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Conservation

If you lose your relationship with nature, you lose your relationship with humanity – J Krishnamurti

We recognized that it is possible to bring about conservation and regeneration of forest diversity only by the conscious sewing together of community collective memory and the knowledge of ecology and forest management practices. Our work, therefore, rests on four pillars – ex-situ conservation, biodiversity documentation, collaborative knowledge building and institutionalizing conservation within local governance.

Story of a conservation program

This was the year 2001, when the rumblings of large scale destruction of habitats were no longer possible to ignore. Sudha was asked to head a program for taking care of the forests on an area that came under the care of Krishnamurti Foundation India in the Kaigal Valley. The first batch of students, headed by Sudha, that arrived in Kaigal saw vast swathes of degraded land, in an area very loosely and almost carelessly termed as scrub jungle or waste land. The knowledge about the forests and the communities who held the knowledge were fast disappearing.

One evening, when Sudha was planning the work with Krishnamurti, the earliest field co-ordinator. Subbarayappa and Subbanna came from the Mugilupodalarevu village to meet them.

Subbarayappa says over the impromptu conversation “See, I will tell you some important trees you must grow – I will bring the saplings from the forest. Jalari manu (this has fragrant flowers, good to grow), Bajji manga (good for lactating mothers and cattle), Karakkai, Thandra (both medicinal), Dhupam, Errapolichi….and he rattled on.” Krishnamurti jumped up at the idea and went with them into the forests through many nights and gathered saplings. Thus began some of our earliest efforts in conservation and afforestation.

Painstakingly, the team worked with scientists and the communities to document the biodiversity, built a germ plasm bank and initiated a participatory conservation program. This has unfolded over the last 18 years, impacting the conservation status of different ecosystems covering over 14000 hectares, touching over 26000 people across 60 villages.