India, March 25 -- In Gujarat's Mahi river basin, floods in 1973 washed away vast stretches of farmland and village commons.

Deep ravines formed over decades, leaving thousands of hectares degraded and uncultivable.

Villagers, with support from government schemes and NGOs, have spent years restoring the land through soil and water conservation.

Today, farming and livelihoods are returning, as communities reclaim land once thought lost forever.

When floods washed away his family's farmland in 1973, Hareshbhai Solanki thought he would never farm it again. Five decades later, he is harvesting his first crop in Rustampura village in Gujarat - the 33-year-old has spent the past week cutting tobacco from fields that lay barren for decades....