08/06/2026
Reposting this for World Environment Day 🌱
Everyday should be World Environment Day. But since its not, we are making this one day in the year about people who are facing climate change daily, and building resilience in the face of an increasing crisis.
These are just some people and communities we met during the last one year’s ground report-based climate storytelling from South Asia.
Image 1: Sushila Mondol stands on the corroding embankment of a tidal river in Jharkhali, Sundarban, West Bengal, India. The Sundarban region that stretches across India and Bangladesh, is the worlds’s largest delta formed of major South Asian rivers flowing into the Bay of Bengal. It is also the world’s largest mangrove forests. Sundarban is a climate hotspot where communities are exposed to increasing tropical cyclones and coastal flooding.
Image 2: Sukdeb Koyal was once a farmer. But increasing salinity from coastal flooding has forced him to turn to fishing. Even then, its hard to find a good catch, he rues. The rising sea has claimed his home thrice. On Ghoramara island, Sundarban, India.
Image 3: Bina Devi lives in Jardhar village, Tehri, in the Garhwal Himalayas of Uttarakhand, India. Not far from where women hugged trees in their forest to stop felling, and became the global face of the Chipko movement. She regularly visits the forest to collect herbs and cattle fodder, and takes part in tree planting and protecting the forest. Women rush to the forest to put out fires in the hot season. ‘The forest needs us as we need them’ she says.
Image 4: A celebration of paddy planting by the Lepcha Indigenous community in Dzongu, North Sikkim, India.Using the traditional oxen-pulled plough method of tilling the terraced fields. Community life is strongly intact in Dzongu; all village households participate in tilling and sowing in both private and community lands.
(Caption continued in comments)
