www.350.org" width="120" height="240" border="0" /> Monday, September 27, 2010
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Waste into wealth
it is possible to convert all kinds of waste into wealth.
Organic Food Waste ------ Composting for manure
Cooked food waste - - - - - Biogas
Paper/plastic/glass/metal - - - - Recycling
Agro Waste - - - - - - - - - -
Biomass Briquettes using Manual Machines or Automated Machines. Many Automated plants are running in India and briquettes produced can be used for cooking and also in industry. Manual briquettes make a good cooking fuel.
EWB (Engineers Without Borders) is seriously propagating this concept. Due to high investments for automated machines the spread is slow. Wherever such plants exist, so called waste materials price keeps increasing. The manual method is very good for rural areas and for families dependent on firewood or cow dung cakes.
There is a need for building awareness in this area and I welcome everyone who is interewsted in Biomass Briquetting to get in touch with me and also see the EWB website.
Biomass briquettes are made from all kinds of agricultural waste. Wastes like Rice Husk, Seed Shells, Coir Waste, tender coconut waste, coconut shells, all kinds of plant remains, grass, leaves, saw dust, and also part of the municipal waste etc. Most of the time the above wastes are burnt inefficiently causing environment pollution. Briquetting helps in reducing pollution substantially. It improves the calorific value due to densification. Transportation and storage of briquettes is also easy & convenient.
We are looking out for the people who are working on waste management ... so that we can promote and coordinate with them by giving our(IYCN's) total support for the campaign..!
Interested people can get in touch with me so that I can give you the contact details of Honorable convener of "Energy consevation mission"
Organic Food Waste ------ Composting for manure
Cooked food waste - - - - - Biogas
Paper/plastic/glass/metal - - - - Recycling
Agro Waste - - - - - - - - - -
Biomass Briquettes using Manual Machines or Automated Machines. Many Automated plants are running in India and briquettes produced can be used for cooking and also in industry. Manual briquettes make a good cooking fuel.
EWB (Engineers Without Borders) is seriously propagating this concept. Due to high investments for automated machines the spread is slow. Wherever such plants exist, so called waste materials price keeps increasing. The manual method is very good for rural areas and for families dependent on firewood or cow dung cakes.
There is a need for building awareness in this area and I welcome everyone who is interewsted in Biomass Briquetting to get in touch with me and also see the EWB website.
Biomass briquettes are made from all kinds of agricultural waste. Wastes like Rice Husk, Seed Shells, Coir Waste, tender coconut waste, coconut shells, all kinds of plant remains, grass, leaves, saw dust, and also part of the municipal waste etc. Most of the time the above wastes are burnt inefficiently causing environment pollution. Briquetting helps in reducing pollution substantially. It improves the calorific value due to densification. Transportation and storage of briquettes is also easy & convenient.
We are looking out for the people who are working on waste management ... so that we can promote and coordinate with them by giving our(IYCN's) total support for the campaign..!
Interested people can get in touch with me so that I can give you the contact details of Honorable convener of "Energy consevation mission"
Friday, March 26, 2010
24th october 2009 -Climate action day
smiling organizers of the event at the Charminar (Hyderabad's iconic place).
Over 100 students from different schools formed a 350 in front of the huge banner.
The special guests of the event were the former
environment minister and animal rights champion and former actress Amala Akineni.
Several media were present and TV coverage of the event was impressive. Local and state TV news channels are carrying reports of the
event even as this is being typed.
The school children then took a rally by walking around the Charminar area to spread awareness and the message.
The next was on Necklace road, where we put up a road side art gallery and floating paintings in the lake which showed the earth at 350 and 390! We had a press meet here where the media had a one-on-one
talk with all the volunteers!
Childern were busy posing with the paintings...and few were seen holding the cloth banner of 350. Print media was also covering this event..... the news paper next day was filled with IYCN's climate action day's photographs... the event also got telecasted in many news channels "
At around the same time my friends from other colleges had done a 350 formation with green caps and 390 with red caps, followed by a cycle rally across the city. They then joined us at the press meet.
At 3:50 PM sharp we opened a huge INDIA painting made by our hand prints and 350 in the center. After all the media talks we decided to a little ground level impact! We did a flash mob skit and a sleeping 350 formation. In the skit, we demonstrated with miming how the earth was slowly suffocating with all the pollution and trash that is being strewn all over. The mimes then showed where we make mistakes and endanger our planet - they also followed up with a solution for each problem. For example, when we talked about huge power consumptions, we also suggested ways of reducing our hunger for power like turning off appliances when we don't need them. When there is need for light, we asked our audience to use CFL lamps.
This was followed by a symbolic rock-climbing where we placed '390 ppm' in the bottom and 350ppm at the top of the challenging rock face to show that it is hard work to get to 350 but that's the golden number!
We wrapped a tiring yet fun-filled day of action & awareness with holding a 350 banner in front of the Buddha statue in the middle of the Hussain Sagar Lake.
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Let's not torture our trees !!
I personally ,have seen several trees being cut near chilkur area, where my college [J.B.I.E.T]is situated .On the name of Infrastructural Development and road extention ,many trees were choped down on the road sides.The road which leads to my college from Langer house was beautifully green, before ,but not any more.
Is that kind of development, really required ?? Those who spoke about saving trees were branded ‘eco-terrorists,’ ‘romantic’, ‘anti-development.’
BY some estimates, more trees have been chopped off in the past decade than probably in India’s recent history. Along newly broadened national highways, new roads, new constructions, trees have been brought down without a thought. In Delhi alone it is estimated that over 200,000 trees have probably been hacked for various projects leading to the Commonwealth Games, 2010.
Is that kind of development, really required ?? Those who spoke about saving trees were branded ‘eco-terrorists,’ ‘romantic’, ‘anti-development.’
At the same time, the State has been acting in a non-transparent manner. There is little information about the number of trees that are to be cut or the places from where they will be cut. More often than not, this is only discovered once it happens. Public protests about tree cutting have been dealt with subterfuge, instead of openness and concern.
Here goes a similar interesting story through the Save Delhi Ridge Campaign :BY some estimates, more trees have been chopped off in the past decade than probably in India’s recent history. Along newly broadened national highways, new roads, new constructions, trees have been brought down without a thought. In Delhi alone it is estimated that over 200,000 trees have probably been hacked for various projects leading to the Commonwealth Games, 2010.
The same destruction is taking place in cities all over the country. In Pune, Bangalore, Chennai, Lucknow, trees are being cut. Many of these trees are old, even ancient and are part of our heritage.
In Delhi the skyline has changed in visible ways. Roads which were green and shady are now bereft of tree cover. As the city becomes a crisscross of roads and metro rail tracks, transport corridors have taken precedence. ‘Efficiency’ has become the sole driver of this change. No thought is given to keeping the city’s character intact.
When the tree campaign, Trees for Delhi, was at its peak and the media was glaring down at the government, trees were simply cut in the dead of the night. The government formed a Tree Authority advisory body and included NGOs. But promises to provide public information, street marking of trees, etc have not been kept. It now appears that the public campaign was dealt with as a government public relations exercise.
Claims of re-planting and compensatory afforestation in suburban city forests have been made, but without addressing the core issues raised by the campaign, namely keeping in-city and neighborhood trees intact. New colonies have been markedly bereft of tree cover.
While investments in city infrastructure are being done arguably to ease the lot of its ‘poor’, (even as they are moved out of the city) yet it is these citizens who have lost the most. The poor have even closer everyday links with trees. Trees provide shade, a place to set up a little food stall or a bicycle repair shack. Only engineers and planners who want to reduce all of life’s values to a concrete ‘functionality’ cannot see this. In fact, the tree should be as much a part of the city development debate, as stadiums, highways, or market complexes are.
Is it that we are unable to value anything which does not generate ‘revenue?’
Trees help percolate groundwater, make soil stable, lower temperatures and influence micro-climates. However, it is equally relevant to think of trees as adding another critical quality dimension to our lives.
Most trees have disappeared to accommodate more cars on the road. With no end in sight to the unbridled increase in cars, roads are now extending from house front to house front. Most widened roads have no place for pedestrians or for cyclists, leave alone trees. The Trees for Delhi campaign discovered that the path between houses was legally a ‘right of way’ and that city planners had full right to do what they wanted in that area. It is clear that trees are not even thought of when road widening plans are made, and they are treated only as an inconvenience.
In many cases, it is possible to change road orientations to save trees, but this is not done. Once such plans have been made, clearance for tree cutting is a mere formality, even though cities like Delhi have a Tree Preservation Act. It is not possible for the Tree Officer, who is the Conservator of Forests, to reverse matters at this late stage when plans have been approved and budgets sanctioned. In the case of the Commonwealth Games, trees have also been brutally chopped off on construction projects. Even the Reserved Delhi Ridge Forest has been a victim of the Metro line. At Siri Fort, another protected forest where the DDA is constructing a badminton stadium, local residents protested. Even the Supreme Court appointed committee (2009) stated… “this site is not an appropriate location for such a project. It is far from any Metro Station, and furthermore it has involved the savage cutting down of a humongous number of trees, in what can only be described as a wilful and heartless manner.”
Surprisingly, in many cases, residents themselves have been insensitive to trees. Each winter, there is a clamour to ‘prune’ colony trees. So branches are lopped off by hired contractors who gain by selling the wood. It is not uncommon to see beautiful large trees standing precariously unbalanced, their branches cut on one side, rather than scientifically pruned. Despite the presence of a large population of such trees, proper equipment such as lifts and long shears are not available with the municipalities to prune the trees as required.
The problem of tree tiling has been highlighted for a long time, mainly through the efforts of environmentalists. Kalpavriksh in Delhi has even gone to Court to obtain orders against this menace which intensifies just before the end of the financial year in March. Contracts are handed out to ‘tile’ pavements, even though in many places natural grass and soil is preferable. Tiling chokes the tree. Then the tree is subjected to lopsided pruning. It becomes unstable and often falls when the wind speed is high. Despite alternatives like porous tiles and despite court strictures of leaving adequate space around the tree trunk, tiling continues unchecked.
Citizens have been protesting in many places. In Bangalore, the Environmental Support Group (ESG) along with others have started a campaign against thoughtless road widening and the taking over of public spaces for infrastructure projects without any public consultation. In Pune, environmental groups like Kalpavriksh and citizens have been trying to stop tree cutting clearances by initiating transparent procedures. The battle is uphill. Trees need to be considered part of the city’s planning exercise, otherwise it often becomes too late to save them.
.
A fallen tree in a Kerala forest brings back memories of Salim Ali’s passion!
IN September 2008, a towering Albizia lebbeck tree that the famous ornithologist Salim Ali never missed to look up whenever he visited the Parambikulam wildlife sanctuary in Palakkad district of Kerala was felled by a gale. This happened exactly a hundred years after he turned his attention to birds, literally.
Salim Ali was emotionally attached to the tree as he saw it as a magnificent birding site, especially of his favourite bird, the broad-billed roller, or dollar bird (Eurystomus orientalis). Although Albizia is widely distributed in the tropical forests of the Western Ghats, the fallen tree at Kuriarkutty, downhill of Parambikulam, was the tharavadu (ancestral home) of the rollers; perhaps their only nesting ground in the area was its cavities. With the roller’s tall perch now lying across the Kuriarkutty river, an unforgettable chapter in the ornithological history of Kerala has come to an end.
The broad-billed roller surveying its empire.
A rarely sighted bird, the roller with blue-black plumage and orange-red bill and legs, is parochial. It occupies a nest for life. As it is not a proficient nest-builder, it prefers cavities and crevices of tall trees to lay eggs.
“This tree is a marvel of nature, studded with the nests of generations. They are twinkling, twinkling little stars. You have to watch and constantly monitor it,” Salim Ali used to tell his disciples.
THE ALBIZIA LEBBECK tree lying across the Kuriarkutty river.
For the broad-billed rollers, the mist-smeared nests were their high kingdom (the birds prefer a tall perch). Emotionally drawn to the tree whenever he came by its side, Salim Ali would unfold his binoculars to scan its branches for a sighting of the winged beauties. He would watch some of them hopping on the branches, some feeding the young ones, and some others in their courtship display. He always felt he could hear the chirps of the chicks in the nests, recalls ornithologist Dr R. Sugathan, who along with Dr V.S. Vijayan, Chairman of the Kerala Biodiversity Board, has accompanied Salim Ali on his trips to Kuriarkutty.
Even if a lone bird was perched on a branch Salim Ali felt that a hundred rollers had swarmed the tree, and this left dreamy images in his mind. The whispers of the swaying branches often merged with his soliloquies.
INDIAN TREE PIE, one of the common birds of the Western Ghats.
In his celebrated work Birds of Kerala, Salim Ali describes the roller thus: “It loves to perch rather upright and with feathers fluffed out on some bare limb of a towering forest tree whence it can get a good view of the surroundings. It is also called dollar bird because it has a broad pale blue round patch [the dollar] on [its] wings [which is] conspicuous on flight.” It has a harsh call, oft repeated and not at all attractive.
Orange-and-black flycatcher.
The roaming elephants, the silent but cautious bisons, the bounding spotted deer and the splashing Kuriarkutty river, left an indelible imprint on the mind of Salim Ali. Even today, in spite of the boom in tourism and the disturbances that have accompanied it, the avian empire in the Parambikulam wildlife sanctuary, which lies in the Nelliyampathy range of Kerala and the Anamalai range of Tamil Nadu, is serene.
Black-crested beza.
Salim Ali trekked along the mysterious forest tracts of Parambikulam several times since his first visit to the spot in 1933. He was 37 years of age then, and his mission was to do a bird survey for the then ruler of Travancore. The survey was conducted between November 12 and 23 that year. He stayed in a log house at Kuriarkutty with his wife Tehmina. His ornithological pursuits included catching and identifying birds of various species.
Scarlet minivet.
Members of the local tribal community (Kadars), who are familiar with the labyrinths of the forests and endowed with the rare skill of sensing the movement of wildlife, guided him during his bird surveys. Armed with bows and pellets, they killed birds and animals for food.
Coppersmith barbet.
After the Kuriarkutty survey, Salim Ali frequented the area. The vast expanse of evergreen forest captivated him. He has described this experience vividly in his autobiography, The Fall of a Sparrow.
Nilgiri flycai flycatcher
Whenever he visited Kuriarkutty he would tell his disciples: “Why not we go near the bridge over the Kuriarkutty river.... You know there is a towering forest tree there.” He would walk by the side of the river and stop to observe the tree closely with his binoculars. He was struck by the conspicuous presence of the roller and by its nesting and perching habits. He spotted the bird during his first visit itself but serious observations began later. He would tell his disciples (Sugathan and Vijayan included) that the nests were many generations old. No other tree in the surroundings had such a striking feature. The Albizia tree was monopolised by the roller.
Laughing thrush.
A bird enthusiast once asked Salim Ali: “In your estimate, is the broad-billed roller the most beautiful bird?” To which Salim Ali quipped: “Do you mean beauty? It depends on how you look at it. I would sometimes say the crow is a really beautiful bird.” Having said this, the birdman would break into peels of laughter. Bird-watchers sometimes say jovially that Salim Ali would have liked the jungle crow very much, for when observed through the binoculars, its metallic bluish-black feathers glisten like a rainbow.
Salim Ali died in 1987 at the age of 91. He made his last trip to Kerala in 1986 when he was conferred an honorary doctorate degree by the Kerala Agricultural University. On that occasion, he visited Kuriarkutty along with Vijayan and Sugathan. “On reaching Kuriarkutty,” Sugathan says, “he said, ‘now let us go to the towering tree’.”
Malabar whistling thrush.
“Even at that old age, he exhibited child-like innocence and a deep desire to observe the tree and its inhabitants again. He fervently asked: ‘Would I be fortunate enough to see the broad-billed roller again? I am passionate indeed, for the roller has been my passion. That is because that towering tree stands like a colossus carrying the nests of generations’. He looked around. He felt the birds call, and said: ‘I remember, I had noticed the bird during my first visit in 1933 itself’.”
Sugathan continues, “Salim Ali’s anxiety mounted. Amazingly, in a few minutes, a lone bird emerged in an angelic ambience. It perched on a branch and fluttered for a while. Salim Ali was ecstatic. The bird disappeared suddenly. Salim Ali watched keenly through his binoculars and stood speechless for a while. Then, breaking the silence, he asked: ‘Who had the magic wand to attract the bird’.” It was one of the most memorable moments in the lives of the master and his disciples.
River tern.
After the pilgrimage to the tree, Salim Ali expressed a wish to see one of the tribal guides who had led him into the forest during his earlier trips. The elderly man was located in a nearby hut. Though bedridden, he recognised Salim Ali and smilingly asked: “Oh, you have come again to shoot birds and skin them.” The Wildlife Act was not in force when Salim Ali began his bird surveys. Birds were shot with small guns for identification.
FALL OF A SPARROW
“How did you become an ornithologist?” Salim Ali often encountered this question. He would reply without any hesitation: “It all happened when I shot, with my airgun, a yellow-throated house sparrow somewhere in 1908.” Then he was a naughty schoolboy aged 12.
PIED KINGFISHER SWOOPING down for its quarry in the river.
“The fall of a sparrow was the turning point in his life. He approached his uncle, anxious to know why that sparrow had a yellow patch. His uncle in turn sent him to the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) in Mumbai. BNHS Secretary W.S. Millard showed young Salim Ali specimens of hundreds of birds of the Indian subcontinent.
It was the beginning of an epoch. Salim Ali scaled new heights in the field of ornithology and, with his matchless dedication, left behind works of epic dimensions.
The hoopoe.
Vijayan recalls: “Whenever Salim Ali visited Kuriarkutty, after finishing official engagements, he would ask ‘when can we go on the pilgrimage?’ A dilapidated log house at Kuriarkutty was the pilgrim centre.” Once Salim Ali told his disciples in an emotionally choked voice, “my wife Tehmina and I used to skin birds here. Those bird surveys were so great indeed.”
On his last visit, in 1986, he wanted to stay in the wooden house for some time. But by then the house had almost crumbled. Salim Ali was grief-stricken. He stood in the courtyard for some time and wept in silence.
MALABAR TROGON, THE most colourful bird identified and studied by Salim Ali.
The Kerala government has set up the Salim Ali Bird Interpretation Centre at Kuriarkutty at the spot where the log house stood. T.M. Manoharan, Principal Chief Conservator of Forests, said the government planned to develop it into a full-fledged research centre.
Between Chalakudy (50 kilometres from Kochi) and Parambikulam there existed a 68-kilometre tramway via Kuriarkutty. Salim Ali recollects in his autobiography: “The track laid through some magnificent hilly country covered with pockets of wet evergreen here and there in the valley and along streams. Every now and then live cinders from the engine came flying. My shirt and Tehmina’s saree had severe holes.” One of the prized specimens he got from the Kuriarkutty area was a feather-toed crested eagle.
WHITE-THROATED GROUND thrush.
When this writer visited Kuriarkutty, the Forest Range Officer Aboobacker located Krishnankutty, one of the Kadars who had accompanied Salim Ali on his treks. “I have trekked with Salim Ali during the latter part of his bird-watching trips and studies in Kuriarkutty,” he said.
Krishnankutty held one of the fallen branches of the Albizia tree and remarked, “Had Salim Ali seen the fallen tree, he would have been heartbroken.”
GREY-HEADED CANARY flycatcher.
It is 76 years since Salim Ali made his first trip to Kuriarkutty and Parambikulam. The forest cover has vastly diminished thanks to felling of trees, encroachments, habitat destruction and development projects.
“Yet,” Sugathan says, “there are around 280 species of birds left in the Parambikulam-Kuriarkutty area, which is still rich in biodiversity. The bird population is stable. Owing to habitat destruction, the population of the great Indian hornbill, the Ceylon frogmouth and the jungle babbler has diminished, but some new ones have adapted to the environment. There are more waterbirds now since there are dams.”
The Malabar trogon is one of the most colourful birds identified and studied by Salim Ali. It is described as a “bird with a play of colours”. Generally silent, it is known for its musical calls. It likes evergreen moist deciduous areas. The Malabar whistling thrush, referred to as the idle schoolboy, is another attractive bird found in the Western Ghats. Other colourful bird species of the region include the Nilgiri flycatcher, the grey-headed flycatcher, the coppersmith barbet, the ground thrush, the scarlet minivet, the Nilgiri wood-pigeon, the emerald dove, the purple moorhen, the black-crested beza, the laughing thrush, the mottled owl and the river tern.
“Salim Ali’s description of the birds of Kerala and their habitat is so meticulous that one is amazed at his keen sense of observation,”
Salim Ali was emotionally attached to the tree as he saw it as a magnificent birding site, especially of his favourite bird, the broad-billed roller, or dollar bird (Eurystomus orientalis). Although Albizia is widely distributed in the tropical forests of the Western Ghats, the fallen tree at Kuriarkutty, downhill of Parambikulam, was the tharavadu (ancestral home) of the rollers; perhaps their only nesting ground in the area was its cavities. With the roller’s tall perch now lying across the Kuriarkutty river, an unforgettable chapter in the ornithological history of Kerala has come to an end.
The broad-billed roller surveying its empire.
A rarely sighted bird, the roller with blue-black plumage and orange-red bill and legs, is parochial. It occupies a nest for life. As it is not a proficient nest-builder, it prefers cavities and crevices of tall trees to lay eggs.
“This tree is a marvel of nature, studded with the nests of generations. They are twinkling, twinkling little stars. You have to watch and constantly monitor it,” Salim Ali used to tell his disciples.
THE ALBIZIA LEBBECK tree lying across the Kuriarkutty river.
For the broad-billed rollers, the mist-smeared nests were their high kingdom (the birds prefer a tall perch). Emotionally drawn to the tree whenever he came by its side, Salim Ali would unfold his binoculars to scan its branches for a sighting of the winged beauties. He would watch some of them hopping on the branches, some feeding the young ones, and some others in their courtship display. He always felt he could hear the chirps of the chicks in the nests, recalls ornithologist Dr R. Sugathan, who along with Dr V.S. Vijayan, Chairman of the Kerala Biodiversity Board, has accompanied Salim Ali on his trips to Kuriarkutty.
Even if a lone bird was perched on a branch Salim Ali felt that a hundred rollers had swarmed the tree, and this left dreamy images in his mind. The whispers of the swaying branches often merged with his soliloquies.
INDIAN TREE PIE, one of the common birds of the Western Ghats.
In his celebrated work Birds of Kerala, Salim Ali describes the roller thus: “It loves to perch rather upright and with feathers fluffed out on some bare limb of a towering forest tree whence it can get a good view of the surroundings. It is also called dollar bird because it has a broad pale blue round patch [the dollar] on [its] wings [which is] conspicuous on flight.” It has a harsh call, oft repeated and not at all attractive.
Orange-and-black flycatcher.
The roaming elephants, the silent but cautious bisons, the bounding spotted deer and the splashing Kuriarkutty river, left an indelible imprint on the mind of Salim Ali. Even today, in spite of the boom in tourism and the disturbances that have accompanied it, the avian empire in the Parambikulam wildlife sanctuary, which lies in the Nelliyampathy range of Kerala and the Anamalai range of Tamil Nadu, is serene.
Black-crested beza.
Salim Ali trekked along the mysterious forest tracts of Parambikulam several times since his first visit to the spot in 1933. He was 37 years of age then, and his mission was to do a bird survey for the then ruler of Travancore. The survey was conducted between November 12 and 23 that year. He stayed in a log house at Kuriarkutty with his wife Tehmina. His ornithological pursuits included catching and identifying birds of various species.
Scarlet minivet.
Members of the local tribal community (Kadars), who are familiar with the labyrinths of the forests and endowed with the rare skill of sensing the movement of wildlife, guided him during his bird surveys. Armed with bows and pellets, they killed birds and animals for food.
Coppersmith barbet.
After the Kuriarkutty survey, Salim Ali frequented the area. The vast expanse of evergreen forest captivated him. He has described this experience vividly in his autobiography, The Fall of a Sparrow.
Nilgiri flycai flycatcher
Whenever he visited Kuriarkutty he would tell his disciples: “Why not we go near the bridge over the Kuriarkutty river.... You know there is a towering forest tree there.” He would walk by the side of the river and stop to observe the tree closely with his binoculars. He was struck by the conspicuous presence of the roller and by its nesting and perching habits. He spotted the bird during his first visit itself but serious observations began later. He would tell his disciples (Sugathan and Vijayan included) that the nests were many generations old. No other tree in the surroundings had such a striking feature. The Albizia tree was monopolised by the roller.
Laughing thrush.
A bird enthusiast once asked Salim Ali: “In your estimate, is the broad-billed roller the most beautiful bird?” To which Salim Ali quipped: “Do you mean beauty? It depends on how you look at it. I would sometimes say the crow is a really beautiful bird.” Having said this, the birdman would break into peels of laughter. Bird-watchers sometimes say jovially that Salim Ali would have liked the jungle crow very much, for when observed through the binoculars, its metallic bluish-black feathers glisten like a rainbow.
Salim Ali died in 1987 at the age of 91. He made his last trip to Kerala in 1986 when he was conferred an honorary doctorate degree by the Kerala Agricultural University. On that occasion, he visited Kuriarkutty along with Vijayan and Sugathan. “On reaching Kuriarkutty,” Sugathan says, “he said, ‘now let us go to the towering tree’.”
Malabar whistling thrush.
“Even at that old age, he exhibited child-like innocence and a deep desire to observe the tree and its inhabitants again. He fervently asked: ‘Would I be fortunate enough to see the broad-billed roller again? I am passionate indeed, for the roller has been my passion. That is because that towering tree stands like a colossus carrying the nests of generations’. He looked around. He felt the birds call, and said: ‘I remember, I had noticed the bird during my first visit in 1933 itself’.”
Sugathan continues, “Salim Ali’s anxiety mounted. Amazingly, in a few minutes, a lone bird emerged in an angelic ambience. It perched on a branch and fluttered for a while. Salim Ali was ecstatic. The bird disappeared suddenly. Salim Ali watched keenly through his binoculars and stood speechless for a while. Then, breaking the silence, he asked: ‘Who had the magic wand to attract the bird’.” It was one of the most memorable moments in the lives of the master and his disciples.
River tern.
After the pilgrimage to the tree, Salim Ali expressed a wish to see one of the tribal guides who had led him into the forest during his earlier trips. The elderly man was located in a nearby hut. Though bedridden, he recognised Salim Ali and smilingly asked: “Oh, you have come again to shoot birds and skin them.” The Wildlife Act was not in force when Salim Ali began his bird surveys. Birds were shot with small guns for identification.
FALL OF A SPARROW
“How did you become an ornithologist?” Salim Ali often encountered this question. He would reply without any hesitation: “It all happened when I shot, with my airgun, a yellow-throated house sparrow somewhere in 1908.” Then he was a naughty schoolboy aged 12.
PIED KINGFISHER SWOOPING down for its quarry in the river.
“The fall of a sparrow was the turning point in his life. He approached his uncle, anxious to know why that sparrow had a yellow patch. His uncle in turn sent him to the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) in Mumbai. BNHS Secretary W.S. Millard showed young Salim Ali specimens of hundreds of birds of the Indian subcontinent.
It was the beginning of an epoch. Salim Ali scaled new heights in the field of ornithology and, with his matchless dedication, left behind works of epic dimensions.
The hoopoe.
Vijayan recalls: “Whenever Salim Ali visited Kuriarkutty, after finishing official engagements, he would ask ‘when can we go on the pilgrimage?’ A dilapidated log house at Kuriarkutty was the pilgrim centre.” Once Salim Ali told his disciples in an emotionally choked voice, “my wife Tehmina and I used to skin birds here. Those bird surveys were so great indeed.”
On his last visit, in 1986, he wanted to stay in the wooden house for some time. But by then the house had almost crumbled. Salim Ali was grief-stricken. He stood in the courtyard for some time and wept in silence.
MALABAR TROGON, THE most colourful bird identified and studied by Salim Ali.
The Kerala government has set up the Salim Ali Bird Interpretation Centre at Kuriarkutty at the spot where the log house stood. T.M. Manoharan, Principal Chief Conservator of Forests, said the government planned to develop it into a full-fledged research centre.
Between Chalakudy (50 kilometres from Kochi) and Parambikulam there existed a 68-kilometre tramway via Kuriarkutty. Salim Ali recollects in his autobiography: “The track laid through some magnificent hilly country covered with pockets of wet evergreen here and there in the valley and along streams. Every now and then live cinders from the engine came flying. My shirt and Tehmina’s saree had severe holes.” One of the prized specimens he got from the Kuriarkutty area was a feather-toed crested eagle.
WHITE-THROATED GROUND thrush.
When this writer visited Kuriarkutty, the Forest Range Officer Aboobacker located Krishnankutty, one of the Kadars who had accompanied Salim Ali on his treks. “I have trekked with Salim Ali during the latter part of his bird-watching trips and studies in Kuriarkutty,” he said.
Krishnankutty held one of the fallen branches of the Albizia tree and remarked, “Had Salim Ali seen the fallen tree, he would have been heartbroken.”
GREY-HEADED CANARY flycatcher.
It is 76 years since Salim Ali made his first trip to Kuriarkutty and Parambikulam. The forest cover has vastly diminished thanks to felling of trees, encroachments, habitat destruction and development projects.
“Yet,” Sugathan says, “there are around 280 species of birds left in the Parambikulam-Kuriarkutty area, which is still rich in biodiversity. The bird population is stable. Owing to habitat destruction, the population of the great Indian hornbill, the Ceylon frogmouth and the jungle babbler has diminished, but some new ones have adapted to the environment. There are more waterbirds now since there are dams.”
The Malabar trogon is one of the most colourful birds identified and studied by Salim Ali. It is described as a “bird with a play of colours”. Generally silent, it is known for its musical calls. It likes evergreen moist deciduous areas. The Malabar whistling thrush, referred to as the idle schoolboy, is another attractive bird found in the Western Ghats. Other colourful bird species of the region include the Nilgiri flycatcher, the grey-headed flycatcher, the coppersmith barbet, the ground thrush, the scarlet minivet, the Nilgiri wood-pigeon, the emerald dove, the purple moorhen, the black-crested beza, the laughing thrush, the mottled owl and the river tern.
“Salim Ali’s description of the birds of Kerala and their habitat is so meticulous that one is amazed at his keen sense of observation,”
Friday, December 25, 2009
IYCN BaseCamp on UNFCCC CoP 15 conference in Copenhagen, Denmark
PRESS RELEASE: My special thanks to Mr.Vikramaditya for helping me prepare this .!
The Indian Youth Climate Network (IYCN) has conducted a three day Base Camp at Taramati Baradari in Hyderabad, coinciding with the UN CoP 15 climate talks happening from 7th to the 18th of December in Copenhagen, Denmark. The aim of the Base Camp was to apprise Hyderabadis of the international climate change movement, and the UN climate talks happening currently in Copenhagen, Denmark and the need to press for immediate action. Around 200 participants including students from different colleges, NGO representatives, academics and interested individuals participated in the Base Camp.
14-16th December, 2009
Taramati Baradari Cultural Centre, Hyderabad
The Indian Youth Climate Network (IYCN) has conducted a three day Base Camp at Taramati Baradari in Hyderabad, coinciding with the UN CoP 15 climate talks happening from 7th to the 18th of December in Copenhagen, Denmark. The aim of the Base Camp was to apprise Hyderabadis of the international climate change movement, and the UN climate talks happening currently in Copenhagen, Denmark and the need to press for immediate action. Around 200 participants including students from different colleges, NGO representatives, academics and interested individuals participated in the Base Camp.
The youth present at the Base Camp and the IYCN called for urgent and immediate action to fight climate change by all stakeholders. The youth appealed to the global leaders at the talks to produce a fair, ambitious and equitable global climate change deal, where developed nations demonstrate their commitment by taking steps to curb emissions, as well as assist developing nations through finance for adaptation, mitigation and exchange of technologies.
The inaugural ceremony started with the lighting of the lamp by Mrs. Ramalakshmi, IFS, CCF, APEC, Andhra Pradesh Forest Department. The thematic sessions included presentations on science and history of climate change by Mr. Vikram Aditya, Causes of climate change by Prof. Babu Rao, faculty at the Indian Institute of Chemical Technology; Impacts of climate change on human health by Prof. Maala Rao, Director, Indian Institute of Public Health, Impacts of climate change, mitigation and adaptation to climate change by Mr. Vikram Aditya. Other sessions included daily life practises for a sustainable future by Ms. Indira Sampath, Manager – Operations, Centre for Media Studies (Environment); session on sustainable livelihood and vocational opportunities in the area of climate change; and a presentation on the Right to Information Act and its implications for responding to climate change.
Aside from the thematic presentations, the base camp also included screening of a number of documentary movies on climate change. The movies included Seshasha – the lasting hope, an Assamese movie by Dib Bhuyan about flooding of the Bramhaputra river and the Kaziranga National Park where the resident rhinos were being affected by the floods; The Stone Spouts, about water for all and the various water problems in Nepal, despite Nepal having the second largest water resources next to Brazil; and Ovvuru Sottum, a Tamil movie which says every drop counts by Vaigai Selvi; Melting Point, a set of episodes collected from CNN-IBN on the meltdown of the Himalayan Glaciers by Bahar Dutt, and Home, a visually enthralling documentary on the evolution of the planet and the challenges confronting it because of humans.
The objective of the Base Camp was to highlight the progress, or lack thereof, at the UN climate talks in Copenhagen. A number of videos from the Copenhagen talks were also played, along with clippings of youth actions, including a video address by Ms. Ruchi Jain, IYCN member of the Indian Youth Delegation at the UN climate talks.
A Hot Seat debate was organized, bringing together political party representatives Mr. Katari Srinivas Rao, from the Lok Satta Party, Mr. Shravan Kumar from the Praja Rajyam Party, and Mr. Ram Narasimha Rao from the Communist Party of India, and MLC Professor Nageshwar Rao, students and academics. Mr. Katari Srinivas Rao spoke about how climate change issues received less priority when compared to socio-political issues, and advocated the planting of trees as a solution to climate change. Mr. Shravan said that developed nations were responsible for climate change, and that governance was ineffective and lacked proper enforcement, and that vested political interested were undermining effective long term policy making. Mr. Ram Narasimha Rao, commented that human extravagance was causing wastage of resources, and pollution, such as in the form of plastics and urged for the protection of the environment. Subsequently, participants interacted with the politicians, and questioned them on their views on implementing green policies. Issues covered in the debate included green technologies, green policies, greenhouse gas emissions targets, environmental activism and responsibility by political parties.
A Telugu language drama performed was also organized in the Base Camp, and delivered the message of saving the environment and fighting climate change. A very creative play on nature conservation and climate change was also enacted by young students from the Oxford Grammar School.
The Base Camp was organized with generous support from the Embassy of Denmark to India; the Climate Consortium, Denmark; the Andhra Pradesh Environment Connect; and Red FM apart from support from other individualsCOP 15- a miracle or a disaster ?
Its time to unite and fight our common foe.,climate change. Cop 15 as expected did not end up with any deal.Now the biggest question before us is, COP 15 ..a miracle or a disaster?.
Its surely a disaster,but i believe that it is in our hands to turn it as a miracle,because it gives us a choice to make. This choice enables us exercise our own effective methodologies to fight climate change.
Lets take a wise choice and put the idea of our own sustainable methodologies in front of the world and lets not confine to a legal bonding imposed by western territories! Voluntarily lets all adapt Greenways to fight this problem and show the world, how India can progress.
Its surely a disaster,but i believe that it is in our hands to turn it as a miracle,because it gives us a choice to make. This choice enables us exercise our own effective methodologies to fight climate change.
Lets take a wise choice and put the idea of our own sustainable methodologies in front of the world and lets not confine to a legal bonding imposed by western territories! Voluntarily lets all adapt Greenways to fight this problem and show the world, how India can progress.
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