💧 Watershed Repair
Activities
Watershed Restoration and River Revival
TBS works with communities to bring back water abundance, revive river watersheds, and support sustainable development. Work includes harvesting structures across watersheds, efficient use such as drip irrigation, and water literacy for many actors. Before projects start, staff live in a village for six to twelve months to build trust, learn constraints, and co-design responses; engagement often runs ten to fifteen years per village. The core tools are johads, check dams, and percolation tanks, alongside literacy campaigns, drip systems, and sustainable farming. TBS reports 13,800 functioning rainwater harvesting systems and 13 rivers rejuvenated across India. Their work harvests 100 billion liters of rainwater annually and has converted more than 10,000 square kilometers from no-water zones into water-secure landscapes.
Val Estrela Historic and Cultural Ecotourism Site
After about 20 kilometers through great landscapes, the trail arrives at Val Estrela—the port where one-third of the slaves arrived in Brazil. This is a site of profound historical and cultural significance, and Sinal do Vale has started executing a master plan to regenerate the rivers, the old church, and weighing station to create a historic and cultural ecotourism site. They're doing this work together with the local quilombola communities and fishermen who maintained this abandoned site over the past decades. These are communities with deep ancestral connections to this place, who have been stewarding it even as it was neglected by broader society. Sinal do Vale is determined to continue this work, recognizing that restoration must honor both the ecological and cultural heritage of this place.
He Ripo Kau: A Vision for the Hokianga
He Ripo Kau applies the Tapere logic in Hokianga—linking taiao renewal with mana tangata. Since 2016, hui have convened hau kāinga around a shared model. NZD 3.2 million in Provincial Growth Fund support underpinned a 2020 recovery and employment wave—45+ km of stream fencing, 50+ ha planted, and training pipelines into land-care jobs. The case shows vision translating into paid, on-ground regeneration.
100 Regenerative Village Program
100 Regenerative Village (100RV) promotes agroforestry and regenerative practices so forests stay intact as water catchments. With Eco-Tourism Bali, hotels and food businesses are nudged toward local, sustainable sourcing—paying farmers who steward forest a credible alternative to selling land for tourism.
Watershed Conservation and Payment for Ecosystem Services
The Babagon catchment is a 3,001 ha forested watershed serving roughly 57% of Greater Kinabalu’s water demand, yet its three Indigenous Dusun communities have seen little benefit. Babagon Dam (1997) flooded Kg Tampasak—graves, orchards, padi—forcing resettlement below the impoundment with lasting harm. To protect water quality, the state restricted livelihoods on upstream Dusun lands and pressed for state-led stewardship of territories communities had long managed. After four months’ scoping and a one-year PES readiness phase, Forever Sabah brokered a multi-year dialogue among communities, government, and private actors to design Payment for Ecosystem Services. The fund model treats communities as trustees with government and others, pooling and returning payments from prospective streams—if cabinet approves and territorial rights are recognised, that could support durable jobs in monitoring, catchment care, and restoration. Mirani Momogompi Tadon Waig (MMTW) is the trained local team for monitoring, nurseries, and restoration, blending science and customary practice—including dragonfly and fish indicators—to read watershed health.
Riparian Watershed Recovery
Salmon offered a practical entry: a ready stakeholder base and steep declines—a pattern across Scotland, not only the Findhorn. The Riverwoods push on riparian woodland then connected salmon recovery to climate and woodland restoration for anglers, landowners, and conservation interests. Work extends beyond narrow riparian strips toward healthier, biodiverse catchment landscapes. Flood risk matters as much as cooler, cleaner water, so “climate-resilient rivers” sit alongside habitat goals. Carbon storage is pursued from eroding headwaters to salt marsh and seagrass in Findhorn Bay. Nature Recovery is watershed-wide: native species, invasive control, coastal carbon habitats. Fieldwork has included seedling and peat surveys, seagrass mapping, and new records of freshwater pearl mussels.
Ecological Restoration of Valle de Zaquencipá
The land at Bosque Fractal is part of a critical watershed feeding Bogotá and surrounding areas, and includes degraded zones requiring urgent care. Over the last few years, the team has planted thousands of native trees, regenerated damaged soils, and begun monitoring water flow and soil health. With initial funding, Bosque Fractal will expand several high-priority projects, including: Oak Forest Restoration: Reviving native oak forests, which are crucial for water retention and biodiversity. The oak forests surrounding the valley are themselves ancient elders, teaching how to heal and regenerate both land and spirit. Pollinator Hotel: Supporting bees and other pollinators as keystone species for ecosystem health. Rainwater Purification Plant: Supplying clean water to the community while demonstrating regenerative water management practices. Regenerative Tourism: Creating sustainable tourism experiences rooted in cultural education and ecological stewardship. Bioregional Zone and Guest House: Serving as a living showcase for bioregional practices and a space for international learning exchanges, including building a guest house for workshops and cross-bioregional collaboration. The restoration work recognizes that this ecosystem, though occupying just 1.7% of Colombia's páramos, provides 85% of the country's drinking water, making its restoration critical not just locally but nationally.
River Detectives
River Detectives extends the community-science approach toward catchment care. From August 2023 to August 2024, residents researched historic management of rivers, bogs, and lochans—asking what past practices might teach present stewardship. The Flax & Flood strand traced mills, weather, and water—how nineteenth-century climate shifts and extreme events shaped operations and supply. That historical ecological knowledge informs today’s questions. Part 2 turns toward systematic monitoring so communities can describe current river conditions and inform management choices.
River Ericht Catchment Restoration
The Ericht is among Europe’s most important Atlantic salmon spawning systems. Restoration finance nationally falls short of need; new policy instruments are appearing, and this project is testing how to operate in that shifting policy and funding terrain. Work includes woodland and peatland restoration, with salmon survival as the narrative anchor: as one participant put it, many doubt salmon can persist—“but we’re going to do our best to see what we can do.” Habitat repair is treated as the decisive lever for keeping salmon in these rivers.
Climate Adaptation Learning Journey
Over five days, participants move through the bioregion—farms, coasts hit by flooding, river communities facing high water, sites where people are repairing roads themselves—linking water quantity and quality to everyday decisions. The aim is twofold: strengthen communities as first responders to local climate risk, and work with elected councillors so adaptation strategies are co-produced rather than imposed from outside.
Dancing in Salt Marshes
The program pairs salt-marsh restoration and water conservation with cultural engagement—including work toward river rights charters—so ecology and culture move together rather than as separate “environmental” and “arts” tracks. Because the marshes are too fragile for heavy visitation, the BLC commissioned a film: two dancers from local communities perform in costume on the marsh itself, giving people a visceral connection to a place many will never walk on.
Voices of the Dart
A community-based river stewardship program addressing the projected 39 megalitre daily flow deficit of the River Dart by 2050. The initiative uses a three-pronged approach: educational workshops across multiple riverside communities, citizen science data collection in partnership with Westcountry Rivers Trust, and artistic engagement through clay work and storytelling sessions—bringing together scientific data with local knowledge and cultural connection. The project has produced tangible outcomes including a Water Data Resource Pack, targeted reduction in per-person water usage, and a growing network of citizen scientists monitoring water quality along the river.
Natural Ecosystems Restoration
Restoration focuses on natural areas and how they connect to working farmland. On priority sites such as La Muela, partners work to recover vegetation, soils, and water retention. On farms, agreements identify where to restore natural zones alongside production, with measures to hold water and soil and to build biodiversity. Corridor initiatives extend habitat connectivity so natural patches and productive land form a coherent mosaic.
Watershed Restoration Planning
The team mapped “blue” and “green” zones along the river. Blue zones slow runoff from the mountains so water seeps into soil instead of stripping topsoil into the channel. Green zones target restoring the forests that once helped condense rain at lower altitude before air rose onto the plateau—part of reclaiming the gentler winter rains lost to flood-prone weather under current land use.