Context: In recent years, forest cover and natural resources have rapidly deteriorated with this Natural resource management becomes critical. In this article we discuss how a project in Meghalaya empowers communities to take informed action pertaining to their environment.
Background

• Just about 50 km from Meghalaya’s capital Shillong is Umdohbyrthih village. 
• It was once known for its rocky terrains, streams, springs and verdant valleys. However,in recent years, its forest cover and natural resources have rapidly deteriorated.

Reason behind such scenario

• Lack of Accessibility to knowledge: Meghalaya where traditional practices and indigenous knowledge on sustainable use of natural resources have been passed down from one generation to another began to slowly fade.
• Unsustainable growth: Owing to population growth, the quest for unsustainable developmental activities and indiscriminate exploitation of natural resources, among other factors.
• Improper Acess to information: Another roadblock to natural resource management was of knowledge inaccessibility among rural communities. When free access to information on an issue is not made available to communities, they begin to rely on external agencies for solving their local problems.

Key Initiatives taken in Meghalaya

• Under World Bank-supported Meghalaya Community-Led Landscape Management Project. They set up a cross-functional team with diverse expertise. 
• The team worked with many facilitators and empowered them with digital infrastructure. 

More than 2,000 village community facilitators have already been trained and are working towards climate change reversal. 

• Participant Digital Attestation: This app allows community cadres to record their attendance by scanning QR codes. It provides them content, training sessions and digital certification. These tools help create a free flow of knowledge without hierarchy and empower communities to overcome knowledge barriers.
• Communities are now able to articulate the complexities of their problems through a scientific lens and create their own natural resource management plans.

Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme 

• It became the main scheme channelising resources to impact poor households so that there was systematic convergence of all line departments such as agriculture, horticulture, soil and water conservation. 
• The programme leverages technology and the youth population.

Solutions

• Reactivating the community’s connection to natural resources and enabling them to tackle the resource crisis became a priority for the State.
• Leveraging technology: Technology empowers us with real-time data, which in turn results in better programme governance, transparency and accountability. 
• A one-stop centre: To carry forward this momentum, we are launching a Centre of Excellence in Meghalaya, a one-stop centre for natural resources management. Its mandate is to build leadership capabilities to enable close cooperation among departments, democratise access to knowledge, and continue with research and development on every aspect of natural resource management.