00:01Sometimes, Juna Ram Chaudhuri can barely believe his luck.
00:05Every year, the 47-year-old is able to harvest more from his fields.
00:11Between mid-June and October, he grows bajra, a pearl millet, as well as wheat and cumin.
00:18And moonbeams also thrive here, and yet his lands lies in the middle of a desert.
00:26We normally get 200 millimeters of rain on average.
00:29But even though the rainy season isn't quite over yet, we have already had 350 to 400 millimeters.
00:36The rainfall is increasing.
00:40We are in the Thar Desert, in the far west of Rajasthan.
00:45It is one of the most inhospitable regions in the Indo-Pacific, covering an area of more than 200,000 square kilometers.
00:53In summer, temperatures can reach 50 degrees Celsius.
00:57Vast areas of land are covered by endless sand dunes.
01:01But for years now, some parts have started turning greener.
01:05The Indian Institute of Technology, Gandhinagar, looked into this development.
01:10Between 2001 and 2023, rainfall in the region increased by more than 60 percent.
01:17But he says that's only one cause for the transformation.
01:20We were expecting that this may be because of increasing rainfall.
01:25Because when you have more and more water availability, more number of rainy days during the monsoon season, and that could enhance your greening.
01:36But to our surprise, this greening was equally contributed by the human interventions.
01:44So increased population density.
01:46People started exploring options that how to thrive agriculture, even if in this very complicated and complex ecosystems.
01:55Farmers here use hybrid seeds that have been bred to increase yields, ensuring better harvests.
02:04Bore wells were dug to make water available even outside the rainy season.
02:08200 kilometers from the city of Jodhpur, 50-year-old Ashuram has also noticed a clear change.
02:16We used to harvest once a year, now we harvest twice.
02:24And this development has also made the third desert increasingly attractive as a place to live.
02:30In some desert cities, the population grew by up to 800 percent between 2000 and 2020.
02:40Attempts to green the third desert began many decades ago.
02:44Following India's independence, successive governments introduced measures aimed at making use of the land.
02:51And the ongoing electrification of rural areas has led to more and better groundwater wells.
02:58But ecologist Chetan Mishra is concerned.
03:00The groundwater here contains dissolved salts.
03:03And bringing it to the surface for large-scale use in watering crops, he says, is changing the land.
03:09If too much irrigation is happening in some part of the desert, it is not good for the soil.
03:14That increases the salinity of the soil.
03:16So in many areas you see a lot of irrigation is happening.
03:20The saline water is being used when it places.
03:22So you may get few crops in a short period of time, but in the longer run it is harming the soil.
03:28He says the long-term future of the desert ecosystem is also under threat.
03:34Farming is reducing its natural resilience.
03:37And invasive species are able to spread unhindered and crowd out native plants.
03:43Since it's launched 13 years ago, the Sankalp Taroor Foundation has been working to reverse the damage that has already been done.
03:52This place where we are in right now, it was full of prosopis joli flora or babool around eight years back.
04:03And then we extracted those invasive shrubs and then planted native varieties here.
04:11In Rajasthan alone, the foundation has planted more than 700,000 native trees and bushes to date.
04:21So when we selected the species, we were mindful of the fact that we have to plant native forestry varieties of thar.
04:29And we selected some of the fruit bearing ones as well, so that the birds also get their own share.
04:36And you can see the jamun is right now blossoming here.
04:41And then the bird has already made a nest just next to this jamun tree.
04:48The team also supports local residents like this farmer.
04:53His orchard now only grows regional fruits that are well suited to desert conditions.
04:58The foundation provides training for farmers on subjects like soil health and installed systems that allow them to save water.
05:06So this is the micro drip irrigation system, which in fact saves 60 to 70% of water while watering a tree.
05:22So, but then it requires maintenance because sometimes sand may clog the drip irrigation system, so we have to maintain them.
05:33But then it really automates the process.
05:36Whenever the soil moisture levels are less, our sensors do tell us and this irrigation system starts functioning.
05:44The third desert remains a challenge while some welcome the advancing greenery.
05:50Others will continue to fight in the years to come to preserve the desert's natural habitat.
Comments