A group of ten friends studying in Delhi moved to a small town in Madhya Pradesh, in the drylands of India in 1991. Among them, they held a mix of brilliance from different disciplines – economics, literature, science, design, sports and music. This area only had small and marginal farmers, dependent on rain-fed agriculture. Only one crop was sown in a year, and if the rain failed, there was no second option. Every year, it saw huge migration of village people to urban centres looking for daily-wage work. Money lending at 60 per cent interest, bonded labour and degraded land were only a few factors for debilitating poverty that existed here. Thirty years later, the same area has a company of 4,000 women members, benefiting 30,000 women farmers, who now sell and buy directly to the market. The farmers here grow two or three crops annually with the water table having risen over the years with watershed management. An enterprise of garments stitched by underprivileged women and people with disability, with a core team from the local area, has become a brand name. It took a small group of ten people – who could all comfortably get high-paying jobs in the city – to have that dream of working for the marginalised, working towards building rural India, with the true intention of redefining development. This ideology keeps community well-being and the value of ecological security at the core.

The group, on the other hand, started with one village in 1991 and have now spread over 574 villages and towns across the region. Working with partners, the company has transformed 72 of the most deprived districts in the central Indian Adivasi belt. This enthusiastic team comprises my family, my sister and her friends from college, and my parents who joined them soon after.

Against this backdrop, my work in the field of environment and wildlife filmmaking only helped to deepen the belief that ecological security is the foundation for community well-being and sustainable livelihoods. I think this is something that is understood largely by people. However, the overwhelming definition of development which is rooted in infrastructure, industry and urban growth continues to create a haze over the reality on the ground. The connection of natural systems to our daily survival – water, food, air – is not imbibed, the contribution of farmers to the national economy is ignored, and the work of people aimed at protecting forests and wilderness is seen as out of the box. The mainstream thinking around development still rests on urban expansion and industrialisation, on huge profits and individual growth.

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During our travels, this was evident everywhere – whether it was turtle conservation, traditional livelihoods, honey hunters and the rock bees, protected areas and fringe villages, or community forests and indigenous people. Solutions existed everywhere, but the intention was missing. For the children and youth, while education is absolutely essential, it helps to connect them to their own roots, their own land. The narrative that defines success is moving to the city and getting a good job. I saw youth from fishing communities coming back to fishing after trying to get a job in the towns. I have seen youth here in north-east India returning after trying out different jobs in the metros. When they return home, there is a sense of being disheartened, a sense of failure. Ironically, they can identify plants, know the forests, can swim in deep sea, know their fish and nets and boats, but they do not deem these as inherent knowledge, as there is nothing within our education system that helps them to understand their own strengths. Youth forms 65 per cent of the population of India. How could we make them an asset for building an ecologically secure future?

Video is an incredible tool of learning and understanding. At the same time, it is also a way to document the incredible stories on the ground. Could we use this medium to engage the youth in conservation action and nature-based livelihood? Could we build a community of youth that is able to amplify the narrative around ecological security?

Green Hub Project was initiated with keeping these questions in mind. It is a video-based fellowship for youth, focussing on environment and wildlife conservation. We started in the north-east of India, across the eight states. And in 2021, expanded to central India. In the last eight years we have created a network of 200+ fellows across northeast and central India. Of these, almost 80 per cent continue to work on conservation-based or social-change projects through their own initiatives – filmmaking, working with NGOs and media houses, etc. While the tangible outcomes have been in terms of employment, grants and fellowships for community work, enterprise formations, the most valuable achievement has been the shift in attitude towards environment conservation.

Excerpted with permission from Green Hub Project by Rita Banerji in A Green Day: Embracing Climate Action’, edited by Jeevesh Gupta, Chittranjan Dubey, and Anandajit Goswami, Hachette India.