Dev Karan knew that he couldn't sit idly by while his country's precious ecosystems languished. So, the 17-year-old from India formed an organization to allow villages to monitor local water quality while promoting pond stewardship.
For his efforts, the United Nations-backed Young Activists Summit (YAS) awarded Karan one of five annual prizes, NDTV reported.
India's many ponds are crucial to its residents' livelihoods. Indian villages historically formed around ponds, which communities maintained as vital water sources. However, large-scale irrigation projects in recent centuries have drained groundwater, degraded wetlands, and led people to neglect the care of their ponds, as a study published in the Journal of the Society of Wetland Scientists notes.
India's government began working on pond revitalization initiatives such as Amrit Sarovar in 2022, but Karan and his high school classmates noticed that many ponds fell into disrepair shortly after they were rejuvenated.
Enter Pondora, an organization aimed at helping people protect their ponds. Driven by the belief, as stated in a press release, "that the people who live closest to a water body should be its stewards," Pondora helps student "Pond Ambassadors" lead environmental education and behavior change campaigns in their communities.
It also provides villages with pond maintenance kits that detect water quality and send the readings to a mobile app, making it easy for communities to track their progress.
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On top of getting people involved in local climate action, Karan's efforts could have broader economic and environmental benefits. Rejuvenated ponds can support local economies by providing water for agriculture, and they can even support tourism in urban areas, as a Nature Conservancy policy brief notes. Healthy ponds also promote biodiversity by providing a habitat for animals such as birds, snakes, and frogs.
"Change doesn't occur when we're sitting in ivory towers," Karan said in a statement released by the YAS. "We have to go down the swamp and we have to bring change ourselves."
People online reacted enthusiastically to the news of Karan's award. As one commenter on the YAS Instagram page wrote, "This is soo inspiring."
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