The Ecological Restoration Alliance invites you to their next webinar Community-led Restoration: Perspectives from the Ground – where Sushila Murmu and Bijaya Kumar Kabi will share insights on community-led restoration from their respective vantages in the restoration community.
We hope to see you there. You can register for the discussion using this link, or by scanning the QR code on the poster below.
Date: September 6, 2025
Time: 4 pm onwards
Venue: Zoom Meeting
Language: English. (Post presentation questions to speakers can be posed in Hindi).
About the Webinar:
In this talk, ERA team member Sushila Murmu will share her experience of building a network of restoration practitioners from Indigenous & local communities (IPLC) and their projects across India, as well as insights gained from community conservation and restoration practices. She will also highlight the challenges to and opportunities ahead for strengthening community collaboration across regions.
Following Sushila, community leader Bijaya Kumar Kabi will present a case study of a successful community led Mangrove Restoration Model. The study will tell the story of how the once sinking coastal village of Badakot restored a mangrove forest, and as a result, created natural protection against river erosion, flooding, cyclones, and led to an uplift of biodiversity and local fisheries.
About the Speakers:
Sushila Murmu is the manager of the Indigenous People & Local Communities (IPLC) Desk at the Ecological Restoration Alliance and Keystone Foundation. She works on amplifying Indigenous and local community leadership in ecological restoration efforts. She is an architect by training and has worked at the intersection of architecture, sustainable development, climate action, policy and community mobilization in the past.
Bijaya Kumar Kabi is a conservationist. He has dedicated his life to helping vulnerable communities affected by climate change and natural disasters with nature-based solutions. His mangrove restoration work in Odisha saved the village of Badakot from aggressive coastal erosion, and earned him the Wetland Mitra Award by the Ministry of Environment, Forest, Climate Change, Govt of India.