A warm welcome to all readers. This issue begins with a thoughtful letter from Prof. Krishna Somers in response to our article on the Dr Mohan Sinha Mehta Memorial Lecture published in our last Newsletter (June 06-July07).  Prof. Somers has very kindly shared memories from his meetings with Dr Mohan Sinha Mehta, founder of Seva Mandir and also encouraged Seva Mandir and its staff and we thank him for that.

This issue of the Newsletter again offers glimpses of a variety of development challenges which makes the process of bringing change not only an arduous journey but a rather slow one too. There is no one right answer as to ‘how to make our society better and more humane’; however, the documentary film, ‘Man Manthan’ being made for Seva Mandir captures the contradictions inherent in peoples’ minds between rural and urban lifestyles, between the traditional/more conservative and the liberal/more empowered societies. Voluntary organizations like Seva Mandir can help initiate dialogues with communities, build social capital by enhancing the capacity of the groups to engage with effectively and demand from the government and to be able to chart their own path to growth.

The Delwara Urban Governance program was started by forming the Nagrik Vikas Manch (NVM), to cultivate an active and responsible citizenry. In the initial stages, the program was marred by the attitude of ‘it is someone else’s responsibility to solve the problem’ of a multi-caste-class fragmented society. However, the article on this program, shows how a persistent strategy of involving the citizens of Delwara at different levels (NVM and mohalla level) helped them to interact with each other and to overcome this attitude; to instill a belief that they themselves need to and can be responsible for their own development.

At a global level, a similar message – the need for human beings to take responsibility for the repercussion of their actions on the environment - has been given out by the recent announcement of the 2007 Nobel Peace prize for Al Gore and the IPCC. This award is a vindication of their efforts to push the message of how human activities have been raising greenhouse gas emissions and thereby, influencing and changing the earth’s climate. The latest (fourth) assessment by the IPCC has concluded that the probability of human activities causing global warming is now 90 percent, up from the 66 percent probability predicted in the 2001 report. Under such a scenario, it is essential that current emitters of greenhouse gases as well as the emerging economies like India, be more proactive. The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and within that Payment for Environmental Services (PES) is one of the ways, identified by the Kyoto Protocol, to operationalise mitigation programmes, based on the principal of ‘polluter pays and provider gets prinicipal.’ The article by Mr Shailender Tiwari explores the potential of Seva Mandir’s forestry initiatives to be taken up as a CDM project. The plantation and soil and water conservation activities pursued on village common lands could be used for gaining carbon sequestration credits, which could be potentially sold through the various international trading markets.

However, a key concern in trying to implement PES in forestry programmes is the ability to retain forestlands and prevent changes in land use. This concern has been raised by Shri S.N. Bhise in his analysis of the Recognition of Forest Rights Act, 2005. While the rights of forest dwellers on the land they have been using for years needs to be formally recognized, it is equally important to realize how daunting the task has now become to preserve forests for the bio-diversity and ecological services they render. This brings us back – full circle- to the issue of contradictory challenges in development that I talked about in the beginning.

I hope you enjoy reading this issue of the Newsletter. At the back of the issue is information about publications you can order for and donations you can make to Seva Mandir, following the instructions given on the respective pages. I will appreciate any comments from you. You can write to me at editor@sevamandir.org.