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World Environment Day Celebrations at ACCC
On World Environment Day, ATREE's Agasthyamalai Community Conservation Centre in collaboration with District Science Centre, National Green Corps, Tamil Nadu Forest Department, Tirunelveli division, and Nellai Nature Club organised a drawing competition, public lecture and a cycle rally at Tirunelveli.
Around 80 students participated in the drawing competition themed 'Air Pollution Around You'. ATREE interns, Harshid Mishra, Shruthi Kottilli, and Sudha Kottilli also gave a public lecture on 'Air Pollution, Global Warming, Climate Change and Us'.
A bicycle rally on the theme 'Back to bicycle for a healthy life and a healthy environment' was organised in the evening. Around 100 cyclists between the age group of 10 to 50 years participated in the event. The cyclists covered a distance of 8 KMs and wore masks to create awareness about air pollution.
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World Environment Day Celebrations at Muhamma Grama Panchayat
ATREE CERC organised World Environment Day celebrations at Muhamma Grama Panchayat, Alappuzha, Kerala. As part of the event, a resolution to ban plastic was taken. J. Jayalal, Muhamma Panchayat President, presented 3000 steel plates and glasses to the Panchayat. These steel utensils will be used in all events associated with the Panchayat. Also, Roopeshkumar, State coordinator of Responsible Tourism Mission, Govt. Kerala, distributed cloth bags.
ATREE CERC members conducted classes to raise awareness about the impact of pollution on our environment and also put up a stall of eco-friendly products. ATREE in association with Bhava produces a host of eco-friendly products like paper pens, seed pencils and cloth bags. There was also a stall by Dr.Nagendra Prabhu and his students from SD college with products made out of Water hyacinth.
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ATREE at the Parisara Sammelana
ATREE was part of the Parisara Sammelana in Doddaballapura on June 15th, 2019. Parisara Sammelana is a public forum for citizens to discuss environmental issues at the taluk level. It was initiated by the local civil society groups and news reporters with support from the district administration.
ATREE's Manjunatha G showcased our research findings on water management in the Arkavathy river basin. He highlighted the impact of extensive groundwater exploitation and eucalyptus plantations on the Arkavathy River.
The one-day event was attended by more than 250 participants and included local civil society groups, youth groups, environmentalists, college students, farmer groups, government representatives, and news reporters.
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Anti Plastic Straw Campaign in Muhamma Grama Panchayat
ATREE in association with Muhamma Grama Panchayat has put in order an action plan to make Muhamma a plastic-free panchayat in a span of few months. As part of this initiative, Muhamma Grama Panchayat and ATREE conducted a campaign against the use of plastic straws in the Muhamma Panchayat area on June 5th, 2019.
Vikhnesh KS, Programme Officer, ATREE, Reema Anand,Senior Programme Officer, ATREE, and K M Poove, Secretary, Lake Protection Forum briefed shop owners and managers on the environmental impact of plastic straws and the need to switch to alternatives. Paper straws were distributed and the list of paper straw suppliers were given to shop owners.
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Informal Discussion with Bram Bucher
Bram Buscher, Professor at Wageningen University, visited ATREE recently. He facilitated an informal discussion on the topic ‘Saving Nature in the Era of Post-Truth Politics and Platform Capitalism’.
The discussion explored a fundamental predicament weighing on many environmentalists - how to share the truth about our environmental crisis in the post-truth era? This question is particularly relevant as current conservation approaches rely on online platforms to increase support for nature conservation. Through the discussion, Bram urged the need to rekindle the art of speaking truth to power.
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Emergency Response Techniques Training at ATREE
A basic emergency response techniques training was conducted at ATREE recently. The training was held in two phases; the first one on 'Fire Fighting' was held on June 18th, 2019 and the second one on 'Emergency Response Techniques' was held on June 27th, 2019. The classes were conducted by ATREE's Lakshmi Pranuti, a certified trainer.
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Summer School - Adapting to Climate Change: A Focus on Biodiversity in the Western Himalayas
The University of Kashmir (UoK) and ATREE organised a summer school -“Adapting to Climate Change: A Focus on Biodiversity in the Western Himalayas”.This programme being held at the University of Kashmir is part of a series of training and capacity building programmes supported by the SPLICE Division, Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, through a grant to ATREE. The event will conclude on July 6th, 2019.
ATREE Senior Fellow, G Ravikanth, gave a lecture on 'The Biogeography of the Himalayas and Western Himalayas'. The first week was devoted to classroom lectures and skill building. ATREE's Jagdish Krishnaswamy, Aravind Madhyastha, Ankila Hiremath, Soubadra Devy, Siddhartha Krishnan also gave talks on various topics. The second week was dedicated to field projects. Throughout, there were invited talks and discussions to engage participants in issues topical to climate change and biodiversity in this region.
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ATREE at UWC Mahindra College
ATREE's Rinan Shah co-facilitated a summer programme, 'YES: Youth, Environment and Sustainability' at UWC Mahindra College recently. The programme sessions were themed on Sustainable Development Goals, Conservation, Water Crisis, Waste, Agrarian Crisis, Waste, and Role of Culture in Environment.
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ATREE at the Zoological Society of London
ATREE's Madhushri Mudke recently gave a talk on 'The Dancing Frog of India' at the Zoological Society of London (ZSL). She is an EDGE fellow and aims to understand the ecological niche requirements and threats to the critically endangered Kottigehar dancing frog, Micrixalus kottigeharensis. Her project will provide key insights on basic ecology, distribution and threats to this enigmatic and threatened species.
The EDGE of Existence programme is the only global conservation initiative to focus specifically on threatened species that represent a significant amount of unique evolutionary history.
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ATREE at the Princeton University
ATREE Fellow, Shoibal Chakravarty, attended the inaugural workshop of the Rapid Switch collaboration in Princeton University from June 12th to June 13th, 2019. The Rapid Switch collaboration brings together researchers from USA, India, China and Australia to collaborate on research projects to explore the rapid decarbonization of the global energy system. Shoibal spoke on 'India's Cooling Challenge in the coming decades'.
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ATREE at ICWaR Seminar
ATREE's Senior Fellow, Veena Srinivasan, delivered a talk on 'India's water crisis: bridging the science-policy-practice gap' at the Interdisciplinary Centre for Water Research (ICWaR) seminar. The talk held on June 26th, 2019 at IISc Bangalore highlighted the urgent need for use-inspired water research.
The talk also looked at how science actually translates into policy and practice and what policy levers or game changers could be employed to ensure that scientific research actually informs efforts to adopt them.
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Teachers' Workshop on Disaster Preparedness
ATREE CERC, the District Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) Alappuzha, and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) together organized a one-day Teachers’ workshop on disaster preparedness in Kuttanad Education District. 52 teachers from 30 schools attended the workshop.
The aim of the workshop was to impart a culture of preparedness at the school level at the time of a disaster or emergency situation. The workshop consisted of a series of interactive sessions on a range of topics like disaster management, fire and safety, and emergency medical first aid.
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Dr. Laurence Carvalho at ATREE
Dr. Laurence Carvalho, Professor, Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, Natural Environment Research Council, Edinburgh, UK visited ATREE recently. His visit was a part of the ongoing collaboration between ATREE and CEH on the project - ‘Sustainable Use of Natural Resources to Improve Human Health and Support Economic Development’ (SUNRISE). The main objective of the project is to develop water quality indicators in Bangalore lakes. Dr Laurence visited Jakkur and Bellandur lakes to understand and take part in monitoring the lakes under different management practices.
Dr. Laurence and Dr. Priyanka Jamwal of ATREE together gave a talk on 'Enhancing Freshwaters in Bangalore'. They presented results from two contrasting urban lakes, with and without sewage treatment (Jakkur and Bellandur Lakes respectively), highlighting the benefits of wastewater treatment for water quality, ecological health and reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.
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Youth Training Programme (YTP) launched at Berambadi
ATREE and James Hutton Institute together launched the 'The Youth Training Programme (YTP)’ on June 27th, 2019 at Berambadi Government School, Gundlupet, Karnataka. YTP was organised as part of the ongoing research project Decentralised Wastewater Treatment- Global Innovation for Sustainable Communities funded by Scottish Government.
The objective of the training programme was to build capacity towards the sustainable, community-led management of the Decentralised Wastewater Treatment System by embedding the system’s knowledge within the community.
Five interns, school teachers, and students were part of this programme. ATREE Fellows, Priyanka Jamwal and Durba Biswas explained the functioning of the Decentralised Wastewater Treatment System (DWWTS) to the participants
YTP also aimed to provide employable skills to youth such as understanding, operating and running a water treatment system. Participants had the opportunity to learn about the demand for these skills through a field visit to Bangalore. The interns were provided a certificate upon the completion of the programme.
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PREP Talk on Grant Writing
The Academy for Conservation Science and Sustainability Studies organised the third PREP Talk on June 26th, 2019. The talk 'Grant Writing' was conducted by ATREE Director, Nitin Pandit. The talk focused on different kinds of funding organisations, important elements of a proposal and objectives. Post the talk, the students had a discussion with Nitin about various ways of writing grants.
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Students from GKVK at ATREE
Eight PhD students from College of Horticulture, GKVK, Bengaluru visited ATREE on June 20th, 2019 to learn about various research initiatives ATREE.
ATREE Academy Coordinator, Milind Bunyan, introduced the students to research initiatives and the Academy. ATREE Senior Fellow, G Ravikanth, had a discussion with the students on medicinal plants. Post the presentations, students visited ATREE's Genetics lab and Eco-informatics lab.
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ATREE's Veena Srinivasan calls for an Integrated Urban Water and Wastewater Management plan as the necessary first step to address the water crisis in our cities. Read More... |
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ATREE's Sharachchandra Lele makes a case for understanding the role of colonialism in our Forest Policy and the need to redefine forest sector goals to promote democratic decentralization. Read More... |
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