to local people eager to learn about and defend their human rights and protect their water sources. With help from Oxfam America, GRUFIDES is also working with the regional government's environmental management agency to create a land use plan that would clearly designate areas for agriculture, human settlement, mining, and other activities.
Minera Yanacocha is disputing 12 local ordinances that prohibit mining, and plans to expand mining exploitation to these and other areas, including La Zanja, where one person was killed by police during a demonstration in 2004. The environmentally fragile high altitude wetlands of El Solitario, where there are 240 ponds and lakes, is another area of proposed expansion.
Minera Yanacocha is claiming jurisdiction in Lima where the company is officially located and where judges are not familiar with these local areas. Communities are hard pressed to be properly represented in the proceedings due to costs and distance (375 miles). "With that kind of trial you know who is going to win," says Marco Arana, one of the founders of GRUFIDES, Oxfam America's partner in Cajamarca. He added that when legal and institutional roads are closed to citizens, it leads to confrontation, and "adds to the social exclusion and asymmetry of power in Peru."
Oxfam America is supporting the work of GRUFIDES to help local communities defend their rights and create an appropriate land use plan for the region. Oxfam is calling on Minera Yanacocha to:
In the area near Dubluq, Borena clans have wells with earthen ramps leading their cows down to flat areas with mud troughs so their animals can drink water passed up, bucket by bucket, by teams of men in a vertical chain, all singing to keep rhythm. These traditional eela wells, also called singing wells, are crucial in the dry season, and the clans have a schedule for which herds can access the wells on different days.
One of the wells near Dubluq is a bit special. The Negelle well has a wider entry ramp leading to a large flat surface surrounded on three sides by concrete troughs and a large reservoir. Dida Ollo, leader of the Maleu Gida sub clan, stands next to the Negelle eela and smiles, showing his impossibly straight, white teeth. "My clan and my community are overjoyed," he says as his clan members pass water up to the troughs in preparation for several herds expected that afternoon. "Imagine," Ollo says. "We can water up to 1,600 cattle in a day. With our old eela we could only take care of much fewer cattle."
The contrast with the older traditional wells is clear: In some of the older wells the herders stand precariously on a rickety, makeshift wooden ladder, passing the water up to an earth trough about 15 feet long. Each day they must create a mud out of water and dust from a termite mound to line the trough to reduce seepage. It is more work to serve fewer cows: About 15 cows can drink at one time. The neighboring Negelle well can serve 70 cows at one time, and has a steel ladder and platform system on which the herders stand securely passing the water buckets up and down.
Dida Ollo's clan asked Oxfam America's partner in Dubluq, Action for Development (AFD), to help them rehabilitate their traditional eela. Clan members donated their labor, sold cows to buy materials, and worked with AFD to optimize the design. Oxfam America contributed a grant for part of the cost.
Just enlarging the entry ramp made a huge difference, decreasing the angle and widening the width from two to 13 meters. Nasir Tonea, the construction foreman for the project with AFD, says "Before we leveled the entrance, it was really steep. And only one cow at a time could enter. After they drank, they big cows had trouble getting out, we would have to get behind and push. Now we can have 70 cows leaving to one side so they can let another herd of cows come down—they let them in because they can see they are thirsty," he says. "They have better manners than most people on the roads nowadays."
Dida Ollo says the rehabilitation made a huge difference. "The difference between the old and new well is like night and day." He says they sometimes allow other clans to water their cattle at the Negelle well when the other nearby traditional wells can't cope with the demand in dry times.
Next to the Negelle well there is a plaque that reads, "Dubluq well rehabilitated with the partnership of the local community, Oxfam America, and Action for Development." Now 68, Dida says this is part of his legacy: "When I pass away future generations will know we accomplished this together." It's important to him because it enshrines his participation in important Borena traditions. "There are two sacred things in Borena life," Ollo explains later at his house. "The first is to raise a girl and give her hand away in marriage. The second is to bring the clan together to work on our eela."
]]>The reservoir is at the base of large, steep hill, more like a small mountain really. At the top is a spring, from which water flows through pipes to the pond. It was constructed three years ago by a nearby organization called Action for Development with support from Oxfam America. Before then Jarrso's clan members had to herd their cows up the steep hill, the only means to get water in the dry season. Every day cows would expire on the path up to the spring.
"During the dry time there is no grass to eat," Jarsso says. "They could not climb, so we pushed them up, and some would die." There were years in which more than 10 a day would die on that hill.
Piping the water down the hill helps tremendously. More cows can access the water, the herders and their families can retain more of their wealth and can better survive the dry season, and they get clean, fresh water to drink and cook with, and wash their clothes in.
But the reservoir does not help one ongoing problem: herders are reporting that good pasture for grazing their cattle is harder and harder to find, and not just in the dry season. Jarsso and others in his clan say there are three main reasons for the disappearing pasture:
"The Borena people have many different methods for coping with drought," says Abera Tola, director of Oxfam America's program in Ethiopia. "But some of these bushes are new to them, and the increase in tick infestation may both be related to changes in the climate. We want to research this to find ways to help them."
Bilalo Jarsso said the Borena are trying to survive despite these challenges, and are accustomed to traveling two to three days at a time looking for decent pasture.
"We used to find grass somewhere," he said. It is becoming more and more difficult now.
Oxfam America's partner AFD is helping herders take a more active approach, teaching the Borena to manage their range land more aggressively and actually clear away the encroaching bushes to improve the pasture for grazing. This would be particularly crucial in the dry season, says Tolusa Kemaio, a project officer for AFD.
"The dry season is a very serious time here," he says. "People really struggle, and they can't just slaughter their animals to survive."
]]>In 2002, Bogoso Gold Mines, a subsidiary of Golden Star Resources, acquired the mine concession and started to aggressively expand the mine pit towards the town. Use of explosives in the mine pit damaged homes in the Krutown neighborhood, and repairs effected by the company were not adequate, according to homeowners. In the neighboring village of Dumase there have been two cyanide spills in the Aprepre River in 2004 and 2006.
"In 2004 we could see the surface mine approaching the town, so we complained to the government but no one came to our aid," said Dominic Nyame, a burly 43-year-old former miner turned community organizer with the Concerned Citizens Association of Prestea. Community members said the encroaching mine pits brought blasting too close to nearby neighborhoods and houses were being damaged. "In 2005 we demonstrated against the company, and the military came to town and shot seven people—fortunately no one died." There has never been an independent investigation of this incident.
The communities of Prestea, as well as Himan, and Dumase that neighbor the Bogoso/Prestea mine, are requesting a comprehensive evaluation of the impact of the first phase of the Bogoso/Prestea project and for the company to respect their right to free, prior, and informed consent regarding the planned Prestea Southern Project.
The community of Dumase is also seeking damages in court from the 2004 and 2006 cyanide spills, and has formally requested that Golden Star Resources commission independent health investigations, but the company has not acted on this either.
Community members attended training sessions with Oxfam America's partner WACAM in 2005 to learn about their human rights, and how to teach others about their right to live in a safe environment and be consulted about the effects of the expanding mining operation. Community members went to Accra and met with reporters and got their grievances into the media, after which Bogoso Gold said they would reduce their blasting activity and form a joint committee to oversee future blasting.
But the issue of pit expansion is still a problem for people living in and near Prestea who fear being involuntarily relocated, or living too close to mine pits and blasting. The proposed pit expansion would also be within several hundred meters of a school, so many parents in this area are concerned about the safety of their children. In two prior incidents in 2006 security forces have moved people off of mine property by force, and the Concerned Citizens Association has had to use some of the training they received from WACAM to resolve these conflicts peacefully. "With WACAM we can calm the waters," Nyame said.
Bogoso Gold is currently suspending all mining activity and expansion while it negotiates with the citizens of Prestea, who are exerting their right to be consulted about how the mine operates, how it could possibly expand its operations into the southern part of Prestea, and the way it carries out any future blasting in the mine pits.
]]>In a dusty yard under the shade of a mango tree, Abdulie Camara holds out his hands for a visitor to feel. His palms are as tough as leather. He has been cutting trees—countless numbers of them—to sell their wood for cash so he can help feed some of the dozens of people with whom he now shares his mudbrick house.
His neighbors in the Gambian village of Janack are chopping down the forest, too, in an effort to provide not only for their families, but for the refugees who have settled among them. They are from the Casamance region of Senegal.
A push to gain independence for the region, which has pitted the separatist group known as the Movement of Democratic Forces of the Casamance against the government of Senegal, has fueled more than 20 years of fighting. The violence has forced at least 60,000 people from their homes. An estimated 7,000 of them have streamed across the border to seek safety on Gambian soil, heightening the pressure on an already strained land.
As Camara, and residents of other border villages, have struggled with the crush of that refugee flow, Oxfam America and its local partners have been providing emergency assistance designed to help villagers cope. For them—and the land around them—the consequences of the Casamance conflict have been severe.
The tree-cutting deeply worries some environmentalists.
"In 10 to 20 years, all of Gambia will be a desert," said Marcel Badji, marveling at the wood, split and piled, in the yards around Janack. "People are cutting trees for survival. Huge trees are going down."
Badji is the director of St. Joseph's Family Farms center, a local Gambian organization and Oxfam America partner. His words give voice to a grave reality: Poverty is putting intense pressure on the environment here.
Camara leads a visitor into his small mudbrick house. Forty-six people sleep here, sharing beds and straw mats unfurled on the dirt floor. Many of the refugees who have sought safety in Gambia are related to their hosts. Cousins and nephews are among the people Camara is sheltering.
"It's very difficult to handle such a large number of people," Camara says. "Food is number one." As he speaks, a ruckus breaks out in a kitchen hut at one end of the hard-packed yard. A pair of sheep have nudged their way in and are rooting around for something to eat. Alert family members shoo them out and fasten the door.
A farmer, Camara grows millet, rice, peanuts, and corn. But because of increased pressure on the land, it has lost some of its fertility and his harvests have shrunk. The money he would have used for fertilizer to enrich the soil has been spent helping to support the Casamance refugees.
"It's part of the culture. You assist people who need your help," says Badji. "And these people are in need."
In searching for answers to these problems of poverty, Oxfam and its partners are focusing on ideas that will help people exert control over their circumstances. When villagers have the means—training, resources, know-how—to solve their own troubles, those tools become the basis for lasting solutions.
That's the hope for four bright blue hand pumps that now cap wells in some of the border villages. They are part of a $45,000 grant Oxfam provided to Concern Universal, an international partner that has been addressing the needs of refugees and their hosts.
In the village of Oupat, a short distance from Janack and a stone's throw from the Casamance line, Bakary Sonko and Gibril Sonko worked together on a recent afternoon to spin the handle on one of the pumps. After 40 seconds of cranking, they had filled a four-gallon bucket with fresh water. Bees buzz about the stream as it sputters out of the faucet. Next to the pump sits a large metal barrel hooked to a hose—key components of Oupat's brick-making enterprise. With water readily available, new mudbrick houses?homes for the refugees'are on the rise nearby.
"The pumps can be easily maintained by the communities without big fees," explains Zanira Paralta, an Oxfam humanitarian response officer. "It's a technology Concern Universal has been implementing for five or six years. We realized it could be a good way to provide water at low cost."
Inside the blue casings, the pump mechanism is simple: it looks like a bicycle wheel that spins with the help of a rope affixed with tiny washers that pull up the water. The rope, made from nylon, can be replaced easily when it breaks. To show how simple it is to reach the parts that need fixing, Ousman Jammeh, a technician for Concern Universal, untwists a plastic cap at the top of the pump and removes the plastic tubing through which the rope runs.
Nearby, another well signals the importance of Oupat's new hand pumps. This well, dug in 1983, is dry. A tangle of skinny branches covers its opening. Before Concern Universal installed the new wells and pumps, people had to trek to Nyambolo, the neighboring village, for their water.
Working with other local groups, Concern Universal has built about 150 of these wells using manually operated equipment—simpler technology means fewer breakdowns—to bore the holes. And it has experimented with a variety of materials, available locally such as wood and aluminum, in constructing parts for the pumps.
Niall O'Connor, director of Concern Universal, explains that a similar pump is used in Nicaragua and that Concern made modifications so that it could be used here.
"The whole idea is to be affordable and sustainable," he says.
]]>A five-person review panel, which included the former State Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) leader, Qu Geping, selected the winners.
The competition, which had a water conservation theme, awarded $123,457 to 16 organizations and individuals in Beijing. It was the first time since the competition?s start six years ago that a theme was identified.
Twenty-two projects from a field of 200 proposals were chosen as finalists. Awards were made for tertiary students? activities, and the category in which Green Watershed won.
Ford Motor Company "has seen the important link between water resources conservation and China's efforts to achieve sustainable development and build a harmonious society," said Dr. Yu Xiaogang, founder and head of Green Watershed, when accepting the award.
"It's an honor as well as an incentive for us to continue public participation, good river basin management, and environmental equity."
It is the second time this year that Green Watershed has been recognized for its work in China. In March, Green Watershed was one of 10 winners in a contest sponsored by Beijing's Economic Observer and Shell, which recognized groups that designed outstanding sustainable development projects in China.
]]>She was writing her name in Chinese characters, painstakingly shaping each slope and spike, trying to remember what she learned in school.
She'd lived her 30 years in this remote village on a mountain with no official name. She was a picture of dignity in a place facing difficult times.
For generations the people on this mountain had cut and sold timber. Then, just a few years ago, the Chinese government banned logging to conserve trees.
It was an important decision for the environment, one that helped protect the watershed of Lashi Lake. But it eliminated some important interaction for the Yi people who live here. An ethnic minority who only met with the lowland Han people when they sold their timber, they risked being left behind.
To survive the logging ban, the Yi needed a plan.
Green Watershed, an Oxfam America partner, came up with one. After consulting with the villagers, they discovered potatoes could replace timber as a cash crop. And the women who formed the backbone of the community could learn to speak Mandarin and write Chinese characters so they could sell and trade the potatoes to the Han at the base of the mountain.
In May, I went to China, Cambodia, and Thailand to capture stories like these, illustrating Oxfam America's work in Asia. I had never been to the region before. Like so many in the West, I knew about the extreme poverty only from the media.
But suddenly there I was filling notebooks with the results of our work, watching village after village preserve their way of life using their own expertise:
Rice farmers in Cambodia finding a niche in the market, creating the first organic rice mill in the country. Burmese refugees studying law, risking their lives to document human rights abuses back home. Fishers living on the Tonle Sap lake measuring the impact of over-fishing and developments planned for their community.
I marveled at the dignity of these men and women. They just wanted what we all want: to make a decent a living and feed their families.
Some sought to do the work their families had done for generations, only to watch the developed world encroach on their waterways and flood plains. Some needed to diversify and adapt their way of life.
But for others, the plan was even more ambitious. Let's say these communities make enough to get by.
Then what?
Then, it turns out, Oxfam partners help them learn how to participate in development decisions. They diversify their work options and insist on better governance. They put money away and buy farm equipment, fishing boats, tuition for their kids. They build health clinics, schools, and courtyards for meetings, traditional dancing, and singing with family and friends.
In short, when poor people aren't so poor anymore, they can effectively plan for the future.
What I saw during my travels illustrated the vast range of work Oxfam and its partners do in the regions.
And surrounding it all are the many challenges—few resources, limited participation in decision-making, outside interference, droughts, floods.
But somewhere in between, the work gets done.
A woman writes her name. A village survives.
]]>The environmental organization was one of 10 winners in a contest sponsored by Beijing's Economic Observer and Shell Corporation, which recognized groups that designed exemplary sustainable development projects in China.
An appraisal committee of economists, policy makers, NGO leaders, entrepreneurs, and environmentalists, selected the winners from a field of more than 100 contestants.
Green Watershed, an Oxfam America partner since 2000, won praise from the judges for their work in villages around the Lashi Lake. There, government conservation programs and dam developments threaten the livelihoods of local farmers and fishers, many of them ethnic minorities in China.
Based on their research and interviews with villagers, Green Watershed designed a project, which helped the people of Lashi Lake protect their environmental resources and make a living. Now former timber harvesters are growing potatoes, former fishers are nursing fruit trees and Chinese yams, and Yi and Naxi women are attending schools in their villages, learning to read, write and teach others innovative agriculture techniques.
Li Yue-Chun, 55, a Naxi woman, whose family was the first in her village to begin planting fruit trees and Chinese yams, said she now has hope her community will survive.
"Because of the riverway improvements, my land will never be threatened," she said.
Green Watershed is also working to form self-sufficient watershed committees in Lashi villages, which allow local people to advise their government representatives what kinds of plans would work best for them.
"The Lashi project is like a pilot for the whole of China," said Warwick Browne, Lead Regional Program Officer for Oxfam America's Mekong River Basin Management Program. "It represents what watershed management can be."
Dr. Yu Xiaogang, the director of Green Watershed, said the judges recognized the Lashi project because it demonstrated two key requirements. It could be replicated with just a modest amount of funding. And it involved the village's participation.
"They said this is a very alien concept in China—a process that involves the people participating in watershed management," Dr. Yu said.
Green Watershed received 10,000 Yuan (about $1,200) for the March 2005 prize.
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