 The first rains of summer 2018, stirring up dust in Diokhar, Senegal. Photo: Marine Protte-Rieg.
'We feel the humid air. The sky is overcast in the evenings. The rains are coming' (Florian Biesler).
Thirty-five farmers in Senegal’s Fatick-Thiès region are readying to harvest rain this month! In late May, IRHA’s Florian Biesler travelled to Senegal with our director, Marc Sylvestre, to kick-off the project’s calabash tank construction. This activity will provide the first volley of farmers participating in the ‘Rain, Forests, People’ agroforestry project with the means of storing harvested rainwater. In an area with salt water infiltration, ensuring the farmers developing agroforestry parcels in this project have potable drinking water at home is a first priority. > Read more A Green Thought in a Blue School
During our visit to Senegal, we visited our two Blue Schools in Kaolak, which have been running for almost a decade. Thanks to the care of our partner, Caritas Kaolak, they have become oases of learning, cultivating children and the wider community that supports them. > Read more
 Florian Biesler Shares His SlackLine Skills with Children in XXXX
Field Notes from Florian Biesler
Florian Bielser is a twenty-six-year-old MSc student of environmental engineering at the EPFL, Switzerland. He is currently on placement as an IRHA field manager in Senegal. For our June-July newsletter, he has shared his Senegalese field journal with us. > Read more
Rainwater Harvesting News Round Up: June-July
This midsummer, IRHA was present at the 9th World Water Forum’s kick-off meeting (20-21 June, Dakhar). The Forum will take place in 2021. Loic Fauchon, President of the World Water Council, declared that Dakhar will become the ‘Capital of Water’ in the run up to this event. The importance of SDG 6, ‘water and sanitation for all’, and the interdependencies between water access and human security are central Forum topics. When interviewed, Abdoulaye Sene, president of the Global Local Forum, underscored the fact that only 40 % of African people currently have access to water. Yet Senegal was the first country to raise the issue of ‘water-peace-security’ within the Security Council. Patrick Lavarde (World Water Council, co-president of the 9th World Water Forum) stressed that the 2021 Forum focuses on ‘action and responses’. He emphasized the importance of reinforcing rural populations’ resilience, through adequate water supply provision; thus, preventing the growth of ‘megacities’.
In early July, IRHA was also represeted at the Caux Dialogue on Land and Security. One highlight of this meeting was the Chief Minister of Meghalaya’s address. At a time when the Tamil Nadu is facing a water crisis, Minister Conrad K Sagma shared his State’s Draft Water Policy. As the first Indian State to draft a water policy, and India's wettest State, Meghalaya is exemplary. Its water policy aims to:
- ‘Achieve sustainable development, management and use of Meghalaya’s water resources with community participation to improve health and livelihoods, reduce vulnerability, while assuring good governance for the present and future generations by promoting Integrated Water Resources Management’.
- Promote ‘small water storage structures for rainwater harvesting and ground water recharge and spring rejuvenation' to improve water security.’
- Make ‘roof top rainwater harvesting…mandatory in all building constructions’.
Professor Roger Leakey’s intervention at Caux, discussing ‘new approaches to tropical and sub-tropical agriculture that reverse the cycle of land degradation’, was also of particular interest to IRHA, given our current agroforestry project with APAF-Senegal. Leakey’s paper drew on his research with the International Tree Foundation
IRHA board member and rainwater harvesting pioneer, Bob Boulware, was interviewed on the Oxford Student radio station Broxit last month. He discussed his career, which includes holding the office of President of ARCSA, and developing a Rainwater Harvesting Standard in the US. We will report more on this important initiative in our August-September newsletter!
 The Umiam Watershed in Meghalaya, India's Wettest State
Publications
We are delighted to announce the publication of Brad Lancaster's Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond (vol 1, 3rd Ed., Tuscon: Rainsource Press, 2019). We look forward to reviewing this book in our next newsletter (August-September). Since it offers 'Guiding Principles to Welcome Rain into your Life and Landscape', the knowledge it shares is invaluable. To order copies, please click on.
We also applaud the publication of Jalavardini Pratishtan's Let us Collect Water Using Ferrocement Technology (2nd Ed., Ferrocement Society: Mumbai, 2019). Incredibly, this publication has been printed by a 95 year-old young man, Mr R.G. Kulkarni, with his colleague Mr Lele! This bilingual text is written in English and Marathi. Congratualtions on your initiative to promote rainwater harvesting in India's Mumbai region!
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