In addition to packing a hefty antioxidant punch, the mango – a superfruit if there ever was one – is now proven to fend off poverty, global warming, and sexism.

According to an article in the BBC News, residents of the Dharhara village in the Bhagalpur district of northwestern India have engaged in a social experiment using mangoes to up the value of their daughters. In many parts of India, girls are seen as less desirable than boys. Families want a male heir, and a son is seen as an extra source of income for the family.  Female feticide – in which doctors illegally abort unborn baby girls on the basis of their sex alone – is rampant throughout India, with 50 million girls missing, according to UNICEF. Female feticide has created a shortage of eligible brides in India, with males in some urban regions traveling to rural areas to secure a wife. But girls who aren’t aborted are often subject to extreme domestic violence later in life. Bride burning, in which men set fire to their wives for lack of a sufficient dowry, occurs in parts of India.

It is against this grisly backdrop that the residents of Dharhara have decided to make their daughters more valuable in Indian society. For every girl born, the family plants at least 10 mango trees in the village. The mangoes provide a source of income for the parents, allowing them to save enough money for a dowry upon their daughter’s marriage – thus avoiding the violence that accompanies a scanty marriage settlement. One mango orchard yields about $4,245 worth of mangoes each season, enough to supplement the familial income, with leftover money going in a bank account for the child’s dowry.

“We heard about it from our fathers and they from their fathers. It has been in the family and the village from ages,” Subhendu Kumar Singh, a school teacher, told the BBC. “This is our way of meeting the challenges of dowry, global warming and female foeticide. There has not been a single incident yet of female foeticide or dowry death in our village.”

While the Dharhara tradition shelters the village’s girls from the misogyny in greater India, the fact that mango trees alone can make a girl more valuable speaks volumes of the undervaluing of women in the first place. Preferable, of course, is a major cultural shift, one in which women – mango trees or not – are treasured from birth like men. But barring that, the Dharhara mango project is a model worth emulating.

Image: Mickey_boy[L]

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Spain’s Alta Velocidad Espanola train is destined to win the race against carbon emissions.

Spain’s Alta Velocidad Española (AVE) high-speed rail service is providing a greener, and more enjoyable way to travel short distances. For example, approximately six million people travel the 325 miles between Barcelona and Madrid each year. In previous years, 90 percent of those people have been taking it to the skies to do so. The number of jet-setters is lower these days, with frequent short-distance travelers choosing the speedy train.

According to analysts, rail travel emits one-fourth of the carbon dioxide emissions created by flying or driving. With such large numbers of people regularly taking the train instead of flying, it should really help toward reaching the country’s goal of reducing its carbon emissions by 20 percent in the next decade.

Although the rail service will generously aid in environmental efforts, most passengers on the AVE do not choose the service because it’s greener, they choose it because they like it better. The trains are comfortable, offer numerous amenities and don’t require passengers to check in early. The last point is particularly important to business travelers who frequently journey back and forth between cities.

Soon all of Europe’s short-distance routes may be dominated by high-speed trains rather than airplanes. The shift is considered a huge advancement toward the EU’s fight against harmful emissions. In this matter, the US is still lagging behind. Spain alone is expecting to budget $80 billion for rail travel, while $8 billion has been set aside for the entire United States. The good news is that steps are in place for greener, easier and more enjoyable travel for everyone.

Editor’s note: Article by Katie Leavitt. Originally published by our friends at Tonic.com. Tonic is a digital media company and news source dedicated to promoting the good that happens each day around the world. Tonic tells the stories of people and organizations who are working to make a difference, by inspiring good in themselves and others. Be sure to visit them and say hi, and follow Tonic on Twitter, too!

Image: dominguin

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