 Hello, I'm delighted to welcome you all to this session. My name is Nicole Schwab. I'm the Director for International Relations at National Geographic Society's Last Wild Places. And I'm delighted to welcome the Honorable Minister Javadekar, who is Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, and Information and Broadcasting of India. And Sadguru, who is the founder of Isha Foundation. We are here for this session on There is No Planet B, which is being hosted in the framework of a series of conversations that the World Economic Forum is hosting as part of its nature action agenda. It's being very clear that in the face of the environmental urgency that we are facing, and the video has shown this very clearly, that we can no longer talk about biodiversity in isolation. The climate agenda, the biodiversity crisis, water, air pollution, all of these must be addressed as a whole. And it's becoming very clear how the environmental challenges have direct consequences on the economy and on human livelihoods. In 2018, the World Economic Forum ranked environmental risks as among the top risks to the global economy. So we are talking about ecosystem collapse, biodiversity loss, and extreme weather events. And here in India, India has been facing a lot of challenges. India is one of the most water-stressed countries in the world with dropping water tables. We know that 14 of the major 20 river basins are at risk of severe scarcity in the next 20 to 30 years. There is significant pollution of water basins. There is degradation of lands, a series of challenges that, of course, we see everywhere in the world, but are being made very acute in this country that's also very vulnerable to the effects of climate change. In this context, however, a lot of people are looking for a way where the international community can come together and start to change the course that we are on. Next year will be five years since the Paris climate payments. It's five years on track of the Sustainable Development Goals to take stock of where we're at. And in October, we will have all the countries coming together for the UN Convention on Diversity. In this context, India has played a leading role ahead of the Paris climate agreements. And I would like to ask you, what is India doing on biodiversity? How can we bring the climate and biodiversity agendas closer together? And what are some of the solutions that you've seen here that can serve as a model for the rest of the world? Our biodiversity is very rich. That is our culture also. Because we worship nature, we think of Charachar Srishti that takes care of animals also, the plants, flora, and fauna both together. So that's how our lifestyle, our ethos, and therefore today we have 24% of forest green cover in the country. In the last five years, we have increased green cover outside forest by 15,000 square kilometers. That's one. We have already overachieved our icky targets. And icky targets and more importantly, our success of biodiversity shows in figures. We have world's 77% of tigers, 2,967. We have 30,000 elephants, 3,000 rhinos, 550 lions. All require a complete biodiversity broken, killed our all vultures. These stray dogs and many other varieties, the species increased in population. So we have to balance it. So our whole aim is, and our biodiversity plan, we have a national biodiversity authority. We have documented. We have formed not only state committees, district committees. Now we are forming the local committees also. Because people in the earlier stage were not aware of how to document biodiversity. But now people have been well trained and we are documenting it because this is our treasure. We value it. The ecological value of our biodiversity stocks are much higher. You talked about 2020, let me tell you that India is walking the talk. We had three indices clear in Paris. One is to create 2.5 to 3 billion tons of carbon equivalent, and that is what we are going ahead with a forestation program. And we have released $6 billion to all the states for more speedier forestation in next five years. So that's one. Second is we have already achieved reduction in our energy intensity by 21%. We have promised 25% to 30%. We have already achieved. And Prime Minister Narendra Modi has declared 175 gigawatt in Paris of renewable energy, that is 40% of our energy mix capacity, energy capacities. So that is we are already achieved half of it and we'll achieve by 2022 that. And he, that upscaled the target for ourselves without somebody asking us. He, in this UN session, he has said we will have 450 gigawatts of renewable energy. That's huge. No country has thought of it. Thank you very much. Said Guru, you've been engaged in a massive river revitalization effort with Rally for Rivers. Can you tell us a little bit more about what prompted you to start this project, what need it's addressing, and what lessons you've learned in the process? Well, I'm not an environmentalist, definitely not a scientist. Of course, I'm not the minister. But you will. So my engagement with the river started very early. I grew up on the banks of Cauvery. And I was around Cauvery, not studying it, just enjoying the river for what it is like any other worm or insect or bird or fish which lives there. So I know the river like a worm, not like seeing it like a watery source. I did not see it as a water source. In my experience, I was a tiny little life and the river was such a magnificent and huge life. People like you and me come and go. This life has flown for millions of years. But in the last 25 years, I've been watching with much distress how Cauvery is depleting. Today, the studies say it is depleted by 44%. But in my eyes, when I look at Cauvery, they're taking the monsoon flow also and saying 44% less. But if you look at it in the midterm, that is after four to five months after monsoon, let's say November, if you look at Cauvery, it is only 30% of what it was 50 years ago when I saw Cauvery. So and what was a perennial river forever? Now, over five and a half months, it is not touching the ocean. It is drying up about 175 kilometers short of the ocean. Because of this marine ingress is happening in that region, up to 60 kilometers, saltwater has entered the land and people are vacated the villages, places that I know very well, where there used to be sweetwater in the wells. Today it is all saltwater. Looking at the Indian substraiter, about 130 kilometers inland, water, marine ingress can happen. We have a 7,400 kilometer coastline. If 100 kilometers, if it comes on an average, one-third of the land will be lost and the volume of migrations that will happen because of this and the civil unrest that will come out of it is not manageable by anybody. So if we don't put back somehow, see the question is not about increasing the river flow, the question is about slowing down the river. The very beautiful saying in the Tamil language, they say only if Cauvery comes walking, she's prosperity. If she comes running, she's a disaster. Right now she's running. I was, as a part of Cauvery calling, I was camping just beside the river behind Keras Dam, the Krishna Rajsagar Dam in Mysore, which is where I grew up, with our group. And I asked the local villager, the dam is full to the brim, it is actually overflowing. And I asked him, how many days it got full? He said, in four days. I said, this is not good. Because if it rains heavily in the catchment area, it would take 20 to 30 days to fill up. But today it is filling up in four days. And for the first time in 50 years, I'm seeing, the reservoir is brown in color. Never before was it ever brown because water, the rainwater came down, went into the soil in thick jungles, and then slowly pur- BEEP pure water. But for the first time, this is brown in color. This means the soil in the mountains is coming to Mysore city. That's what it means. And this is not a small thing. This is going to, in another hundred years, if you imagine what will happen to those mountains, it's a different thing because Himalayan rivers bring down silt, that's for a different reason. Western gods, rivers should not bring down silt. It's very, very important. The silt level tells you what is the level of damage you caused. So we thought through this whole thing and what I saw was, well, everybody, if you're an environmentalist today in this country or probably in many parts of the world, he's gathered 25 people, protest in front of an industry or stand on a street corner and throw stones at somebody. This is our idea of, you know, protecting environment. What I saw was, the largest land user in the country and in the world is the farmer. Why is he not growing trees? Because I know when I was young, I grew up in the farms, always we had trees. Why is he not growing trees? When I looked at this, I found the reason why he is not growing trees is, if he grows trees in his own land and cuts it one day when he needs it, he could be arrested or some activists will come and protest. They will file complaints, police complaints against him. So he knows trees trouble. He is not growing any trees. Without trees, what has happened is, there is no leafy material and animals have gone out because of machines. Now there is no tree leaves from the trees, no animal waste. The soil is deteriorating. United Nations has fixed 2% of organic content as the minimum to call soil as soil. In my experience of being in farms, minimum 5% to 8% should be there to call it really fertile soil. But to become soil, it's 2%. But today, most of the Cauvery belt, the level of organic content in the soil is 0.68%. In about 17% of the soil, it's 0.005%. That means in another three, four years, this is going to become a desert. What was fertile soil, we have converted this into sand, simply because somebody told us this very genius idea that you can run agriculture just with fertilizer salts. This is just killing the land completely. One of the most fertile lands on the planet, I'm saying this, because a handful of soil in southern India has anywhere between 10 to 50,000 species of microbes. A handful of soil has more microbes than all the people on the planet put together. But today, this soil is turning into desert simply because we have been doing wrong types of agriculture. Without enhancing the soil quality, you cannot sequester water. Right now, over 85 trillion liters of water is coming in the form of monsoon. People who are just reporting there's not enough rains, this, that, let me tell you, in the last hundred years in Cauvery basin, the volume of monsoon has gone up by 8.5%. There is more rain because of global warming. All peninsular and islands will get more rain. This is natural. So the rain is increased, but our ability to hold it is gone. We think we can hold it in reservoirs. No. All the rivers on the planet put together, whatever volume of water you have in all the rivers, the soil can hold 800% more water. So the real reservoir on the planet is soil, without maintaining moisture in the soil. There is no way you can keep the land rich and the bioactivity going. So the loss of biodiversity is there in the forest. Yes, as the minister said, well, the tigers are coming back, you know, the elephants are coming back, their populations have increased. But I'm telling you, our focus is largely on this because these are exotic creatures. They're getting the attention. But the real loss is happening in terms of insects, in terms of microbes. This loss is very big. For example, the bee population in India has dropped by 82%. 82% loss in the bee population in the last, from 1970 onwards. That was the baseline from which the studies have happened. 82% loss of the 108 important food crops, 90% of them need bees and animals to do pollination. Without this pollination, the level of vitamin A present in our food crops has come down so drastically that now studies are showing wherever the vitamin A in the food crops is less, the blindness is growing. You could have a huge population without, with vision losses in this country, simply because there are not enough bees. So as a part of Cauvery calling this agroforestry movement and bringing back bee cultivation, you know, honey development and bringing back colonies of bees in millions is being done right now. The reason why we're doing it this way is because it's an economic plan fundamentally. This will enhance, we've converted nearly 70,000 farmers into agroforestry. What we have seen is the soil condition has improved within three to four years phenomenally. Water tables have come up. Above all, in five to seven years, the farmers' income is going up 300 to 800%. We are converting about 3 to 5,000 farmers per year. But if we go at this pace, it will take 80 to 100 years. So right now, Cauvery calling as a movement is to crush this 100 years into 12 years. It's a 12-year commitment to see that 240 crore, 42 crore, or 2.42 billion trees go into this 83,000 square kilometers of Cauvery basin. If we do this, we will be sequestering anywhere between nine to 12 trillion liters of water, which is over 60% of the present Cauvery flow. This is what needs to happen. The soil moisture has to come back. Soil fertility has to come back. Otherwise, protecting biodiversity will not happen. The largest footprint is that of agriculture. Without transforming agriculture, you cannot preserve the biodiversity of this planet. Thank you very much. Thank you also for showing us so clearly the interlinkages between all these different aspects. Yes, absolutely. Because what Sadhguru is saying is absolutely true, you have to improve the health of soil and the micro-bacterial life in soil is the important aspect of the whole biodiversity. It starts from there. And therefore, what he has initiated is agroforestry. We at the national level have decided not only watershed development through various methods, trenches to forest, but more importantly, herb made perpade. Many farmers will not choose complete plot to be given for trees. They want crops also. And so he has a choice, but he can at least plant trees on his bank of the farm. And that he can do it. More importantly, we have issued 120 million health cards to nearly the equal number of farmers because unless they know the health and what he is describing is correct, what was health 20 years ago, what was it 10 years ago? And after continuous use of chemical fertilizers, what it is today are three different things. And therefore, we want public participation, we want NGOs also, we want to work with all of them, and we want to build it as a very big public campaign, like what Prime Minister launched yesterday about say no to single use plastic. Thank you. Both of you are talking obviously about agriculture, which is one of the industries that's the main drivers of biodiversity loss and which also needs to be part of the solution. I'd like to ask you, Minister, what are your expectations of the private sector and what in your view are the roles and responsibilities of business? I think government is not the only poll which has to act. It is the society which acts. And therefore, all NGOs, all good organizations, efforts of Sadguru and others, as well as private sector industries, can create right from awareness to actual work in not only tree plantation, but in all aspects of environment. This year, yesterday, I attended one wonderful program. The Renewable Energy Ministry has organized that. It created a Guinness Book of World Record, 5,000 school students of Delhi. Came together at 10 AM, learned how to assemble solar lamp for one hour, and then they assembled it for five hours. It takes five hours to assemble it. They assembled it, and it was a wonderful, successful program. And they lit up the lamp. Their joy was very much because they learned from heart, learned by mind, learned by hand. That is the real training. And that is why we want to encourage all kinds of awareness program and actual program where private participation is most welcome. And now we are planning to have on shelf many projects, out of which they can choose as per their liking. Thank you. Sadguru, I'd like to ask you also about the private sector and how, in your view, the private sector can help in the revitalization projects and in more broadly, nature restoration and having incentives to invest in nature restoration. So when it comes to protection of wildlife, we don't have to protect them. We just have to leave them alone. They will manage. So in every state, there are forest departments with substantial staff. Little tightening of that is needed. In some states, it's well managed. In some states, it's a little loose. In some states, it's being exploited. It's at different levels. But I don't know to what extent the minister can push this, but we must push this that these agencies are better trained and more committed to what they're doing. But one thing is clear for me that exploiting India's forests for commercial purposes must be history because we have reached a point in this country we cannot touch our forests in a commercial sense. Some small tribals and others use it for their own livelihood and stuff, that is okay. But commercial exploitation should stop. So where do we go for timber? Where do we go for these producers? So this is what we are trying to change. To make timber into an agro-produce, it should no more be a forest produce. For this, the minister has promised us and both the states in the south, all the three states in the south have promised us that they will change the laws, that a farmer can grow, fell, transport and sell his produce wherever he wants. Nobody will come in his way. This is the main problem. Right now, if I cut my tree, I have to fill five different forms and then go to five departments and there are other things involved in the departments. So this takes away his life. So nobody wants to plant a tree, it's too much of a mess. So the crop, about the food crops going down, when he mentioned, they don't want to plant all trees, definitely. See, we have seen, we can send you the videos and sharings of the farmers how their lives have changed. By cultivating regular crops with trees in between, the crop produce has gone up many fold. For example, one major crop in the south is turmeric. Turmeric farmers who are doing it with agroforestry, their crop yields have gone up from 10 to 12 quintals per acre to 25 to 30 quintals. Not only that, their neighbors are selling turmeric at the same season at 7,000 rupees per quintal. But the agroforestry farmers are selling it at 12,500 rupees per quintal simply because the curcumin value is much, much higher simply because of the leaf and the organic material in the soil. So it is not against regular farming, it is not against food crops. In fact, one big problem with India's food crops right now is the nutritional value has come down dramatically. They say in the last 25 years, nearly 39% lower nutritional value in almost everything we are consuming. So the nutritional value, if it has to go up, we must understand this body is just soil. The soil is rich, this will be well. If that is poor, this will also be poor. The very way we live, our lifespan, everything will be affected if the soil is weak because we are soil. Most people understand this only when you bury them. But if we understand now, we can fix it because the only way to fix it is, we need leaves from the trees and animal waste. Without these two things, we cannot do it. So about involvement of businesses, about involvement of public, about involvement, of course the government is involved with that. When it comes to agriculture, because agriculture covers the largest area of land, both in this country and largely in the world. In this country, nearly 83 to 84% of the land is covered by agriculture. Nearly 84 to 86% of the water is used by agriculture. India is one country which is using its groundwater to the limit. To the limit means Tamil Nadu, Coimbatore region next to Western Ghats where it's a very rich agricultural land. In summer months, the pumps run only for five to seven minutes at a time. That means we really scrape the bottom. The wells have gone to 12 to 1400 feet and within five to six minutes, the pumps go off because there's no water. Taking away water at this level, taking it to this last drop in summer months is happening mainly because there's no sequestering of water when the rain comes, it just runs off. Without sufficient tree cover, one thing that is happening which is being ignored is there is a tree is like a fountain. It is taking water in and throwing it out. Nearly 60% of the water that goes into the atmosphere is happening from the land, what goes into the atmosphere is because of transpiration. Trees are throwing out this much water. One acre of trees can throw up about 20,000 liters of water in a day. I'm repeating that, 20,000 liters in a day. That is the amount of water it is throwing into the atmosphere. So it is changing the climate the way we want it. We are changing the climate the way we don't want it. They are changing the climate the way we want it because if you want to control solar radiation, there is nothing like a tree. If you don't understand what I'm saying, stand in the sun for one hour, then walk under a tree, you understand what I'm saying. There is nothing like a tree. So bringing these things back, we have thought that this is against agriculture. It is not so. Today we have 69,760 farmers converted to agroforestry in the last 18 years, whose incomes have gone up phenomenally and the nutritional value in the land has gone up and the water tables have come up. The most amazing thing is, I always believed if you want to bring up the water table, minimum 50 to 100 acres of forestry or agroforestry you must do. But the amazing thing that I'm finding is, somebody does just two to three acres of agroforestry and the water table comes up. This is the miracle of this planet that if you just nurture it a little bit, it bounces right back at us. So this needs to be done now, not tomorrow because in my experience of life, as I said, I'm not a scientist or anything, but I'm like a worm who observes the earth because I live on this planet, I pay attention to it because I don't have to read anything. I can pay attention to everything. Because of this, what I see is, if we take the right kind of action now, if we put back substantial amount of vegetation, which does not mean just trees, there are various other kinds of vegetation, in the next 10 to 15 years time, we will turn this around within 20 to 25 years in a big way, in a big way. I am talking about how I saw Kaveri 50 years ago. I want to see it like that before I die. This can be done. But if we leave this 15 years and let's say we go about without doing anything for 25 years and then we try, in my opinion, it would take 100 to 150 years to turn it around. For various reasons, I don't want to go into the details of it, but for variety of reasons, it would take that much time to turn it back if we don't do anything in the next 25 years. So our window is hardly anywhere between 10 to 25 years is the window we have. This window we must act. That means this is a generational work. This is not my work. This is not somebody's work. This is a generational work. Are we going to be a responsible generation or not is the big question. Minister, in your view, for us to be able to turn this around, as Sadguru says, what are some of the policies and regulations that the government can put in place to push to accelerate this change and to push more investment into nature conservation and to some of the efforts that Sadguru has outlined? Absolutely. As far as river rejuvenation is concerned, we have not only set up the policy but the program and the Ganga cleaning and along Ganga, we have already planned and started planting trees. What he's doing to Kaveri, we have already started on doing to Ganga because we believe in this philosophy. Number one, number two, more importantly, in each aspect, in biodiversity, in forest, in wildlife, in emissions, in renewable energy, in newer pollution of cities, on waste management, on all aspects, we are making sustainable development policies, making rules after discussing with all stakeholders and creating the world because we believe and that's Gandhiji's teaching, that there is no planet B and he used to say famously that earth can take care of everybody's need but not of everybody's greed. So we want to avoid that greed and create a sustainable path, a low carbon path of development. Today, just before coming to you, a British minister had come to me, so we discussed many things. Somebody said amongst the delegation that we all have responsibility to act. Yes, I said we have all responsibility to act but we are not responsible for the climate change that has happened because that was not our lifestyle, that was not our ethos and we have not emitted carbon but still we want to be part of solution and that is what we are and therefore we believe in dialogue, we believe in stakeholder consultations at all levels and learn from every country, learn from every experiment that is happening around and take you from it and make a public friendly policy with public participation at the core of it. If I can say something about the business, about the business participating, for example, this is I'm just suggesting they can consider this according to their willingness. For example, in Karnataka part of the Cauvery Basin, there are 54 Thaluk, Thaluk means a county. So what we are looking at right now is to convert 500 farmers in each Thaluk because if you do this, once other people see the economic benefit, after that it's unstoppable. Not only there across the country, in the tropical world it will be unstoppable because we have to demonstrate the economic benefit. So in every Thaluk, we want 500 farmers to convert. Within three to four years, the benefits will be visible and after that it will go by itself. The industry can take this up, 54 industries take up one-one. Thaluk, we are only talking about 500 farmers. Government is giving the subsidy. Government is changing the laws to facilitate agroforestry. We are facilitating it on the ground. The industry or the business can participate in accelerating the process by putting a little bit of lubricant and instead of aiming for 500 farmers, we can aim for 1,000 or 2,000 farmers so that the demonstration is much stronger. This is how they can participate. Right now to articulate this, in Karnataka there are 54 Thaluk. In Tamil Nadu there are 67 Thaluk which need to be attended to. So this many industries or this many businesses, if they take up one-one Thaluk, there's hardly any expense, believe me. It's not a big money. A little bit of money and the problem is this, when we work with the government, they are willing to do everything but at that moment when action is needed, we will get trapped in the bureaucratic process. So if industry or private business was there who will respond to the situation quickly, it would be a big boost. They can do this. Wonderful. I'd like to open the floor for questions. Please state your name and formulate your question as briefly as possible. Anybody? My name is Narendra Nath. I work with an NGO called Pradhan. As an organization that works on natural resource management and sustainable farming with about a million families in Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, et cetera, whatever you just said is gospel for us. I mean, textbook. We totally try to follow the kind of principles that you just said. Having said that, I would like to have the view of the panel, both Mr. Minister and Sadguruji, on two sticky topics of the day of the contemporary times here in India at least. On the first topic, I think I almost know your answer, Sadguruji, because from what you said, it's about capturing moisture in a million large, million small plots versus capturing in one big dam. So the question is, what is your view on the whole discussion about the big dams and the controversies around the big dams? And the second is about, again, a current big discourse going on about interlinking of rivers. You said the Kaveri is a different river system compared to the Himalayan rivers. So how advisable is to try to link these rivers across the country? So these two topics are discussed far and wide, but we have not reached any resolution on this, your views, both the panelists. Thanks. Shall I speak? Two minutes. Interlinking rivers is a voluntary program. It can be within the state, wherever they think feasible to align. It is not taking Ganga to Kaveri, but it is aligning. Now the Ken Betwa, both Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh have agreed. And even after regime change, both agreed because both benefit. And therefore, this is the way forward. Gujarat has done their own interlinking of waters. It benefits. So there is a very strongly proven case. So it is voluntary program. We are not mandating anything. We are helping. Number one. Number two, you asked about big dams. Once I was discussing with my one very good expert and he told me one simple sentence, small rivers will have small dams. Big rivers will have big dams. So I'm not against dams or the series of dams, but there are many things to be done to the whole river system because we can't stop humanity from progress. We were 35 crore when 60 years ago, now we are 130 crores. But we don't require to import food because of dams have also played very important role in irrigation. See we built dams at a time when India was facing major famines where a famine means it did not take people in thousands, it took them in millions. So the 1943, 44 famine took nearly three and a half million people in four months. So even post independence till 1962 we had famines in the country which took hundreds and thousands of people. So at that time we did build big dams mainly inspired by United States because it's United States which brought in the idea of huge dams. Europe generally did not build very big dams. So we went for that because at that time it was an emergency measure. We had to do it to save the people of this country. As the minister pointed out, many of us are alive because of the dams and our population is multiplied because of the dams. That is also there. So, but now the idea of building a big dam is gone in the world. United States has decommissioned over 900 dams and in India, wherever we can build the terrain wise, wherever we can build the dam, we've largely done it. Rest are all flowing in the plains, building dams in the plains will be not right. So I don't think government or anybody is thinking of big dams except a few mountain streams they're trying to harness for hydroelectric and stuff. But otherwise there is no possibility of big dams. Do we want to break the dams that we have built? No, we cannot do that. We have invested and the lifestyles have formed around it. We cannot suddenly turn this around. One thing that is happening in our dams, particularly the Himalayan region because the volume of silt is so heavy, though the life of that dam, for example, Theridam, from the age of 19, myself, for 27 years every year I trekked in Himalayas. So I saw the Theridam from the time of its planning coming up, I went and met, you know, the Chipko movement, I went to Bimbala Devi, I could not meet Sundar Lal Bahuguna but I met his wife and I was at one time considering myself joining full-time to the Chipko movement because I saw a disaster building up. But now that it's built and there's a huge volume of stagnant water, Himalayas being a very sedimentary kind of mountain, the volume of silt that is coming, I would say the life of Theridam is just another 25 to 40 years. After that, it'll be totally silt-ridden and unusable and you can't dredge it. You cannot dredge it, that volume. So the dams will become irrelevant if you build in certain areas. But there are certain dams, for example, Kairasagar Dam, it has transformed the whole area into phenomenal agricultural belt. So you cannot talk about this as one simple for or against. It is a question of judiciously doing what is needed. When it comes to river linking, well, all kinds of people, film stars, anybody who wants to become popular in this country, they say, I'll bring Ganga water to Kaveri, I'll bring Godavari to Chennai. This is happening, this is irresponsible because in a tropical country, transporting water by canals is irresponsible. The level of evaporation when the temperatures are over 35 degrees centigrade and it's a thirsty land amount of water it's drinking up is just not right. If cities need water, it must be transported through pipelines. Of course, people have to be serviced. Pipelines can take water. Agriculture-wise, we need to understand still we're in a mindset of subsistence farming that around our region, around where we live, we want to grow everything. We want to grow paddy, we want to grow wheat, we want to grow vegetables, we want to grow everything. This is a subsistence mindset. Where there is water, you can grow thirsty crops. Where there is no water, you can grow other kinds of dry crops because transporting food is much easier than transporting water. There was a time when there was no such transportation where you had to grow everything that you need around your home. Those days are gone, this needs to change and for about government policies coming into picture, we are working with Maharashtra government, this has been the most progressive and proactive state when it comes to water related issues and conservation of rivers. One thing they did was, they made micro irrigation compulsory for sugar cane. One hectare of micro irrigation can save up to 12 million liters of water per year. This is what needs to happen, that we need to transform agriculture. Without transforming agriculture, which is consuming nearly 83, 84% of the water in the country, you're trying to talk about various other things, you use less water when you're brushing your teeth, then I don't know what other problems you will have. This may help the local city water, you know, oh, water works, the water pump that is there in the city, it may help, it may bring down the load. Yes, it is some civic sense, but it is not of any ecological significance. Ecologically, if something needs to happen, we must see where is the maximum usage. The maximum usage of land and water is in agriculture and that's what we need to transform. But you don't get marks or you don't get funding. If you are an NGO and want to transform agriculture, you have to hit some industry. You must say this business is the main source of all the trouble. Then you have people gathering behind you, this kind of environmental activism needs to stop because right now what I see is a whole lot of people are invested in poverty. Right now we have proven, 18 years we have proven that the farmer's income can be changed dramatically by going into agroforestry. Right now I'm facing two public interest litigation since the Cauvery calling in the last one week and many other lawyer notices which are waiting for me when I go back because people are invested in poverty. To convert people into communism and other kinds of religion, you need poverty. So people want the farmer to be poor, they're afraid if farmer's economic condition changes, how will they manage their business? So this is going on in the country. This the government should deal with to some extent. All right. We have time for one. Good evening, I'm Dr. Ruchi Saxena. Namaste. So I have seen a dynamic leadership over many years. I'm a girl who's from Mumbai, but I'm married to somebody from Nepal. Being a girl from two countries, seeing the pain of both the countries, the way you have shown your leadership in India and move the governments and the industries to make a change, I would actually kind of get your comments. How can we build across border cooperation between India, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh so that the issues of flooding which happens across the border, it's kind of resolved and some more steps can be taken by both the governments and the industries on both the sides of the border to kind of reduce the burden of disasters. Thank you. See the problems are not of the same nature. The problems of Nepal and problems of India are not of the same nature. Nepal is largely a mountainous country and a copious amount of water coming from glacial melting all the time. The snow melt creates an enormous amount of water. Rain is also very copious in the mountains out there. Almost people may not know this, nearly 40% of the Ganga water is from Nepal and Tibet. So the water that is coming down there, people are trying to build dams there which may solve some immediate problems for them but it'll create major problems over 25 to 50 years time. You should not build too many big dams in Nepal and they want to build now. These things you cannot stop them but people here also think too much flooding is happening and we must build dams in Nepal. We must understand this, the entire development of the civilization happened because of these floodplains. It brought such alluvial soil, you could grow anything you want. You've heard Meradeski, Dharati, Sona, Oogle, Oogle and all that stuff. That is mainly because of the alluvial soil that came down from the mountains. But now we are having a whole population living in the floodplains and we think flood is a disaster. Flood is not a disaster, it's a very good thing. It's bringing wealth into the nation but we don't know how to receive this wealth. We're getting buried under this wealth. This is our problem. So one important thing that nobody wants to touch, the elephant in the room is population. Nobody wants to address it. But we must address it, we are instituting an award for all the young women who have consciously chosen not to have children in their life. We are instituting an award because this is what needs to happen. That human being means we do everything consciously. The Nepali husband and the Indian Mumbai girl need not necessarily produce a mix. You live happily. I see! I am not saying you must not have but it is not compulsory. It is not compulsory, it must be a conscious choice if somebody wishes to. Otherwise they should stay away from it because we are trying to… everybody is talking about controlling human aspiration. Believe me, you're not the first one, right from Buddha's time, even before that people have been telling you how to not be consumerist, how to live with little. It's not worked or no. Has it worked or not? It's not worked. Now suddenly you start talking about giving up your desires, is it going to work? I know it'll not work. You cannot reduce human aspiration, but if we have sense, we can reduce human population. United Nations is predicting by 2050 will be 9.8 billion people. 9.8 billion people, I don't want to live on this planet. And it's a shame, it's an absolute shame we are even thinking of a planet B. What does planet B mean? We mess up planet A and go to planet B. Are we not ashamed of that? Even to think that we're looking for a planet B, I think it's a shameful thing that we should think of a planet B. If there is a planet B, we should never step on it because of what we have done to planet A. Hello? So reducing human population should become a major focus of world leadership. It's very, very important. So one reason India's population has multiplied, the way it has is not necessarily because of excessive reproduction. In 1947, the average life expectancy of an Indian was twenty-eight years. Today it is seventy-one, which is a phenomenal achievement. So as our lifespan increases, what this means is we are postponing death. If you're postponing death, should you not postpone birth? I'm not talking any philosophy, I'm talking simple arithmetic. Minister, would you like to comment on the question about trans-border cooperation? Which cooperation? The question that she asked about trans-border, I'm going backwards now. See, that's a Himalayan ecosystem. As Sadguruji has said, it's very right that every country's topography and climatic conditions and rainfall and everything is different. So it needs different solutions and we are working on it with the respective countries where we can actually collaborate with each other so that both countries don't suffer much, but as he is rightly saying, alleviating soil comes through floods. So the only issue is how to manage floods. We are seeing how not to manage floods. Thank you. I think we have time for one more very brief question, anybody? My question is to you, Honorable Minister. India is home to one-seventh of the world's humanity and yet has approximately just about two-and-a-half percent of the land mass of the world. And therefore, our challenges of coexisting with nature are monumental, of course. The impact of any population program and incentives also will probably generate a couple of decades later. So therefore, we do have immediate challenges in the next two or three decades to really create solutions where man and nature can coexist and live symbiotically. And there are many models that have happened in India already in this regard. So could you throw some light on some of the solutions that India has already experimented with? No, about population. No, about man and nature living in partnership together. Ha! We think that, yes, as I told you, Indian culture is to worship nature, to be with nature, grow nature around. What stopped it was the laws which we made that cutting a tree and transporting a tree becomes the big crime we have done away with. Now we have decided bamboo also to be grass and so it can be freely transported because unless you create an opportunity for farmer to grow and cut and transport and sell, why he will grow in first place? That's what happened with sandalwood. Sandalwood is India's own species. Australia took from us 100 years ago. Now we are importing from Australia. So this is how we are doing now. Yesterday we were discussing about agarbatti bamboo plantation which makes agarbatti rounded. So there were many restrictions which we are removing because otherwise we don't grow sustainably. But I must comment what Sadhguruji has said is very right that we must think of bigger issues also which we don't talk at this present because if I talk something now on the issue which it is, that will be the news. So, so I will only say that these are bigger issues which need to be discussed at various forums so the public voice grows in one direction. As a concluding remark we are coming to the end of our time, I would like to ask each of you for your final reflections and maybe thinking about a year from now if we come back here and we are really looking at have we accelerated our path on this transition. What would you like to see a year from now? Acceleration is definitely needed but when we say acceleration we must talk in terms of acceleration of inputs as solution not results because this is a thing that I realized when we did the Rally for Rivers you know we did a missed call campaign where 162 million people participated. It's the largest movement ever to that many people to participate but many people thought if they give a missed call the river will come up. So to make them understand that we need to work and it will take another 15 years, 12, 15 years time before you see results and you need that level of commitment that you are there for 12, 15 years on the job to make this happen otherwise this will not work. So this is an important thing that we need to put across after one year what would you like to see? We would you like to see more intensified efforts but we should not expect results in one year's time because that's not the way we fix environment. If you want engineering solutions you can have it in a year but engineering solutions or emergency solutions they are not real solutions we need ecological solutions they take time as we took time to destroy it we take time to put it back. I'll just say that what Sadhguruji has said is absolutely right it is it is not one year or fifty days or hundred days program it is more years and generations together have to work in direction and that direction we have finalized will make it it takes more speed in that direction that's what we can achieve in one year. I have to say I mean this is not to appraise the minister who is here but I have to say in the last two and a half to three years time many small policy changes have happened which is directing which is pointing towards ecological solutions this need to be activated policy changes have happened now we need to push it into action this needs to happen in the next one year if we push it into action mode the policy changes that have been affected in the parliament we need to push it. I'd like to thank our panel not just for their solutions that they have provided but particularly for their commitment towards an ecological solution thank you very much.