The Mono Cultured Thorns

On the third day of the ICC field camp I had an opportunity to be at the media presentation by Dr Tarun Chabhra of Toda Nalavalvu Sangam, briefing about various aspects of conservations mechanisms that are entwined in the Toda culture & knowledge base, on the discourse he coined a phrase which compelled me to write this post “the mono culturing the cultural diversity of this world”

Across various civilizations and communities there are intricate practices, accrued knowledge base which has helped them adapt to certain kind of environment and livelihood needs which is inculcated in their cultural fabric as well, thus bringing about the uniqueness among various communities, in the current scenarios the free market driven conglomerates are clinically modifying the social & cultural fabric (even more so the demographic landscape) of every country, if this is the age of global villages with multi faceted culture dotted with Cokes, MacDonald & Pizza Huts fine but these are the prime indicators of mono culturing of our cultural diversity. This macro cultural engineering will lead to broad based dilution of culture in turn gradually affecting the knowledge base and indigenous practices which where organic and sustainable.

A classic example of how the mono culture has intruded in to our system can be seen in the rural farmlands, the farmers where encouraged to use the big conglomerates inorganic chemical fertilizers, pesticides and growth inducers. Conditioning them to move away from traditional farming methods that suited the particular environment (the knowledge base) now the same farmer is reluctant to go back to organic ways.           

PS – after giving makeover to my blog I am some how got hooked on to posting black & white images, will last for awhile I guess.    







     

An Evening with Climate Champions

(in lighter moments to the beats of local drummers)

The International Champions Field Camp got underway yesterday at the Salivation Army – Conference Facility Coonoor.In the inauguration The District Collector Mr Anand Rao Patil spoke on need for the district to be suitably compensated for offsetting the ecological imbalance of this region, and the true beneficiaries of this upland biome was the people in the lowlands, various development aspiration of the people of this hill district are curtailed so that the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve augments the critical carbon wheel of this region.       

We had an informal chat with the champs they are keen to learn at the same time well informed about climate scenarios.The champs will go various places around Nilgiris, will conclude with a valedictory on 30th 

Click here for more photos of the inaugurations

International Climate Champions inaugaration

The Climate Champions are Here

A veiw from asara mattam of the Manalapatti Valley

Time and again I end up divulging a lot on the climate issues. Perhaps it is destined that I write about it invariably. Venu (D.Venugopal) said he is going to pull all stops to highlight the recent devastations & landslides that happened in Nilgiris which he attributes to climate change in Nilgiris, Nilgiri Documentation Center (NDC) that venu founded, firstly did a tribal music concert (Music of the Mountains) in Coimbatore, Now the NDC is priming up to put the Nilgiris on the International Climate Change Map, NDC in association with the British Council is organising the second International Climate Champions Programme (ICCP) in the Nilgiris from January 24 to 30, 2010 The ICCP will consists of 30 young champions chosen across 14 countries 4 candidates have been included from the Nilgiri District. The ICCP will be based in Coonoor (Salivation Army) for 7 days & will be moving around various parts of Nilgiris observing impact of climate change on the people, land, forest, fauna, flora and general ecology of the Nilgiris; thereby interpreting the observations in the context of the respective countries of the participants; and seek to draw common lessons for managing such impact in the future.

They would also try to understand the mitigation measures being taken, their effectiveness and the role of NGOs in the fight against climate change impacts. At the end of the camp, they would develop and administer a learning framework to reinforce the experience to their own contexts and individual learning.

Apart from the observation and interpretations the ICCP will gain mileage in various media & give much needed exposure to the general public about the critical importance of the climate change at the local level, for the same there will be few lounges opened at the Salivation Army Conference facility exhibiting climate features, an art gallery, a Kota pottery sessions, sale of native produces and a photo gallery commemorating 25 years of Save Nilgiris Campaign (SNC).

The Year of Biodiversity

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(shot on clear Tuesday morning Ooty)

Ah yes another year has began now, the staidness of the moments felt by me around me stringed to tabulated numerical significance, conniving to make years out of seconds in no time, making me wonder why sandwich something in between two numerical units and then exhilarate or exonerate, again set out to prophesies for the next set of units – for god sake can the Time be set to infinity?              

The 2009 scenarios, has seen it all the recession the diving markets, the ever increasing political buffoonery, the climate imbroglio, the pandemic turmoil’s, the natural vagaries & what nots. It was uncertainties all the way with lil or nothin to cheer about. Having seen the back of 2009 for good The Twenty Ten should be all but optimistic to the resolute human self. This world at large expects that this optimism reflects all that we have learnt over the past years, thus to prudently engage in balanced, sustainable development actions & polices. 

UN has dedicated 2010 as the YEAR OF BIO DIVERSITY.  Though Biodiversity as a word has become a cliché, the underlying imperativeness has much larger paradigm to it,

Its more like mimicking or reinventing the nature in simple term.

 At the global arena the nature itself has enacted a preview for last couple of year – of the devastating depressions of Indian Oceans, the freak cold wave clamp downs in China and across Europe and hodunit hurricanes on Uncle Sam’s land, Still the leaders of the capital world are euphemistically passing the buck. We have to graduate from giving mere lip service to realize that human race to thrive needs to coexist. So millipede is as important as Microsoft to US.  

WISHES ONE ALL A HAPPY TWENTY TEN.