Back to resources

Uncommon Ground – A Fine Balance in Kutch

Uncommon Ground | Jul 3, 2009

There’s a massive export of virtual water from dry regions to wet, through the sale of both milk and meat products.
on work, with soaring temperatures and no promise of rain despite an unusual cloud cover. We travelled a couple of hundred kilometres in the clay desert, despairing at the spread of Prosopis juli-flora which — like so many other
foreign species brought in by the forest department with all good intentions—has now overpowered large tracts of the countryscape, to the detriment of useful, hardy local species.

View PDF

More like this

Uncommon Ground

Uncommon Ground - For The Children Of India

The debate has shifted to higher studies, but we I cannot afford to take the foot off the pedal on early education. In this, the final column in this series, I turn to a core area of my work over the past decade—the education and development of young children. Some sights and sounds remain sharply […]
Jul 17, 2009 | Article

Uncommon Ground

Uncommon Ground - Rising From The Ashes

There is a growing consensus that this crisis is unlike any other, that it’s a discontinuity with potential for great change. The airy cafe at London’s British Museum, just across a hallway exhibiting newly discovered mummies of sacred animals from ancient Egypt, was the perfect place to chat with John Elkington about the Phoenix Economy. […]
Apr 24, 2009 | Conversation

Uncommon Ground

Uncommon Ground - Greening The Toilet

The past century of sanitation has been an environmental and financial nightmare for the world. It is supposedly the 100th anniversary of the modern lavatory, though there is some dispute about when the modern flush toilet as we now know it was invented and by whom. Nevertheless, for the billions around the world who take […]
Jun 5, 2009 | Article

Uncommon Ground

Uncommon Ground - Rediscovering Wonder

Most species are individually stupid but collectively smart. Humans are the opposite. It is remarkable what happens when you suspend judgement and disbelief for a while. You rediscover wonder. A little bit of this rediscovery happens every weekend in cinema halls across the country. But I was very lucky to have my own awakening of […]
Feb 13, 2009 | Conversation