:: Delhi Greens ::

Walking in the Lodhi Gardens, what captured my eye was the flocking instinct of black birds. They were all sitting gathered on a wire in a row with each one of them facing the same direction. Every few minutes they would fly away and sit again on the same wire. I have no idea as to what prompted the flying. There was no clearly defined leader yet they all seemed to follow something. A similar behaviour can be observed among swifts, pigeons and parrots. While crows and falcons that gather around dump sites do so in a hierarchy.

We have an equivalent of this behavior among nomadic tribes, zoom cultivators and hunter gatherers as I learnt during my recent trip to Mizoram. We are the only animals who are capable of collective actions that go beyond just gathering together. For that to happen we need to maintain the uniformity of language and communication over time and space. We, in its modern day equivalent, do it through conferences and meetings of professionals and on chats and facebook, etc.

The need to communicate is to stay connected. Just as we need each other to biologically reproduce, we need each other to socially reproduce so we can communicate with each other and relate to experiences. Spoken language alone is not enough. Social reproduction allows us to create civilizations, Taj Mahal, Sanchi Stupa, Jantar Mantar, etc. that can only happen when societies feel connected and are able to go beyond everyday existence to create something magnificent.

Interestingly my field work in Delhi slums showed that the migrants into the city too follow this behaviour. Those that come into the city in search of labour do not settle randomly. They settle near people of their ‘own type.’ The single male migrants live as paying guests with people from their own village, region, who eat the same food and speak the same language. So often, in spite of them being slums, one finds unique constructions of these huts.

Thank you for reading your blogs so carefully and with so much interest. It is what makes them available. But not every action everywhere are good. The context determines it.

To recapitulate, Govind Singh some time back listed in his post on this very blog, five main reasons to save tigers. I had shared the impact of this increased consciousness on the shift in status of the tribe called the Moghiyas from being brave Tiger hunters to being poachers to be shunned by society. And being one more reason why and how 1411 tigers are left to ’save the tiger’. So you can pay higher and higher to ad agencies and cricketers and hockey players to raise consciousness and spend (and make) lots of money.

A telecom company is making every attempt to go environment friendly as against its competition and is talking of saving the paper. What is an average Delhi resident going to contribute?  Besides talking about it, blogging, chatting etc. is they will want to go and visit these 1411 animals.

Already at Ranthambore Tiger Reserve, during any given season when the park is open, there are a minimum of 60 to 80 tourist vehicles each carrying a minimum of 4 to 5 tourists and for 8 months of the year say 200 days. Tiger reserve visitor proxy to back of the envelope calculations indicate that if each tourist on an average stays for three days and spends say about 3000/- per day or Rs. 10,000/- a visit. This leads to a conservative economy of 80 crores. If the advertising actually leads to increase in environmental tourism, the impact it has on the tigers is humongous. Not all of it is good. For example every tourist visiting the reserve wants to go and ‘site’ a tiger. The tiger on the other hand loses its ear of humans and obviously cannot differentiate between a hunter and a tourist. So hunting becomes easier.

Mainly it leads to a thriving economy that generates its own economic and political interests. These interests then generate their own vested interests in having tigers but how many? Keeping just a few decorative show pieces, not unlike circus animals, on display is all that is needed. Next comes the leopards that are used by jewelers to advertise their jewelry. Next is what..not..

It is all about Money, Honey! Think about it.

The “world to word’ paradigm allows us to fix and manipulate the world in order to control and dominate it.  The environmental perceptions dictates clichés such as “the world we live in, we have borrowed from our children rather than inherited from our elders” or “earth has enough resources to meet all our needs but not enough to meet even one person’s greed.”  “Today’s solutions are tomorrow’s problems.”

Therefore, the solutions we look for are embedded in the way we use language to define our problems. We look at our physical environment as a solution to our problem of survival: problem of having adequate food, water, and air, using energy. So the solutions are also dictated by it. It allowed us to separate certain parts of environment as natural resources. We then used the words to create the processes and machines to produce goods and services and satisfy our needs.

This is the old story…This construction of the world as an instrument for the consumption of human beings we are told is the root cause of the environmental problems of today.  Is there an option?

Yes! We create ‘word to world’ fit. Use words to ‘create’ the world that we live in. Therefore among Eskimo’s there are 24 worlds to describe the snow while in English we have only 6 and in any Indian language, there are just one or two. While we have specific and multiple words to describe say the contents of polluted water supply or air pollution, most cultures would not even notice it if the water looked clear and tasted fine or the air did not smell foul. It presents a world where language creation is a creative act that allows us to create a whole new world, to which we did not have access to. From this ‘word to world’ fit we have complete access to ourselves and to others, to the very essence and possibility of what it is to be human.

Then environment does not get divided into natural resources and pollutants, but as the infinite possibilities that we can image and create. Not as problems to be solved due to our actions but creative ways of connecting with the environment and with each other.

The very perception of dividing environment into natural resources and waste is an artificial division. The wrecks/ scraps from one culture/society, old battle ships of the cold war era, dismantled in Dang, Gujarat, is a resource for the transformers providing electricity 24*7 in Indian small scale industry. Garbage disposed in urban Municipal landfills, today’s waste, is a potential for energy production of the future – producing methane.

On lines of ‘Avatar’ the movie, we can even think of having intra- species communication. Communicate with the world in an entirely new way. Impossible? Impossible nothing, for a prehistoric man, mechanized production: magic, controlling nature: impossible, making rain happen: not even heard of.

Meri Dilli Meri Yamuna is a project for making a difference to our city of Delhi-NCR. What started as an initiative of The Art of Living, has now become a full blown citizen’s action plan. Dozens of civil society groups have already joined the movement and many companies including Microsoft, Educomp and Kent RO have become partners. The UNESCO, World Bank, JICA (Japan International Cooperation Agency) etc. among many others are already on board the campaign and more and more people and groups are joining every day.

Delhi-NCR is not clean – India is at the centre of the world today, poised for global leadership in future – we can’t remain dirty, something needs to happen. Commonwealth Games are in October, and it would be great to present a clean city to the world.

Over the next few weeks, the campaign aims to bring together large number of partner groups and citizens, who will together inspire a million citizens to come out and clean Delhi in September 2010. Everyone will be contributing – people and leaders from all sectors of the society will be joining, including the NGOs; corporate and business community; Resident Welfare Associations; Defence and Allied Services; Schools, Colleges, Universities; Leaders from Arts, Culture, Music, Literature, Theatre and Films; Media, Government, and every citizen of Delhi.

The plan is to begin with Yamuna first, our sacred river. Yamuna is immensely important for the economic, ecological and basic needs of the region and its people – but, over the years, it has become one of the most endangered waterway in India. Numerous attempts have not had much success, and there is confusion about what will happen in the near future. We need to join hands and increase the awareness about cleaning of the river Yamuna – more than half of 3.6 billion tonnes of sewerage produced in Delhi everyday flows into Yamuna untreated! And we are dependent on Yamuna for more than 60% of the water needed by the Delhi region.

The Meri Dilli Meri Yamuna campaign is organizing an event on March 7, 2010 16th March, 2010 at 5 pm at Purana Qila in Delhi where the citizens and leaders from all sectors and areas would be participating. This will be followed by a massive cleaning of the banks of Yamuna on March 14 by the citizens to demonstrate that ‘it is possible to make a difference’.

The campaign invites all to support our initiative of national importance, which would perhaps be an inflection point for India – the citizens coming out and taking responsibility for their surroundings and this would spur the administration to be more effective too. Let us all join hands.

Editor’s Note: Delhi Greens, in partnership with Nature Foundation (India) have already spearheaded the Meri Dilli Meri Yamuna campaign in different target zones.

Inviting graduates, post graduatesand young working professionals across disciplines…to be a part of the solution!

Gandhi Fellowship , an initiative of Kaivalya Education Foundation is an intensive 2-year programme that helps talented young people develop the leadership skills to cause disproportionate positive change in society. The Fellowship challenges these young people to support primary school headmasters to turn around their failing schools, thus improving the quality of education provided in India’s government schools. By taking on real challenges and solving ‘live’ problems that exist today in schools across India, Fellows learn the generic skills that will allow them to lead change on a wide range of issues in other sectors. In the process Fellows are themselves supported to discover what they are passionate about, what they want to do with their lives and how to go about converting their dreams into reality. This intense personal change process is needed for Fellows to become the nation’s next generation of leaders.

What is the role of the fellows?

The 2-year programme consists of hands-on field work undertaken in small government schools, rural villages or slum communities.

The role of the Gandhi Fellow is to help each of their 8 Headmasters successfully implement these projects and tackle all other challenges related to improving learning quality in their schools. In particular, this means supporting their capacity building, so that once Fellows have moved on Headmasters are able to continue to work effectively to improve their schools. This is vital if the impact that Fellows have in their schools is to last. On any one day it will mean being a resource person, a facilitator, a change-agent, a co-creator, a mentor or a constant listener!

The Headmasters themselves are undergoing  PLDP(Principal leadership development program), a process of professional & personal development while being trained in school leadership by Kaivalya Education Foundation.

You can be a Gandhi fellow if you:

• Are self-driven and have intrinsic motivation
• Approach any task with rigour
• Are empathetic in dealings with others
• Can manage stakeholders
• Are solution-oriented
• Are analytical

Gandhi Fellowship is a full time, 2 year fellowship offered to final year students  and young professionals across disciplines. If selected you would be a part of this professionally and meticulously designed Fellowship. You would get a grant of Rs.14, 000 pm and official accommodation. You would be based out of Ahmedabad, Gujarat or Jhunjhunu, Rajasthan.

Apply today by mailing in your resume at gandhifellowship@gmail.com

For further information, please contact:

Tripti Vyas
Head: Gandhi Fellowship Programme
Kaivalya Education Foundation
tripti.vyas(at)gmail.com

The Okhla Bird Sanctuary in NOIDA celebrated the International Wetland Day on 2^nd February 2010, to mark the signing of the Ramsar Convention on protection of wetlands of international importance. The celebrations saw participation from residents and over 40 students from Delhi Public School, NOIDA. As an extension to this program, an awareness drive highlighting the decreasing population of cranes from the region was also organised.

In association with Nature Foundation (India), the Okhla Bird Sanctuary invited three different schools viz. Nehru International Public School, Sarla Devi DAV Public School and Bal Bhavan Public School, Mayur Vihar Phase-2, from which, a total of 110 students in all benefited from the program and enjoyed the bird watching organised around the sanctuary.

Mr. Gopi Sundar,  member from Save the Cranes campaign addressed the students on the declining number of cranes and facilitated them in bird watching and in identifying different bird species that migrate to the Okhla Bird Sanctuary during the winter season. The major birds included Northern shoveler, black Ccot, Eurasian wigeon, etc.

Mr. Neeraj Kumar, District Forest Officer, was also present in the celebrations and spoke to children on the importance of wetlands. He also talked about the role being played by the Forest Department in conserving the sanctuary and the steps needed to be taken to preserve the biodiversity of the region in order to attract more and more relevant species in the near future.

Rakesh Khatri, Nipun Kaushik & Animesh Kapoor from Nature Foundation (India) also spoke to the students on the need and benefits of bird watching and also highlighting steps that can be taken to save the dwindling bird population in the entire NCR. The idea was to motivate the youth towards bird watching so as to developed it as a habit and a hobby.

The experience for the visiting students was nice which was well evident from the requests by them for letting them go into denser parts of the forest in their next visit.

As human beings, we are born into a pre-existing world. Being born into a culture we inherit-words and language-we assume that words and languages describe this preexisting world. Because we think of language as something in response to the world or existing in order to deal with the world, language becomes a means to an end. It is a means to make sense of the world and to make sense of ‘why and how’ of things around us.

This paradigm allows us only one way of thinking and doing things. The world is separate from us that we exploit for our benefit. Things that are useless are treated as waste or dirt or pollution to be discarded. It only allows us for fixing and changing things to our advantage, things that are not working or not working as well as we would like them to.This form of thinking has logic of its own. Cities like Delhi come into existence as a result of this logic. Agglomeration and consolidation of production of goods and services allow for trade and commerce so that more can be produced with least bit of energy and increased efficiency. It results in production of waste and pollution. It also results in crowding-settlements where human beings are living in close proximity and high densities.

Therefore waste generated by industry and commerce, air water land pollution needs to be treated in order to keep human labour healthy, so that they can be productive and efficient. Close and high density settlements need to be kept clean and safe so that human beings will be willing to stay with each other. Clean and safe drinking water, cleaning of the streets or keeping the garbage off the streets is in order to maintain good health of the population so that they can survive and produce efficiently. Even the immunization programs and the nutrition programs are in order to ensure that there is a future generation of skilled and semi-skilled human beings servicing the economies of growth.  This is essential in order to keep the entire giant economy of the city and the nation operating smoothly and growing at 6% or 10% GDP.

This is the implication of language as coming into existance in order to deal with the world. It follows that how we use language will be limited to what this paradigm allows us to do– to fix and manipulate the world in order to control and dominate it. Is there an option?

The Yamuna Biodiversity Park (YBP) invites all citizens to celebrate the World Wetlands Day on the 2nd of February. This date marks the signing of the ‘Convention on Wetlands’ in 1971 at Ramsar, Iran. The 2010 Wetlands Day theme is “Caring for Wetlands – an Answer to Climate Chang”. The theme highlights the fact that wetlands, with their biodiversity, can help mitigate climate change.

Date: 2nd February, 2010
Time: 10.30 am
Venue: Yamuna Biodiversity Park, Jharoda Majra, Ahead of Wazirabad and Jagatpur Villages (10 mins drive from the DU Metro Station)

The YBP has been established in Delhi to recreate the locally extinct biodiversity of Yamuna river basin. The almost seven years old biodiversity park now harbours a wide range of ecosystems of river basin which support more than 1200 plant species. These include finest wetlands, besides a butterfly conservatory, a conservatory of fruit yielding plants, grasslands, tropical moist and dry deciduous forest communities, Acacia woodlands and a herbal garden.

Located on the floodplains of River Yamuna, Yamuna Biodiversity Park is the model location to discuss and work on the conservation of river basin and its biodiversity. The exceptional wetlands of Yamuna Biodiversity Park are fully functional and attract thousands of migratory birds each year in the winter season.

Therefore, the YBP has already become a hub of nature education and conservation of biodiversity. To promote nature education and conservation of wetlands, river Yamuna and its floodplains we celebrate each year World Wetland Day on 2nd February.

For more information and to participate, please contact:

Faiyaz A. Khudsar
Scientist Incharge
Yamuna Biodiversity Park
University of Delhi
Email: faiyazwild@gmail.com
Mobile: 09810511552

The feedbacks you post are out of your willingness to ‘because in the matter’ of creating a better world through environmental actions. Thank you for taking time out to respond to the blog and sharing your lives with me. It is these little acts of patchwork that brings us together. Patchwork is a creative way of bringing different pieces of cloth to create a new design. It always begins with small pieces coming from different places and origins and combines to create a design. It creates a completely new design from the old, the discarded and the small. Similarly when a new a new world order gets created, the pieces of different actions from people in different areas of life come together.

Wanted to share with you a news item by John Schwartz in the January 28th 2010 paper of International Herald Tribune as what appears to be a beginning piece and part of this emergent new world order. “Kivalina an Inupiant Eskimo village (in Alaska USA) of 400, perched on a barrier island north of the Arctic Circle is accusing two dozen utility companies of helping to cause the climate change that it says is accelerating the island’s climate change”. They use the sea ice blocks are used to protect the town’s fragile coast from high wind season. But this year they could not do it. The relocation cost of this village could amount to $400 million.

The case is one among three major law suits filed by environmental groups, private lawyers and state officials against major utility companies. It is a difficult battle and federal judge dismissed their suit, but they are appealing the decision. The cases rely on the common law doctrine of nuisance, the same concept that allows the neighbours to sue one another over noise odor and the like, that interfere with the use of enjoyment of property. In the context of climate change these used to be dismissed as frivolous, not any more. Similar issues with drug companies as captured in the classic ‘Silent Spring’, Tobacco companies and asbestos industries in the past have yielded results.

But this is just the beginning. The pressure from such suits could become a significant issue within the next few years. Let us wait and see. Blocking the ice melt.

Human Rights Law Network (HRLN) requests the presence of all concerned to the Indian People’s Tribunal (IPT) on the issue of Genetically Modified (GM) seeds/foods and Bt Brinjal in particular. HRLN is bringing eminent speakers and researchers from across the country to share a common platform and vocalise their experience and opinion on January 28th and 29th, 2010, at Vishwa Yuva Kendra, New Delhi.

The regulators in India have cleared Bt Brinjal as safe for human (& animal) health and environment and that it could be permitted for commercial cultivation in India. However, the Government of India is holding nation-wide consultations to address numerous concerns and unanswered questions on the GM food crop before reaching a logical end. Bt Brinjal is the first GM food crop in India and the first ever GM vegetable in the world with the Bt gene in it. This Tribunal is being held as a platform to not only address the surrounding queries but also highlighting the many facets of the debate on GM seeds.

Without really getting lost in the larger debate around food/hunger crisis, which is being made into the rationale for bringing in Bt Brinjal iisue, this People’s Tribunal focuses clearly on GM seeds, their relevance and need and other related issues, even as all presenters of testimonies will be encouraged to touch upon some larger issues too and present data to support their case.

A panel of prominent citizens, journalists, judges, scientists and activists will preside over the two-day IPT.

HRLN strongly hopes and looks for your support in this two-day programme, so that it will serve for larger social and political change in perceiving the issue. We anticipate the tribunal will be an indicator for civil society to rethink of a new set of strategies, to compel the State for immediate intervention to address the GM seeds/food debate.

Concerned individuals who would especially like to attend the IPT on the 29th of Janary are requested to kindly confirm  their presence in advance so that necessary arrangements can be made in due time.

For further information and to RSVP, please contact:

Imran Ali, Coordinator (IPT), +91-9212696986 or write to imran@hrln.org
Manisha Tiwari, Coordinator (IPT), +91-9717-505-798

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