Talk by Michael Mazgaonkar

Michael and Swati have been living and working in Mozda, a village in Gujarat, since 1991. They are also a part of Paryavaran Suraksha Samiti (PSS) or Environment Protection Group.

In Mozda, they are involved in:

1. Soil and water conservation (watershed management)
2. Organizing a women's co-operative to
   • Process organically grown pigeon peas (tur, arhar) to make dal
   • Run a savings program
   • Run a small dairy of indigenous breed cows
3. Primary health care on a small scale
4. Training local youth to carry out the above activities

PSS (a core group of 5 people with a wide support network) is involved in environmental education of people affected by industrial pollution, advocacy and activism against improper policies of government. For this purpose, they

1. Work in villages around chemical industrial estates
2. Works on networking with other state and national organizations and groups
3. Works through government committees to get the ground realities accepted and recorded by government reports
4. Recommending policy level changes

Michael was in Penn State for two weeks in June, to attend a workshop on the use of solar energy and sound waves for refrigeration. He managed to squeeze in some time during his lunch break to speak to us about his various experiences in India. A transcript of the talk is not available at this time but please see the reading list below.

Reading list

All documents are in pdf format. The newsletters in booklet format are convenient for printing (use less paper). The non-booklet format is convenient for online reading.

Date	Online	Booklet
Dec 1991	online	booklet
Jun 1992	online	booklet
Apr 1993	online	booklet
Feb 1994	online	booklet
Sep 1995	online	booklet
May 1997	online	booklet
Sep 1998	online	booklet
Sep 1999	online	booklet
Feb 2000	online	booklet
May 2001	online	booklet

Other documents:

• Indian Peoples Tribunal report
• Environmental Problem flowchart
• Map of industrial concentrations and associated problems in Gujarat