One Day State Level Seminar on Urban Green Initiatives for Environment Teachers
& Kenneth Anderson Memorial Lecture, 2011
Date : Wednesday, 16th March 2011
Venue : MLA Academy of Higher Learning, 14th Cross, Malleswaram Bangalore 560003

Report by Jayaram Karkala

The programme started at 9.30 A.M. with the welcome address by the Principal Dr.Padmaja.
The official inauguration was done by lighting the lamp, and a Kannada song on Mother Earth.

All audience took the following Nature Pledge:
We, who have gathered here today, take a solemn pledge

1. To conserve and protect Mother Nature in all possible ways
2. To be compassionate towards all creations including fellow humans, animals, insects, plants, trees, rocks etc.
3. To conserve water and its resources.
4. To reduce the use of plastics & leather.
5. To recycle and reuse all nature resources as much as possible.
6. To reduce pollution in all forms.
7. To reduce carbon foot prints on our planet.

Jay, Secretary KANS spoke on KA and KANS .

Mr. B K Singh

Then Chief Guest Mr. B.K.Singh spoke on problems faced by Karnataka FD on man –animal conflict. He cited population growth and encroachment on jungles by people on the fringes of forests, as main the reason for such occurrences. He said that conflict of interest is there even in villages, where FD have spent lakhs of rupees for solar fencing. People have removed pockets of solar fences for their easy movement into forests for collection of firewood, honey etc. The elephants use this openings for raiding crops. He even stated that a recent experiment to relocate elephants from tea estates have failed after the elephants who were born in tea estates do not like forests and they come back to estates. Thus there are many problems, he said, unknown to public on man-animal conflicts. He cited that food crops like ragi etc should not be cultivated with in 5 kms of elephant corridors, to prevent elephant raiding crops.

Sri Suresh Heblikar

 

Kenneth Anderson Memorial Lecture was delivered by Sri Suresh Heblikar, who held the audience spell-bound by his oratory. His first subject was the loss of lakes in Bangalore. He said that he can show from records that 20 years ago all major lakes were connected together in with overflow systems. With the encroachment of real estate, all connections are cut and lakes have dried up. Even marsh at the edges of lakes was bio-diversity pockets in those days. With sand mafia’s activities, the lakes have disappeared. The next topic he mentioned was the influx of rural population to cities. The infrastructure requirements like water, power have reached exorbitant proportions, making it impossible for govt to provide them. He advocated basic needs of villages to be met, youth employment opportunities given in villages to reduce this influx. The third point he stated was that Tiger, being a glamorous animal, is being used by every conservationist in talks and plans. He insisted that saving bio-diversity should cover conservation of all animals, insects, birds etc, not the only just the tiger. His speech was well received by the audience.

Karthik JLR speaks

After a break, morning session started with session on Urban Ecology by Mr. Kartikeyan of JLR. He engrossed the students with his slide show and inimitable interesting interactive session. He told so many unknown facts about common insects, snakes, and rodents encountered every day by urban people. The audience, in future after this session, will see all urban insects, animals in a different perspective.

The next session was by Hasiru-Usiru team of Vinay Sreenivasa and Seshadri, with a slide show explained about trees of Bangalore and efforts taken by HasiruUsiru to protect through activism/appeals.

The next session was Shubha/ Karan of Biome- Solutions on Rain water harvesting. They explained in details various aspects, methods, and advantages of RWH.

A short film on KANS shown to the audience was much appreciated, as seen in feed back forms.

A nature quiz was conducted by KANS team of Girish/ Warrier. A prelim was done with 20 teams during lunch break, short listing 4 teams for the finals.

During Lunch break another short film on Sholas was shown to the audience.

Post lunch session started with ATREE team talking on Urban trees and their conservation. This topic was well received by the audience.

Nine teams presented papers for environment competition, and were judged by KANS team of Girish/Warrier/Nirmala.

quiz finals

The finals of Nature quiz was conducted in a very interesting manner with power point by KANS team of Warrier/Girish. The whole audience also enjoyed the quiz by participating and answering for questions which the finalists could not answer.

Feed back forms (designed by Girish-KANS) were collected back from all participants for analysis by the college authorities. They would inform us the feed back points in a few days. The successful, satisfactory Seminar ended with Vote of Thanks by Dr.Kalyani.