Meenangadi: How an ambitious mission shaped up carbon neutral panchayat

In the lush, verdant hills of Wayanad, Kerala, lies Meenangadi, a village to become a carbon-neutral panchayat in 2024. This unique feat, was achieved by the collective will of its people and local administration. The synergic efforts, which transcended political, social, and religious boundaries came from the residents of the place united by a shared commitment to environmental sustainability. The thematic category under which the award had been applied was 'Carbon Neutral Visesh Puraskar.'

With vistas of greenery, clean environs, environment-friendly and sustainable lifestyle practices, the Panchayat has achieved a rare distinction as the most eco-friendly region in Kerala already through a series of planned and consistent sustainable measures implemented over a period of time.

K E Vinayan, President, Meenangadi Grama Panchayat, told Onmanorama, "the initiative to compete for carbon neutrality was launched way back in 2016, and ever since, a plethora of measures ensuring low carbon emission, clean energy, sustainable development were pursued on a massive scale." The Carbon Neutral Programme was officially launched by T M Thomas Isaac, the then Kerala Finance Minister.

The initiatives for carbon sequestration taken by the local body are the enrichment of soil carbon, biodiversity conservation, biodiversity register, carbon emission profile, improvement in green-house gas sequestration, afforestation, tree banking, tree incentivisation, tree mortgaging projects, agro-forestry, shade coffee, agro-ecology, and so on.

The villagers of the panchayat took up the mission as an off-shoot of the urgent call to reduce carbon emission at the Conference of Parties (COP) in Paris in 2015. The first step towards this was the audit of energy use in the village, which had a population of around 34000. The panchayat estimated daily emission of about 15,000 tonnes of carbon.

"Now, all activities aimed at accomplishing the mission were equally commendable. However, efforts towards carbon sequestration, afforestation are outstanding," Vinayan said, "Villagers, who joined the mission were given tree saplings, that could absorb large amounts of carbon. An interesting feature of this is a scheme in which farmers can mortgage the trees for a 10-year interest-free loan, three years after planting the trees. The social forestry programme has been initiated under the Employment Guarantee scheme."

Around 172000 saplings were planted in the first phase of the scheme. The second phase included introduction of solar power generation, electric auto rickshaws, electric vehicles and so on. Exorbitant subsidies were allotted for electric vehicles in the panchayat.

Other measures that ensured energy conservation included implementing LED bulbs, biogas plants, proliferating, bicycles, structured solid and liquid waste management system, source-level aerobic composting, community-level composting, green protocol, material recovery and recycling, domestic waste management systems like pit composting, pot composting and so on. Climate literacy campaigns and volunteership programmes were also pursued as proactive environmental activities.

"We have come a long way as a pioneer in developing the model to establish a local level solution for achieving net zero emission but challenges are also aplenty," asserts Vinayan, "It's a long-term goal and making the public aware about the mission is a tedious task. Besides, there is a higher cost involved in implementing renewable energy sources."

"The relentless efforts by the panchayat bodies to achieve the goals are buttressed by technical teams of the NGO, Thanal, M S Swaminathan Research foundation, frequent mass campaigns, establishment of climate grama sabhas and so on. Besides, the financial support from the state government, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) funds, rewards received for the initiatives, etc. provide ample support to the mission," Vinayan says.

Meenangadi grama panchayat lies in the heart of Kerala's Wayanad district, which is part of the Western Ghats and covers an area of 53.52 sq km. The major ecosystem habitats prevalent in the panchayat are wetlands, forests, plantations, and homesteads. Though the lush greenery and swathes of undulating topography give the region an edge to pursue the mission, it is the unwavering will and commitment of the people that accords Meenagadi its coveted distinction.