Dear ICC community, 

I ran through the rain last monsoon - I was all dressed up and it had started pouring and of course, no umbrella. So, I threw my shawl over my head and sprinted through the rain, old ladies walking past with umbrellas giving me the eye. But it was exhilarating, and I was breathless and felt the blood rush to my head.

This year, unprecedented rainfall and flooding has left behind a trail of destruction in Assam, a north-eastern state in India, and other states, as well as parts of neighbouring Bangladesh - submerging villages, destroying crops, and wrecking homes. The government has opened relief camps for the displaced, but authorities say their job has been complicated by the sheer intensity of the disaster.

Floods routinely wreak havoc on the lives and livelihoods of millions living near the fertile riverbanks of the mighty Brahmaputra river, often called the lifeline of Assam. But factors like climate change, unchecked construction activities, and rapid industrialisation have increased the frequency of extreme events.

During the rains, each day I travel from my house, past Mumbai’s surging coastline, alongside the Arabian Sea, swaying palms, thundering skies emptying themselves like buckets of water perched perilously on door frames, fraying Art Deco architecture and steamy iridescent blue twilights, all of which accompany my journey across town to an old abandoned parking lot, beside a muddied football field, through an empty schoolyard (summer holidays have commenced), to our office.

In the evenings, I like to peer out of the window of my little cabin at the far end of the hallway. In the distance, I can see the sea rising against a fortress of slight, embattled tropical deco and sculptural reliefs, the city’s beleaguered corporals holding off a surging coastline, ever-ready to swallow them whole.

More persuasive than this sight is the scent of the rains and the evening sea, drifting in through my quiet window. It is salt and steam like a nomad’s dusk-hued dream in the fading sunlight, like a Bedouin’s sweaty back as he walks through the desert. The sky is ripe; the light shimmers through onto my desk, seductive and alluring. I inhale the air - moist, sultry, secretive, and bitter with brine – the smell fills my lungs and imbues me totally.

The monsoons each year, are reaching what can only be described in terms of “biblical proportions” wreaking death and destruction in their wake, with heavy rainfall and flooding destroying homes and crops, and washing away vital infrastructure. But here in India and Southeast Asia we need the monsoon; agriculture relies on the yearly rain. Many areas in these regions do not have large irrigation systems surrounding lakes, rivers, or snowmelt areas. Aquifers, or supplies of underground water, are shallow. The summer monsoon fills wells and aquifers for the rest of the year. Industry relies on the rains, people’s livelihoods are dependent on their arrival. In short, the rains are as much a lifeline, as they are an existential danger.

As we continue to walk the tightrope of mutual destruction with our planet, we acknowledge the ferocity of nature, and her ability to save us. Our featured images this month, are of the “monsoon forests of Goa”, captured by Dhritiman Mukherjee and captions written by Neha Sumitran, via Roundglass Sustain. We hope you enjoy the beauty of the Western Ghats of Goa brought to exuberant life each year by the monsoon.

On behalf of the ICC Team, 
Shloka Nath 

What do Nature-based Solutions look like in India?

Spotlight organisations 

Rainmatter Foundation is an initiative by the team behind Zerodha, India’s largest stock broking firm. Rainmatter takes a special focus on nature – particularly environmental conservation/rejuvenation and sustainable livelihoods – because they realised that the climate crisis cannot be solved by technology alone. To inform the way they direct their funding, Rainmatter has taken on the lens of ‘Ecological Wealth’, which focuses on the unique characteristics of ecosystems across India and the way they have developed symbiotically with human communities over thousands of years. This approach looks at the intersection between the biodiversity that is abundant in the subcontinent – a provider for human needs such as food, medicine, shelter, and more – and the multi-generational practices that have supported this biodiversity over many years. To learn more about their approach, read here.

Our work on NbS

 Sneak peek | NbS podcast 

What we're reading

• FAO’s 2022 report on The State of the World’s Forests, which explores the interconnections between the health of our planet and our economies 
• 'Protecting species for the good of global climate',  a study by Centre for Environmental Research, gives an overview about the role of biodiversity conservation in achieving climate targets
• The Economist featured ICC  in their article, 'The climate challenge: Need and models of collaboration in the Asian context', which highlights the need to expand collaboration efforts to meet the Paris Agreement targets
• A recent report by Candid, Centering equity and justice in climate philanthropy, explores the incorporation of climate justice in philanthropic approaches