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Society for Ecology, Environment and Community Outreach
community outreach
Butterfly gardening at schools
In pic: installing a butterfly garden with the participation of students at JNV, Puducherry
School programs
In pic: Wetland education program at Kaliankuppam school, Villupurum dt, Tamil Nadu.The wetland-dependent local community is directly involved in maintaining its quality and bird populations. This program targeted at changing the perception and attitude towards wetland diversity in younger generation and reaching out to the parents through children. The village primary schools in the watershed of Kaliveli, Ousteri and Bahour received this education program which involved bird watching trips, classroom sessions and activities related to wetland.
Awareness programs
In Pic: reaching out to farmers in Ousteri Lake for sustainable farming practices ( with Puducherry Forest Dept). Delivering scientific information to grassroot level and motivating local community is necessary for ensuring sustainable resource management, habitat preservation and species conservation.
nurseries and restoration
TDEF and wild butterfly host plants nursery
In pic: Fruits of Capparis sp. which is a butterfly (Pieridae) host as well as a TDEF straggler. Tropical dry evergreen forest is an endangered coastal evergreen vegetation now existing along coromandel coast as small patches and temple forests. These are also a factory of many butterflies being rich with wild host plants. These forests are highly visited and managed by people, leading to no regeneration and establishment of new individuals in most patches. Religious activities and temple development are another threat that these patches face. Our TDEF nursery preserve seeds and raise saplings of wild trees to augment the wild populations, establishing restoration plots and installing butterfly gardens is being undertaken at Kalapet.
Restoration
In pic: Drypetes malabarica in the restoration plot. Restoring micro and mini scale habitats for species conservation and retrieving some ecosystem functions, is another area of our focus.
Forest nurseries
In pic: Shola forest nursery in the Palani hills. We have three forest nurseries at different elevations in the western ghats to meet the restoration requirements of different habitats. We are very particular that species alien to specific elevation bands and forest types will not be mixed up and only native species will be used at a location. Also we encourage the use of wild ornamentals to encourage the bee and butterfly populations in the front/backyard.
sustainable lifestyle
Workshops
In pic: Solid waste management workshop for hoteliers 2017 facilitated by Dr Rajamanikam. Capacity building and training workshops are organised from time-to-time to empower and disseminate knowledge among stakeholders to manage resources and embrace sustainability.
Clothbag initiatives
We are proud to be among the pioneers of promoting cloth carrybag culture. This 100% unbleached cotton bags was envisioned by Dr Rajamanikam who specialises in solid waste management in order to avoid disposable plastic carrybags and promote the reuse culture. The 'princess bag' with the endemic bird white-bellied sholakili logo was launched at Kodaikanal (Palani hills) in May 2018 and the 'Bay Bag' with the Olive Ridley Sea turtle logo at Pondicherry in the following year. These bags are available in four models - the box tote bag, the normal tote bag, all priced at Rs.50 and the thick market bag with compartments priced at Rs. 150.
wildscaping
One way to make our living spaces more ecofriendly, bee-friendly, butterfly friendly, bird-friendly, and overall local foodweb friendly is to incorporate wild trees and plants in our garden and backyard. People have different ideas/requirement of a home wildscape whether wildtrees, butterfly plants or medicinal plants. We create tailor-made wildscapes and hybrid landscapes to suit the needs of the client even in limited spaces and also conservating foodchains and species in the process.
Documentation
Biodiversity inventories
In Pic: Pondicherry Engineering college bird survey in Nov 2016. We organize bird and butterfly census from time to time and also participate in national events, like bird races.
Bird Walk
In Pic: a bird walk in the Kaliveli IBA with transition school, Auroville. Our school-oriented and citizen bird walk programs are committed to engaging the public in natural history observations.
#SaveOpenbill project
In 2018, sixteen rural schools in the watershed of Kaliveli IBA (Tamil Nadu), Bahour and Ousteri IBAs (Puducherry) were reached out with sessions and information posters for saving the dwindling Asian Openbill Stork populations in Pondicherry bioregion. We also launched a campaign #SaveOpenbill on facebook to join us in this effort. These storks which nest in the vicinity of villages have been disappearing very fast in this region due to habitat loss and poaching. Openbill Stork has a specific diet, and real estate development and reclamation for shrimp farming have been severely affecting them over the past few years. We hope that the efforts would have deterred some students and their parents in hunting this Stork for bushmeat and also collecting its eggs.
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