India is home to multiple settlements. There are Eco Villages in India that offer both environmental sustainability and self-sufficiency. Eco-tourism is one approach that raises environmental knowledge and importance among travelers as well as residents in the vicinity. Additionally, regional abilities might be cultivated and exploited. Traditional and Indigenous knowledge, as well as technological developments, might be examined.
Eco villages, which discuss tourism-related components in their proper context, create a cultural hub point that provides an opportunity for the locals as well as the essence of the vernacular for tourists.
Over the last decade, growing modernization has been poised to destroy the planet’s precious resources. Food and water are becoming scarcer, and forests are being cut down to make more land available. Because most resources are concentrated in major cities, rural communities confront harsh conditions. Ecovillages are being established all over the world as a way to practice environmentally friendly living.
An ecovillage is a structured settlement formed to promote economic, social, cultural, or environmental resilience. Ecovillages, such as Piplantri, Auroville, Khonoma, Lana Bhalta, and Mawlynnong, prioritize preserving the environment.
Piplantri in Rajasthan
Piplantri is an ecovillage whose people are proud of the enormous plants completed since 2006. Shyam Paliwal, a former local sarpanch, initiated this project when his daughter died from dehydration. Piplantri emerged in popularity after launching a one-of-a-kind campaign to safeguard female children: tree planting! When a lady gives birth to a female child, 111 trees are planted in the collectively grazed pasture to honor the kid.
As the youngster develops, the locals care for these plants. These trees contribute to the state’s green cover while also helping to decrease impacts and assaults against girls. The panchayat even puts up a fixed deposit in the baby girl’s name, and the parents are required to sign a formal document guaranteeing the child’s education. In the previous 14 years, almost a million trees have been planted here and safeguarded from pests.
The inhabitants quickly understood the succulent’s health advantages and began exporting Aloe Vera products, which boosted their economy. Pipplantri not only promotes sustainability in the environment but also inhibits female foeticide. The village implemented an ecofeminist concept of environmentally friendly living.
Auroville in Pondicherry
The spiritual village in Tamil Nadu promotes nonviolent actions, whether towards other humans, animals, or the environment. This eco-village both nourishes and benefits nature, giving back plenty. Auroville also serves as an ecological laboratory and offers seminars on environmentally friendly construction principles. With farm-fresh food and other eco-friendly activities, this village is a must-see for an overview of sustainability.
The initiative is to offer an organizational structure in which mankind may reach its maximum potential not just psychologically and materially, but also morally. From an arid desert, the Aurovilians have managed to create a lush forest that sometimes resembles a wild jungle, where more than 3,000 residents of 70 different nationalities live alongside a thriving biodiversity of animals, birds, and insects of all kinds, providing a constant experience of sound together.
This type of welfare system and collective allows people to fulfill the majority of their food and material requirements while still receiving a pension. They also enjoy free access to education, basic medical care, sports, and the various cultural activities offered by Auroville.
Khonoma, Nagaland
Khonoma, located just 20 kilometers from Nagaland’s capital, Kohima, is both a warrior village with a colonial background and “Asia’s first Green Village”. Understand whether Khonoma promotes organic farming, effective water management, and wildlife protection, providing a model for sustainable rural development. In the village, there is a distinctive combination of history, environment, and ecotourism.
The picturesque village in Nagaland is a renowned tourist attraction due to its heavenly splendor. Something that makes it unique nowadays is that this community, which includes a 700-year-old Angami town, is sustainable and self-sufficient.
Lana Bhalta, Himachal Pradesh
Lana Bhalta is a rural hamlet in Himachal Pradesh’s Sirmaur District. It is 50 kilometers from the state capital, Shimla. It is well-known for its cleanliness activities and leads the way in a zero-waste policy. All 333 residences have toilets and a localized system for separating waste from water running out of kitchens.
Each home receives a sanitation package that comprises a toilet brush, a jute bag for rubbish collection, a dustpan, a dust container, and a nail cutter. Toilets are installed in each of the panchayat’s schools. Essentially, every item in the trash is recycled. Raddi (waste paper) is recycled into paper, while stale, fatty food is converted into compost.
Oil-free trash, such as vegetables that are raw and leftover meals, makes its way into the vermicompost pit. Anything remains wasted. Every day, a truck drives throughout the gram panchayat, collecting waste left by locals in jute bags. People wearing masks and gloves look through goods for sale or recycling. Construction debris such as stone, brick, and rubble is reused, whereas glass, tin, shoes, clothing, and toys are sold to garbage collectors.
Mawlynnong, Meghalaya
Mawlynnong is a gorgeous village that provides breathtaking vistas, crystal-clear water, and much more. It is also an eco-village, with immaculate roads and bamboo dustbins bordering the streets. Plastic is prohibited here, and volunteers participate in cleanup efforts. Mawlynnong is a tribal community in Meghalaya known as “God’s Own Garden.”
It is located 90 kilometers from Shillong and is home to the Khasi, a people noted for their matrilinear customs. The little community, noted for its cleanliness, has prohibited plastic and instead collects rubbish using bamboo dustbins. The collected trash is then transferred to a pit and utilized as manure. This ecovillage gained fame after being declared Asia’s cleanest village in 2003.
