Honnemaradu, where apart from a lot of swimming – I had the good fortune of meeting this extraordinary gentleman named Swami (founder of Adventurers club, you might have heard about him). I say fortunate because its not easy to encounter him, he hardly ever stays in one place.
******
He and his comrades are doing tremendous work to save the forests in the western ghats – which is in grave danger *today* – forget about a decade later, next generation, etc.
His contact details are here:
[Thanks to this report Honnemardu – a place out of your world !!]
Mr. Swamy, Ms. Nomita (his wife)
The Adventurers
142, 69th Cross, 5th Block, Rajajinagar, Bangalore INDIA 560 010
Phone: 91-80-3305508 or 91-80-3409712
He was invited by the Malaysian government to formulate the syllabus for environmental awareness in their schools, just to give an idea of his credibility.
******
While talking about humans versus forests/animals, the emphasis need not be on the “versus” . I dont think any wise conservationalist would be prejudiced against humans just for his love for animals, he would end up being a very lonely conservationalist 🙂 No one-sided approach would even really be practical. What is needed as Chaitra says is a win-win situation.
I try to summarize here what I gather from my discussion with the Adventurers – Mr. Swami and other comrades.
Problem:
Western Ghat forests are getting destroyed by tribals or villagers. They are in an economically bad state. What do they do? They chop down trees and sell the timber. That gets them money for a bit more time.
Alternative Solution:
Go around campaigning, save trees, save forests. Educate them about drought and famine and other havoc caused due to extensive deforestation.
— though this helps, it doesnt really work, because even if 5% get convinced, the required critical mass isnt achieved.
Solution given by Adventurers:
(a) There is one lady who has done a PhD in home science. She teaches the villagers to identify fruit bearing trees, harvest them, and make indigenous products like jams, pickles, etc out of them. Hence the forest which provided a short term financial benefit of timber, is now providing a long term financial benefit – because harvesting is something that can be done repeatedly.
(b) There are very talented people there – the villagers have a special kind of art – of drawing on walls with a twig of chronological events of a person. For eg for a couple who get married, they draw a marriage drawing on the wall. The drawing is very intricate and though it is by bare hands, it has amazing geometric precision. I saw some of it and was very impressed. This art is very unique, but is dying out since nobody is making any money out of it.
For both (a) and (b) the products or the art are unknown since it is a secluded world. There needs to be some channel for it to get to where they can make money out of it.
Wrt (a) – Some infrastructure was built. A society was established as a link between these products and the city. City contacts were provided so that the products can be delivered to them. The society (very informal) works similar to the proxy-stub design pattern (taking software terminology).
Wrt (b) – Several key expert artists were identified, and provision was made to train others in the art. Similar bridge was established between homes in cities so that people can get such drawings done in their homes. Not only on walls, they were encouraged to draw on paper also making greeting cards, paintings, etc. These two are sold in cities.
So you see these types of solutions are possible. There may be some glitches in my explanation – also I dont know how many things have actually happened, how many problems they are facing, etc. But just to give a brief idea. When I heard all this, I was really floored.
Here is a suggestion for anyone interested on these lines:
Go to Honnemaradu. Freak out in the water – (one of the visitors said to me that he had been to Maldives and this is better than that 😉 ) Learn specialised skills like canoeing and windsurfing at a very reasonable cost, and with high safety standards. Camp on the islands and climb the hills early in the morning to catch the sunrise. Explore forests and theres even an old fort nearby. It is a paradise for photographers. It has everything – water – wide variety of birds – a nearby ancient fort (I didnt go here) – rare plants and trees. Researchers come here from many places in the world to research on one of these areas. You will have to compromise on luxury, however 😉 Learn something about the place and its surroundings. This will be rewarding for oneself as well as the forest.
Leave a Reply to Sanjay Cancel reply