Vanodaya

“ It is inconceivable that humankind, with all its noble achievements,   can stay indifferent to the destruction of bio-sphere any more. We must imperatively change our attitudes and agree to live modestly and realistically – all for the sake of the future- which is not ours but which we have borrowed from future generations. Humans are running the environmental equivalent of deficit budget, which is only sustained by plundering our capital base. Over exploiting fisheries, overgrazing pasture until it becomes desert, destroying forests and polluting our oceans and atmosphere ”. With the above concepts in mind,   volunteers of Vanodaya   approached the schools to catch the young students at an impressionable age. Eco Club is one of the growing activities for Vanodaya. From a just one school since the idea germinated, the branches   widened to three schools this year. We zeroed on Chottanahalli, Dhangur and Byadarahalli Government High Schools this tim...

After months of planning, the most awaited Boot Camp at Bhadra was on from 16 th September   to 17 th September 2017 in the vicinity of Bhadra Tiger Reserve, the very place excites the conservationists and wild life enthusiasts alike.   20 volunteers from Vanodaya, among them 9 from Sathanur participated. As the camp was to take off at 6.30 am on 16 th September, we all arrived on Friday night itself at Bhadra. Next day, the early morning rains gave us a wakeup call. We were all   ready on time. Mr.Girish was prompt on time, after exchanging morning greetings; he led us into the fields for birding without wasting any time.  Once on the field, we could immediately comprehend the depth of his knowledge, as Girish started explaining the smaller details of the biosphere. The special interaction results of life, the accumulation of free energy in living matter, its leftover mass, coal and oil, an unusual distribution of atoms and molecules are the reasons why...

Reviving the Eco club activities, Team Vanodaya's target this time was Byadarahalli High School. So, on 9 th September 2017 we set out from Bengaluru in the wee hours and reached Byadarahalli by 9.15 am. The programme started   by 9.30 am with brief introduction of Vanodaya activities to class 8 & 9th standard students. Then the film on Nagarahole Sanctuary was shown. The students enjoyed the show. Few Questions were asked on wildlife after the show. Students showed their keen observations and responded well and were eager for more. We assured them we will come again for a field activity of birding next month. As a bonus we had a call from the Halagur range office previous day, for a presentation on CWLS on the occasion of “Chinnara Vanadarshana”. The programme was at Bheemeswari. On the way  to Bheemeswari, we noticed that   the forest looked very green and refreshing. There were around 50 students from the Morarji Desai residential school. ...

'Chikkalur Jathre', an annual event, has seen many of the conflict of interest over the years. While the jathre itself is held outside the Cauvery Wildlife Sanctuary, majority of the people take the route via the sanctuary to reach the jathre. Animal sacrifice, polluting the river (Cauvery), felling trees for firewood, cooking inside the forest, smoking, alcohol consumption are the challenges faced by the forest officials apart from containing the man-made forest fires. Man Vs Wild face offs are imminent dangers too. For the past three years 'Vanodaya' volunteers have been collaborating with the forest officials in containing the situation and spreading awareness amongst the villagers for the need to protect green cover and encourage locals to take up the cudgels to protect the forest. Our sincere intentions and well documented approach over the years, has sowed enough confidence in the forest officials to welcome us with open arms. On 26th January 2016, we se...

The programme was the initiative of Karnataka Forest Department with the objective of sensitizing high school students on the importance of conserving forest and wildlife. A high school located on the periphery of forest is chosen and 2 days residential nature camp is conducted for the students in the forest area to create awareness of the environment and habitat of the wild. T he camp was restricted to one school on 25 and 26th February 2016 at “Mystery Trails”   nature camp in Gopinatham wildlife range. The forest department had requested ‘Vanodaya’ to conduct the programme in co-ordination with Cowdally Range forest officials. Students from K.Hosur School attending the programme Around 50 students and 6 teachers from Kuretti Hosur Government High School, Range Forest Officer Mr. Lokesh Murthy along with other forest department officials participated in the event. Mr. Jagadish Katkar from ‘Vanodaya’ co-ordniated and conducted the event. The activities conduct...

One of the ideas that had cropped up in our regular meetings was to kick off eco-clubs in schools located around the periphery of the Cauvery Wildlife Sanctuary. If we could impress on young minds, the importance of saving our forests and our environment, our future could be bright.As a first step in this direction, we chose start the eco-club at Alnatha Government High School. During the first visit to the school, we decided to take the children out on a birding trail around the periphery of the school which happens share its boundary with the Muneshwara reserve forest . We kicked off the activity with the customary introductions and divided the students, about forty in number, into five groups. Each group was asked to chose a bird name as the name of their group and had to let the rest of us know something about the bird.   The students were given a briefing about   basic birding etiquette, what to look out for during the walk and how to note down the observations incl...