ANGARIKE MAALA (Meadow of Dodonaea)

LAND RESTORATION AND AGRO-BIODIVERSITY CONSERVATION
PUNARCHITH purchased a piece of abused and degraded land (6.75 acres) in Putanpura village, about 2.3 kilometres from Nagavalli village, where the resource centre is located. Although the land was purchased in 2014, it was formally registered only in April 2015, as we refused to submit to the demands for bribes and waited until we were able to get the registration done through due and legal processes. A detailed ‘green-print’ for the land was prepared by Sunita Rao and Alex Bouvard; specialised inputs and suggestions were provided by U. Ravi Kumar and Lalitha of Mysuru and by Shivkumaraswamy, an organic farmer from Chamarajanagar district. Hard work and persistence by P.Veerabhadranaika and H. Muthuraju have seen the cultivable portion transform into a green patch. Vinay, Puttaswamy and Kantharaju provided valuable labour and knowledge inputs and saw through much of the restoration, conservation, and cultivation activities.
Bunds to harvest rain water, fencing (to ward off cattle and sheep grazing and unwanted visitors) and gates have been made. A dilapidated pump house has been renovated to make a tool and seed storage room. The existing coconut trees have been pruned and manured, and are now yielding coconuts. The two cultivating seasons of 2015 were used to grow ‘navdanya’ (nine grains: 3 pulses, 3 cereals, 3 oil seeds) which were mulched back into the land. Periodic testing of the soil indicates that humus, nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorous content have improved. The mungaru or kharif season of 2016 yielded a bounty of pulses (red and green gram), which we joyously shared with our friends and supporters.
Watch Video introduction to Angarike Maala
Duration: 3:38 min. Credit: Raj
Yet, much more work needs to be done. The higher terrains consisting of rocky patches, granite quarries, and with strips of contaminated soil need to be restored appropriately. Water continues to be a problem as the sandy soil does not hold water or have the potential to have a water table.
The land is used for demonstrating both land restoration and agricultural practices to learners in the ILP course, farmers and interested persons. Plans are to further develop the land into an ‘agro-biodiversity conservation cum demonstration‘ site and to have out-reach programmes for both local and non-local persons.

Work on the land continues; the soil is being monitored for changes and improvement, earth works such as bunds are being constructed, tree saplings planted, and two rounds of cultivation are undertaken every year. The challenges of cultivating the land for food crops and growing trees without adequate rainfall or supplementary irrigation continue. The post-monsoon saw the land turn green and a number of wild flowers and creepers made their presence. But the failure of the returning monsoon saw a dip in the productivity of crops and subsequently the land turned brown and bare. We continue to engage with the vagaries of the weather and hope to turn Angarike Maala into an ecologically sustainable and economically viable demonstration site.

Ms. K. Abhisheka has been undertaking periodic reviews of the state of biodiversity at Angarika Maala. This is the most recent report and indicates the changes that have taken place over the years. Click here for the report.

2022

2022 brought us heavy rainfall (average of about 1100 mm, above the established annual average of 780mm) and made the conservation activities more viable. Not only did the tree saplings pick up growth, but the water level in the ponds, open-well, and tube-well went up. However, the unseasonal rains did not make for supportive production conditions for the cultivated crops and we harvested less amounts of pulses, cereals, and oil seeds than we expected. But, we were also gratified to see that the water retention and drought tolerance capacities of our land was much higher than any of our neighbours, most of whom lost all standing crops. How we can make agricultural land resilient to the extremes of climate change is a challenge that we need to address.

We began construction in April 2022 of a small utility complex with architectural support from InDesign, a landscape specialist group, from Bengaluru and the contractors, ValueTech. While the production of local, mud blocks etc were expedited, work stalled from Deepavali onwards when the workers went for their holidays. Delayed construction has meant that many of our programs did not get the benefit of having basic facilities at the land and worse yet, the area around the construction has become subject to all the depredations of the construction activities. We hope this will end soon and we can reclaim the area as part of our biodiverse land which will also accommodate humans.

April 2023, saw only light rains but a plethora of local flowers sprang up.

Work on restoring, conserving and cultivating at the highly degraded and barren 7-acre piece of land called ‘Angarike Maala’ (meadow of Dodonaea viscosa) continues. Our focus has been on restoring the soil, seed, water and biodiversity of the land so as to develop it into a demonstrative plot for regenerative agriculture, community-owned and group led agriculture and for various methods and practices of conservation and alternative learning. Based on the suggestion of the landscape architects, INDESIGN, Bengaluru, we have formally conceptualised this transformation and endeavour to establish this land into a ‘living lab’. The activities and programs that this ‘living lab’ will relate to: place-based education; community ownership and responsibility for natural and agricultural resources; restorative agriculture that can address climate change issues; conservation of seeds, water, agro-biodiversity and soil; use of both traditional and appropriate modern methods in cultivation; demonstration of use of appropriate technologies, energy conservation etc.

‘Taragu Benki’ or ‘litter fire’ experiment and observations: Dr. Samira Agnihotri initiated trials of the traditional Solega method of litter fire at Angarike Maala. Three Solega men, Range Gowda, Kethe Gowda, and Veere Gowda, have been coming regularly to conduct the annual fires and to also help with documentation and identification of plants/grasses. In addition, Solega elder women, Masanamma and Rangamma and their daughters and granddaughters, have also come and identified the plants that have grown in this site. A key feature of these visits by the Solega has been the fact that they are able to relate to the landscape and to the flora and fauna and has led them to have singing and dancing sessions there. This has also consolidated their confidence and the need to retrieve their knowledge and practices related to landscape conservation. Details of this are being documented (written and photographs) by Vinay Kumar.

2021

Angarike Maala: Towards making it a ‘Living Lab’

Over the past year, in collaboration with the Indesign team of landscape architects, we have reconceptualized Angarikemaala as a possible ‘Living Lab’— a space where ideas about ecological conservation, economic viability and social justice can be tried, debated, show-cased, and shared.

A bamboo nursery and a small patch of ‘litter fire’ or taragubenki have been carried out with advice, skills and knowledge from Solegas (an Adivasi group that resides in the region). New earthworks were initiated with the help of Bovis (stoneworkers) from Nagavalli and these efforts have helped us take a few steps towards developing Angarikemaala (AM) as a demonstrative place for local knowledge and sustainable practices.

Over the months, it has been our pleasure to see and enjoy the land sprout several species of grasses, wild flowers, and creepers. Several small creatures have started to visit the land and make it their habitat. 2021 has witnessed one manifestation of climate change in the form of excessive rains during the North-East monsoon. Our thriving fields of ragi, pigeon pea, green gram and horse gram were victims and we harvested less than a quarter of what we had expected. These are key lessons for us: to prepare to mitigate and adapt to climate change, therefore another responsibility that Angarike Maala as a ‘Living Lab’ will have to play.

2020

Five years since initiating restoration cum conservation work— is a turn-around year for Angarike Maala. The intermittent rains brought a host of newcomers to the land; mushrooms sprang up, as did a variety of creepers, flowers, shrubs and a multitude of grasses. The neem tree invited a small bee-hive and weaver birds wove their nests on the beautia tree. All-in-all a reassuring time for us, to see the land revive, express its wealth of local biodiversity, and show signs of encouragement to us. And, the most exciting was the yields of fruits: chikoos, pomegranate, papaya, passion fruit, and wit lemon, all in small quantities but which gave us immense pleasure.

We took some of the alumni from the Integrated Learning Course to see the land and they thrilled at seeing how the land has been transformed. A small film captures them on the land as they traverse the small ‘re-wilded’ area; now full of grasses, shrubs, trees, and visited by a variety of butterflies, birds, rabbits and an occasional wild boar or two.