This is a film about a landscape rehabilitation project in Allahabad, India started by INBAR and the India NGO Utthan in 1997, which Utthan continues to run and develop.
Over 85,000 ha of land have been rehabilitated, and thousands of livelihoods redeveloped.
By the 1990’s, people in western Allahabad, India, where the farmers had earlier sold their topsoil to brickmaking companies to produce much needed building materials for India’s rapid development, were moving away to the cities to find work, because the land was so devastated it was impossible to grow crops there, nor to make a living from it.
At the time, INBAR, the Indian Council on Forestry Research and Education and the Indian NGO Utthan suggested to the local residents that a regreening programme based around bamboo would help bring the land back to productivity, and incomes back to the villagers and the new project started on 106 ha in two villages west of Allahabad in 1996. The results have been astounding.