Dabguli field visit April 7/8 2012

Paid a visit to Dabguli earlier last month on 7^th and 8^th April. My previous vist was a single day affair but this time I thought of making it into an overnight visit since the fullmoon was also due.

Took off late in the morning of 7^th April from Bangalore after getting the necessary permission from the DFO. As I crossed Manjukondapalli and was heading towards the Kestur checkpost, a tractor laden with dry wood vroomed past me. I was unable to note down any details because of the dust raised by the tractor.

Few minutes later I reached the Kestur checkpost, where I found that the notice boards that KANS had sponsored and which I had seen intact just about a month back had been vandalised and completely defaced. This, I guess, was bound to happen sooner or later considering that though there is a checkpost, there is nobody to man it

Solemnly I rode the next 4 kms to Dabguli. The APC was locked and I was told by one of the persons (I think his name is Venkatasamy, an old guy who has left his family and has made Dabguli his home…he is fondly addressed by the guards and watchers as ‘Dadi’ owing to his long white beard) staying around, that the watcher, Narayan, had gone to his village in Belpatti  and would be back on the next day.  Anyway, I told him that I would be around for the next 24 hrs and he had the keys to the APC and he opened it and I kept my stuff inside and went out for a stroll.

Returned after a couple of hrs by when Narayan had also come back. When I asked him why he didn’t go to Belpatti, he said that he had seen me enroute and so he changed his mind and came back. Then I started chatting with him:

• Who were those people in the tractor who were driving away with dry wood?: Don’t know. But very obviously, they have taken it from the forest.
• Who are these people picknicking(These people had come in 2 vehicles. The elders relaxed  in chairs, the women folk sat on mat with food and refreshments ready and gen-x were playing in the river)?: Don’t know.

• Who are these drunkards?: Don’t know. They came the previous evening. They have brought booze and NV, both chicken and mutton. They cooked their food themselves and have been drinking continously since last evening.

• Where is the shop which was there last month?: He closed it after Ugadi and went back to his village. Why is this hut still here?: Seena and family have shifted to Uganiyam, don’t know why the hut is still here. The Ranger is not showing any interest in removing this. Even when the Ranger visits Dabguli, he hangs out at the hut instead of the APC and interacts with the fisherman and tries to extract information about us like when we come, where we go, what we do etc.
• But isn’t Anaiappan at Uganiyam?: No, some famlily problem  happened and he has moved out. Seena has got license to ferry from Karnataka FD.
• Then why are they staying in TN forests?: Don’t know. And its unfair because unlike like me where I am staying alone in forest and my family is in my village, these people are staying with their family inside forest! Is it not possible to transfer these forests to Government? (I guess that he was asking whether these forests can be made into PA)
• Why is there so mouch poultry here?: These have been brought by Seena’s family.
• What about the dogs?: The dogs here (2-3 around the APC) are mine and they are harmless. The other dogs (3-4) probably came here by following people who come for the jathre and since food was available here, they stayed back. But food is not there always. And because of this, they have begun to threaten the wildlife around. Just last week, I saw one of them running off with a leg of chital. (As I was speaking to him, the ‘other dogs’ tried making an attempt at one of the goats and Dadi had to intervene to drive them away).My dogs don’t do anything. Even if I am not here for 1-2 days they stay at the APC only and wait for me to come back and give them food.
• What about these goats?: These 2 goats here belong to a muslim person in Anekal and he has given it to Dadi for rearing. Otherwise, there are others who bring their goats. When Ranger visits, he imposes a fine of Rs.200 per goat head and if the shepherd cannot pay it, the onus comes onto us.
• How is plantation work going on?: Don’t ask. We have been working so hard but all our hard work is getting eaten by boars. We keep on working but there is no progress!
• Where is Selva?: He quit as watcher. First of all, he has not been getting his salary of Rs.800 for 4-5 months. He used to somehow manage by making some income from ferrying, but ever since this plantation work began, we are not able to do ferrying also since we are at the plantation all day.
• A different question. Where are GGS nests? : There are 3 on the way to Uganiyam and one towards our right.
• That’s all?: Yes, that is all what I have seen
• What else can be seen here?: Leopards! I have seen some huge pugmarks! And there are wild dogs.
• Really? Where?: Can’t pinpoint where they will be. Their scat can be seen in several places. There are 2 packs. One around 7 nos and the other around 15 nos. Its surprising that your CTs did not get them. We picked up one carcass few days back, do you want to see it??

He clambered up the roof of the APC and brought down  with him the carcass of a Chital with huge horns and some portion of its skin. I asked him why he is retaining these instead of discarding them in the forest and he said that the Ranger has told him to retain them. He has kept it on the roof because of the stench it causes. He said that there was another carcass he had found in the river that he has kept inside the APC. We went inside and he showed the skull and horns of another Chital which probably had gotten eaten up by a croc. I asked him what he does with all these collections instead of letting them be in the forest. He said that occassionally they get ‘picked up’ by the officers and what they do with it, he does not know.

Night inside the APC was hot. I walked towards the temple to see how the night activities there are. There are about 4-5 tubelights that are on all night. Even the APC has drawn a line from the pole  and they use it to light up the APC. I got all lights inside the APC to be switched off. But there was one tube just outside the APC that was sufficient to cater to the adjoining hut where Dadi and our watchers have dinner. One of the 5 temples was playing bhajans from radio. I don’t know till how late in the night this lasts.

Night sleep was broken regularly, by heat but more by the barking by the dogs for the slightest disturbance they felt. I feel that the dogs have to be removed from here, and in the most humane manner. Earlier in the evening when I was chatting with the watcher, he said that that he has got instructions to kill the dogs by any possible means. He is clueless about what means to adopt and was asking me if I could get some dog catchers from Bangalore to capture these ‘near-feral dogs’.

Morning of 8^th April…woke up around 6am. Had a quick wash and I went out and spent a good 2 hrs trekking, saw roughly 20-25 chitals, a wild boar, a huge raptor…altogether had a good time which I ended with a safe dip in the Cauvery :D

Immediate things to do with FD:

• Send proposal to the DC for checkpost at Kestur and Balagada
• Re-activate the checkpost at Manjugondapalli
• Send proposal to the DC to declare Dabguli as plastic-free and sound-free zone
• Remove all illegal huts from Dabguli and Uganiyam
• Evict all people residing illegally at Dabguli and Uganiyam
• Remove all domestic animals from Dabguli
• Ensure presence of atleast 1 watcher at Dabguli at all times

Dabguli field visit

Visited Dabguli last weekend to inspect the condition of the place post the Jathre that happened on Feb 4/5. Thankfully, the Jathre committee had lived up to their words and cleaned the place of all the used food plates and quite a bit of the plastic waste. However, there is an increasing frequency of festivities at the temple here (and the revelry that normally accompanies such festivities) and this is putting an increasing pressure on the bio-diversity of this area.

Apparently,the temple does not allow cooking within its vicinity and because of this,the visitors happily cook on the vast stretch of forest land that is available at their disposal.

A shop has come up close by. This was put up in Feb 2012 during the Jathre and the owner has continued to stay put there to make some earning from the marriages, smaller jathres and other people who visit the temple.

A fisherman has been staying with his wife and carrying out unlicensed fishing and ferry services for around couple of years. I noticed few chicken also clucking around and couple of goats and sheep and dogs lazing around. Of wildlife, I could not see anything around, which is pretty obvious since there is so much of human presence here.

The stone idols that have been put up at the river bank are still there despite the FD’s assurance that they would remove it.

Heard from the dabguli watcher that considerable progress had been made on the FD’s grand plans to grow elephant fodder and so I rode towards Uganiyam to check this out. The place has been nicely cleared and some portions had been ploughed and planted with what I was told were some varieties of grass and jowar and horsegram.

Went further to Uganiyam APC and met our friendly watcher Chandu. I congratulated him on the progress at the plantation and he rued that cattle and livestock have been devouring the fresh saplings.
The APC is being made more luxurious with the addition of a kitchen to the existing 2 rooms. An APC with 1 bedroom, hall and kitchen for 1 watcher…Chandu must be one happy dude!

It was past lunch time by now and I made my way back to Dabguli and to Bangalore. Since it was almost 2pm by the time I left from Dabguli, I was hoping that atleast by now someone would have come to man the Kestur checkpost. But it was still open to all and sundry who want to visit the temple or picnic on the banks of Cauvery and do ‘jolly’!

Talk about Melagiri conservation issues at the Trek Polamaa III

Dear Friends,

Sanjeev will be speaking about the conservation issues in Melagiris at the Trek Polamaa event on behalf of KANS. The talk is scheduled for 4 PM on 10th. There are a lot of other interesting topics over 2 days. Please do attend.

Mammal Survey 2012

Volunteers on the beat

The mammal survey conducted at the Hosur Forest Divison also popularly known as Melagiris has entered its third year of joint survey with Kenneth Anderson Nature Society.

This year around 70 volunteers ,  participated in the Block count Synchronized mammal Survey for 2 days. Volunteers as far as Coimbatore and a batch from local NGO working at Satyamangala forest also attended the survey. The entire operation of arranging the logistics, forms, travel and food was being taken care by the handful of KANS co-ordinators. Krishnagiri and Hosur ranges had to be dropped due to shortage of volunteers.

Orientation program

Registration and an orientation session was arranged by KANS at the DFO office in Mathigiri. Sanjeev took the volunteers through a PPT explaining the bio-diversity of the Melagiris, do and don’ts during the mammal survey and precautions to be taken when on field

Leopard Scat

Block count survey aims at counting the mammals in a given block, here called beats through direct and indirect sighting such as pug and hoof marks and scat and dung and scrape marks on trees and ground.

Guar spotted at Denkanikota

This year around the survey showed increased Gaur sighting in several ranges. Indirect signs of Leopard have also markedly increased. The elephant sighting on par with last year was much less since the larger herd had already migrated.

Survey team

Some of the interesting sightings were : Barking deers, Four Horned Antelopes, Sambars and Otters. ACF Padma who talked to the volunteers at the end of the survey thanked the volunteers for participating in the survey.

Observations:

Forest Fire

Illegal Bamboo extraction

Illegal Sandalwood extraction

The exciting sightings however were over-shadowed in many ranges by forest fires set by miscreants ,large density of cattle grazing in places that has cleared all the grasses and undergrowth, illegal bamboo and timber extraction, excessive tamarind harvesting and the death of a female elephant .

About forest fires:

“Largely mistaken as natural fires the forest fires in India are almost always man-made. The fire that was seen spreading across vast regions together with cattle grazing has played a significant role in clearing all the ground storey species. All the regenerated seedlings from last year have perished in the fire. Such continuous fire year after year don’t only mean a stagnant forest with no new regeneration but also gives way to fast spreading Lantana, Eupatorium and Parthenium species that inivetably dry up in summer and add fuel to the fire when torched. Although all large mammals escape the fire the ground dwelling birds, insects and helpless little ones of all species perish in the fire. These fires either set up by the department as control fire or mostly by miscreants who put fire to encourage growth of grass for their cattle.”

Forest fire

Dabguli 2012 – Preventing plastic pollution and Alcohol consumption at the source

A few things that were observed by KANS during the Jatre of 2011 were:

1. The major problem seems to be alcohol consumption
2. The major chunk of pollution are the food plates and the vendors selling plastic bags/cups

This year around KANS invited Green Commandos to prevent the plastic entering the forests by scanning for any plastic items on the people visiting the festival and replacing them by paper bags sourced by Green Commandos.

Pre-festival announcement – 28^th Jan 2012

Hand-bill distribution

Hand-bill distribution

 Handbills written in Tamil and Kannada were circulated in all the villages (around 40 villages were covered) surrounding Dabguli by KANS volunteers and FD staff.

Public announcement 

Announcements were also made via the public announcement system warning people that plastic must not be used within the forests; Alcohol and such items will be confiscated at the check-post; Felling of trees is prohibited and Entry from the checkpost after 6pm will be restricted due to elephant movement.

On the festival at Dabguli – 4^th Feb 2012

The KANS was divided into 3 teams one at the Balagadapallam checkpost, one at Kestur checkpost and the rest at the temple.

Check-post : Regulation of plastic and Alcohol 

 Plastic and alcohol monitoring at the Kestur checkpost 

 Confiscated Alcohol

 Confiscated Plastic items

 KANS together with the FD confiscated all alcohol and plastic items at the checkposts. The teams stayed until 10pm in the night and a total of 240 liquor items were confiscated and several Kgs of plastic items in the form of bags, coverings, cups were confiscated. The Vendors were compensated by providing paper bags replacing plastic bags and paper cups replacing plastic cups.

The people were generally supportive of the initiative to disallow plastic usage within the forests. However the vendors who were to set up shops and people who turned up with liquor provided some resistance parting with the items.

Plastic control at the temple 

 Banner being put up near the pit

 The team stationed at the temple area put up several banners discouraging people on the plastic usage and indicating the general direction of the dugout pit to dispose the areca leaf food plates.

 Distribution of baskets for waste collection

 Several waste baskets were provided to the shop keepers to dump the paper and bio-degradable waste generated.

 Exchange of plastic items with paper cups and bags

Volunteers who toured the entire area took away any plastic cups/bags from the vendors and replaced them with equal quantity of paper cups and bags sourced by KANS. However the waste generated by packaged material in form of chips etc., could not be controlled.

 FD patrolling the temple area

Local police and Forest Department staff further made a note of the vendors selling items in plastic despite the prior announcement and gave a stern warning. They also patrolled regularly keeping a lookout for illegal activities and alcohol consumption.

By night fall the crowd had swelled to unmanageable proportions and plastic cups and bags were seen strewn around.

Post festival clean-up – 5^th Feb 2012 

 Volunteers cleaning up the temple area

 Cauvery banks and temple area after the festival

 The following evening of the 2nd day the last of the crowd had left and the shops were packed. All the banners were stolen and the lone pit overflowed with the leaf plates. The amount of waste in the form of plates, discarded food , paper and plastic waste was phenomenal. The volunteers who started early by afternoon could only finish 1/5th of the debris.

With lack of transport to take away the plastic waste and clear the remaining place, the committee was again reminded to clear the place by themselves.

 Overall the Dabguli 2012 event went smoothly and was a great success. Almost 80% of plastic and alcohol control was achieved. The 25 volunteers who participated the event coming from Chennai, Coimbatore, Hosur and Bangalore did a tremendous job!

Wildlife census, Hosur Forest Division, 25th -26th Feb 2012

Dear Friends,

The wildlife census of Hosur Forest Division is being organised on the 25th and 26th of February 2012. I hope you will be able to take part in this exercise and explore the beauties of Melagiris and help the cause of conservation.

The brief program is as follows:

24th February 2012:
1:00-2:00 PM Mathigiri cattle farm – Lunch
2:00 to 4:00 PM – Orientation
4:00 to 4:30 Tea
4:30 : Departure to respective areas.

25th February
5:00 AM – Wake up call
6:00 AM Census begins

26th February
2:00 PM Census ends.

If you wish to participate, please fill in form below. Please feel free to forward this email to your friends who might be interested. We look forward to seeing you.

(Please register only when you are sure of attending as dropping out in the last minute creates a lot of confusion!)

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dENXMHMxdVdvbGlFcGxfRml5ZnM3QXc6MQ

Warm Regards

Sanjeev Kumar S R +919362321000
Kenneth Anderson Nature Society.

Call for Volunteers: Minimising Pollution at Dabaguli Jatre – 2012

(Urigam Range, Hosur Forest Division, Tamil Nadu)

Dabaguli is a picturesque place on the banks of the Cauvery in the Urigam forest range of the Hosur forest division. An antipoaching camp of Tamilnadu forest department and a small shack housing a fisherman family are the only human presence for most part of the year. A small Nandi temple is the only relic from times long ago when Dabguli hosted a cattle patti (kraal).

This sleepy little temple sees a thin stream of visitors throughout the year. However once a year a huge crowd of about ten thousand people descend on this idyllic spot from surrounding villages in Tamilnadu and Karnataka for the annual Dabguli Jatre (festival) around the time of Shivrathri. This grand overnight event has various poojas, dramas, bon fire, illegal alcohol consumption etc.

This is a cause for concern as these environs are home to the highly endangered Grizzled Giant squirrel and a host of other wildlife including chital, sambhar, elephants, leopard, jackal and four horned antelope. The plastic litter left behind by this crowd is not only an eyesore but also a big environmental threat.

Last year Kenneth Anderson Nature Society (KANS) interacted with the organising committee of the Jatre to contain the environmental impact. The villager folk and the organising committee sincerely acknowledged the pollution caused by the event. KANS convinced the committee to use bio degradable arecanut leaf plates instead of plastic and thermacol plates to serve the 25000 meals that will be dished up during the festival. A part of cost of the plates was also given.A screening of the Kannada Version of ‘Tales from an Indian Jungle (the one about Nagarhole) was planned at the spot during the festival.

This year, the festival is marked to fall on the 4th and 5th of February, 2012, and KANS has invited Green Commandos to prevent the plastic entering the forests by scanning for any plastic items on the people visiting the festival and replacing them by cloth bags sourced by Green Commandos. Awareness about the ill effects of plastic and ban of plastic usage in the forest will be propagated by loudspeaker announcement and pamphlet distribution prepared by KANS into the participating villages by the forest department before the festival scheduled on 28th and/or 29th Jan 2012. Additionally local police have been requested to monitor the illegal Alcohol consumption. Volunteers along with the department staff will keep watch at the checkposts, patrolling etc.,
We require 40-50 volunteers during to carry out this program. The major task will be distribution of hand-bills, scanning of plastic bags and liquor, patrolling during festival and post-festival clean-up. The proposed itinerary is as follows:

Jan 28 and/or 29th 2012 (Number of volunteers – 6) – completed
1. Assemble at Silk board junction at 6am on 28th morning and proceed to Hosur DFO office, Mathigiri
2. Divide the team into 2, each team with the FD staff to visit the villages via the public announcement vehicle and oversee/distribute the hand-bills.
3. Return by evening 6-7pm
We need 6 volunteers for this activity who can speak either Kannada and/or Tamil fluently.

Feb 4th and 5th

Please fill the below form. You can access the same over here too. (Registrations closed. Please contact the numbers given above if you wish to volunteer)

Elephant Herding

Tuesday 3, 2012.    Sanamavu reserve forest, Hosur Forest Division.

Thillai called me around noon about some specialist elephant drivers brought in from Karnataka. We immediately decided to go and check out this novelty of imported elephant drivers and were joined by Shanmugam. They turned out to be people from Devarabetta. Beaters had also mobilized from Jawlagiri, Gullatti, Rayakota.

But it all seemed woefully inadequate when we were confronted by an army of flapping ears in the early afternoon sun. I could make out at least 4 adult tuskers with decent sized tusks and it was difficult to count the calves, juveniles and females. The count was rumored to be close to 70 elephants.

These elephants had been driven from Dakshin Tirupathi, close to NH7 and had already covered atleast 12kms and crossed a State highway. They were now resting in the heat of the day.

As the day cooled down a bit, and the elephants began to move. But it looked like the wrong direction! The thing about elephants is that they follow the contour of the land, so what looks like a march to the east may well end up in the west.

After a couple of aborted attempts to move out of the valley in which they were resting, it was dark by the time they were finally on their way.

The culprit was farmer, who was secretly heading them off by bursting crackers when they turned in the direction of his beans plot which was about 100 mtrs off the path of the elephants. The stubborn farmer stripped down to his blue shorts and stood his ground refusing to move even with the elephants headed in his direction.

It was well past sunset when we got to know that the elephants had crossed the first road and were on their way to cross a railway track and Kelamangalam-Rayakota state highway.  Thillai, Shanmugam and I finally landed up at Jakkeri beyond Kelamangalam with three forest guards. DFO Ulaganathan was already at the expected crossing point with Ranger Sukumar.

This point was a road with gradual slope from water and some cultivation beyond which ran the railway line about 500 mtrs away from the road. Behind the railway line were low hills and Sanamavu RF.  The other side of the road had a few houses and open cultivation.

Shanmugam spoke to the AE of the Electricity department and they responded immediately by shutting off the streetlights in that stretch. We stopped the traffic on both sides and waited for the arival of the elephants being driven by beaters. The Railway department was instructed to reduce the speed of all trains on the track to 20 kmph.  A few years ago, 5 elephants were run over by a train not far from this place.

Soon we could now see the beams from the elephant torches and could plainly make out crackers going off. Two trains chugged along a few minutes after the elephants crossed the track. But it took an agonizing wait of nearly 45 minutes when the beaters ran out of crackers and the elephant torches died down before the elephants crossed the road and went over to the other side. The restless crowd did not help matters. Finally, there was open ground between elephants and Denkanikota reserve forest which was still another 7kms away.

DFO, ACF Padma and I drove over to the place where the elephants had crossed and were examining the foot prints. We then spent about ten minutes with the DFO and ACF giving further instructions and orders to wind down the operation and send everyone home. I wanted get back to my car and drive further down the road and pick up Thillai, Shanmugam and other guards who were at the other end of the road.

There was a half moon skipping in and out of clouds lighting up the entire scene as we stood on the road.  I became aware of a continuous rustling sound. It took me a fraction of a second to locate the sound as coming from my left behind the ACF.

I saw what I thought was a final group of beaters making their way back towards us. The funny thing was they seemed to be moving as one, all closely huddled to together about 20 feet from us. I think my mind refused to accept them as elephants even though it was plain as day that is what they were. I remember saying “Madam what’s that? Madam what’s that?”. Some one shouted “yaane odu” and I found myself sprinting along the road with all the other people.

We pulled up after a few meters and someone shone a torch I counted five elephants abreast of us on the other side of the road. The laggards got together and shuffled away towards Denkanikota RF. We were all laughing in releif.

The elephants were intent on getting across the road and did not bother to go after us. A motorcycle parked where we were standing was knocked down by the adult female. How they got so close to us across open ground with at least 20 odd people around with torches astonishes me.

The first lesson of Elephant Herding : Always expect the unexpected.

Thurday 5^th January 2012

I was surprised to hear from some friends expressing concern about my well being.  I did not know that a news article (http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-tamilnadu/article2776413.ece) had appeared in The Hindu about our narrow escape.  I went back again today check out the place of our close call.

The elephants had walked through some low crop, which made the slithering sound. If it was not for that we would have never heard them. At least I would not have.

Within a week of this incident, a software engineer from Bangalore, Mr.Ramesh died unfortunately when he went to take photographs of group of ten elephants being driven back into the forest near Anekal.  One can never be sure of where elephants are especially when they are in big numbers, and extreme caution is always warranted.

At the Aiyur celebration of International Year of Forests

Tarsh, Vijesh and I went on the second day of the Tamil Nadu Forest Department/Hosur Forest Division celebration of the International Year of the Forest. We had a very enjoyable time, indeed.

We had a chat with the ACF, Padma, and the ASP, Ramya, both of whom we found interested in wildlife and conservation.

As a housewife, I was wondering how everyone was going to be fed at lunch time, so I was very interested in the preparation of lunch! Here are a group of people cutting up vegetables, grinding the coconut, and so on (Lunch was delicious!)

We found the teachers who came with the children, a dedicated and hard-working group. They spoke with great sincerity on various aspects of forest conservation. Here are some of them with some of us:

The Forest Department also distributed tees with the IYF logo to all the children:

After the documentary was screened, and lunch was served, the children were taken to the Spider Valley viewpoint. On the way, this Social Spider web was apt for the name of the valley in which some of Ken Anderson’s adventures are set!

Tarsh and Vijesh checked their cameras:

Here they are, clicking at the view point:

Ms. Padma also was clicking!

The forest guards were all on duty:

The scenery was very beautiful:

Even a tiny wildflower was exquisite:

We then took the children to Sami Eri, looking serene in the evening sunshine:

Here’s the watchtower:

I spotted an ants’ nest in a tree nearby:

I found that Sanjeev, Tarsh and Vijesh all had fatigues on, and the IYF tees…so it was looking like a KANS uniform!

The evening sky and the clouds looked lovely…

We did some scat analysis for the children:

We showed them how we could gather information on what animal the scat belonged to, what it had eaten, and when it had passed by:

Sanjeev pointed out the deer fur in the scat:

The children were very intersted in everything we showed them, and asked a lot of questions, too, which we answered to the best of our ability.

We returned with the children to the Aiyur Forest Guest House:

ACF Padma came walking with them, too:

Vijesh went back to Hosur with Sanjeev, and Tarsh and I drove back through the sunset:

Thank you, KANS, for a great opportunity to interact with schoolchildren and spread the message of conservation!

KANS helps to celebrate the International Year of Forests

On the 27th and 28th of December, 2011, KANS joined hands with the Tamil Nadu Forest Department and the Hosur Forest Division, in celebrating the Internation Year of Forests, with a double event: A “vana vizha” (forest festival) on the 27th, and a Student Awareness campaign on the 28th. Some of the KANS volunteers were present on the 27th, and I went with Tarsh Williams and Vijesh Chinnadurai, on the 28th.

We reached the Aiyur Forest Guest House and found that slowly, the children from the different schools were coming in. All of them were from Government schools in the Hosur and Denkanikotta areas. There was a total of 150 children. Some of the teachers from the schools had also accompanied the children.

Some of the schoolchildren, teachers, volunteers, and Forest Department personnel:

As the children assembled in disciplined, orderly fashion, the Assistant Conservator of Forests, Ms Padma, addressed them, talking about the occasion, and how the United Nations had designed the logo of the International Year of Forests. The Assistant Superintendent of Police, Hosur, Ms.. Ramya Ravi, then inaugurated the event by unveiling the logo.

Both the ladies are very keen on conservation and wildlife, and spoke enthusiastically to the children about respect and concern for the world of Nature. At their invitation, some of the children, too, spoke about the various things depicted on the logo, such as plants, animals, herbs and medicines, and said that preserving and planting trees would give many benefits.

Tarsh, ACF Padma, ASP Ramya, and Vijesh:

After a delicious lunch was shared by everyone alike, the children filed into the hall and some of the teachers, and a retired Forest Range Officer, Mr Madhaswamy, spoke about various facets of forsts and tree. We found that the teachers were very committted to the cause of conservation, and spoke with conviction and passion.

Some of the teachers with KANS volunteers:

Following this, the documentary, “The Truth About Tigers”, made by Shekhar Dattatri, was screened for the children. In spite of the power failing for a while, the children watched with rapt attention for a while. Tea and snacks were served to everyone.

After the documentary, the children were all taken to two locations in the nearby Aiyur Forest range…first, to the viewpoint at Spider Valley, and then to the watch tower at Sami Eri.

Some of the children at the Spider Valley viewpoint:

On the way, the KANS volunteers pointed out various points of natural interest to them. The children, for example, were fascinated to know that dung is not a dirty thing in nature…that it can give a lot of information about what the animal was, when it has passed that way, what it has eaten, and in fact, the dung can even provide a rich source of nutrition for various insects and mushrooms.

Ms. Padma enthusiastically walked back along the trail with the children, and they all assembled back at the Aiyur Forest Guest House, and tea and buns were distributed to the children, who unanimously said that they had enjoyed themselves very much. The KANS volunteers also felt that the message of conservation of the forests had been satisfactorily disseminated to the children, and everyone dispersed in an atmosphere of happiness and goodwill, as the evening, and the year of 2011, drew to a close.

Deepa Mohan. (I’ve taken the photos, too )