As climate change depletes forests, Meghalaya turns to villages for revival

As one of India's greenest states with 80% of its area under forests and trees, three times the Indian average, Meghalaya is unique and uniquely vulnerable

As he walked around the sacred forest grove, government pump operator and village council member Borhlang Blah, 27, recalled a time when it rained at least once during the summer monsoons for nine days and nine nights without a break.

Everything came to a standstill: adults skipped work, children skipped school, and markets stayed shut in Blah’s home village of Mawphlang, an hour’s drive from Shillong, capital of the northeastern state of Meghalaya.

The rain of nine days and nine nights is now a childhood memory, reduced to no more than two or three days at a stretch.