Keeping this note to track our future progress. all photos: http://1drv.ms/1COl8zP
The visit that changed some perpectives. Araku valley is about 90km from Vizag where me and Murthy went to look for possible site of our field station for EGWS (Eastern Ghat Wildlife Society). We were lucky to be accompanied by Mrs.Jayashree, a women Inspiring, bold, courageous.. cannot describe in words her personality. Since almost 10 years she has been working with the tribal schools of Araku (I didnt knew there were so many tribes in Araku. I visited here an year back for a fun trip). With "Happy Schools" scheme of Rotary club at Vizag she has been facilitating library books, benches, activity material etc for these schools. Also engaging many other activities, inviting international students for exchange programs, learning farming techniques, seed banks, and empowering tribal women and promoting local craft under other initiatives "Sanjeevini and Samata" . The list goes on (I forgot a lot I think). She also mentioned about the expert villagers that can create almost anything you ask, using wood. Samata got lately shut which is a huge loss as they were working for tribals since quite some time..
Jayashree took us to 2 schools. I taught frisbee to tribal girls in one school, that was a new experience. In the other school there was performance by girls on an english song, then a religious song. I was amazed by the talent of these kids..
And we met another influential person in the area, Mr.Raghu (I call him hunter always as his introduction started in that sense, searching for game :) ) God knows where this path will take but he is the one who promised us to provide all ground support for our education and awareness programs. He even offered us a patch of land for our field station, provided we only to scientific study and awareness programs through it. Raghu has been himself from a tribal background, his mother among one og PTG tribe (progressive tribal groups). PTGs changed my view of tribes, which I though live in harmony with nature. PTGs will take a forest land, clear it, do farming for a year or two and then leave to move to other location. I could see bare hills all around Araku as a result of this. Raghu blamed the provisions by govt that allowed this.
Raghu's Maryland resort organizes 4-5 day treks for groups (yea, this guy have a resort and all kind of nuisance people visit him). He facilited a tribal villager to guide us through one of the last patch of forest (Ganepalle / Gaalikonda) left in this area. The climb started steep, but from a monoculture plantation of coffee (another huge problem in this area) Araku may seem very green from distance but the greenery is the monocultivated coffee and silver oak plants only. Silver oak provide the necessary share to coffee and also pulp for paper (so all revenue plantation only). Biodiversity is at a big loss here. Few wild rhesus macque we saw, and no other wildlife As Raghu said, tribals have killed everything here (not sure how many he himself killed :P). There are sloth bears in this area as we learnt, thankfully we did not spot any as you are never sure of their behaviur. The chirps of bulbul were around but I kept ignoring until i realized, they were the white cheeked bulbuls (my life firstie). I was lucky to click few shots. Few streams on the way were good, but I remained confused and unhappy seeing the state of forest and tribes here. The noisy church near the resort of Raghu also made it a weird experience (i thought churches are silent places).
Another threat unveiled when Jayashree mentioned about the vast deposits of Bauxite in these rocks. Mining is a threat here and can actually start a sequence of disaster for the oldest mountain range in the world, the eastern ghats.Three road kills of trinket snakes and a kill of a bat made it all sad for me. High time to change all this. A lot for work for the upcoming years.
Later we visited an amazing serene place with the view of full valley. A stream on a side and forest beyond it, we could see a positive option for our field program. With support of Raghu we plan to launch our first program in Sept (mostly towards the untouched hill owned by Raghu's brother). Birdlife i observed is good here. Finding and narrowing to a location for field station is still long way to go. We will have to explore more forests in SKota, Madulapalli and other places along the ghats.. awareness programs, changing school curriculum, afforestation project, wildlife census are the projects for the taking and will be next steps.. We also learnt the tourism is huge in this area due to the famous Borra caves and the unique valley.. Our plan to tap some of it for the good is what we are targetting.. hope we create some thoughtful souls on these lines..
Other notes:
new idea of creating Paraecologists (or citizen scientists)
INDIAN NATIONAL TRUST FOR ART AND CULTURAL HERITAGE http://www.intach.org/ : Jayashree is a member
Etikopakka and Kondapalli : local tribal expert towns of wooden toy making. They are under threat from wooden toys replicate by Chinese manufacturers. Ironically, at a tribal museum in Araku we saw Chinese version of toys getting sold. This is INDIA :/
The visit that changed some perpectives. Araku valley is about 90km from Vizag where me and Murthy went to look for possible site of our field station for EGWS (Eastern Ghat Wildlife Society). We were lucky to be accompanied by Mrs.Jayashree, a women Inspiring, bold, courageous.. cannot describe in words her personality. Since almost 10 years she has been working with the tribal schools of Araku (I didnt knew there were so many tribes in Araku. I visited here an year back for a fun trip). With "Happy Schools" scheme of Rotary club at Vizag she has been facilitating library books, benches, activity material etc for these schools. Also engaging many other activities, inviting international students for exchange programs, learning farming techniques, seed banks, and empowering tribal women and promoting local craft under other initiatives "Sanjeevini and Samata" . The list goes on (I forgot a lot I think). She also mentioned about the expert villagers that can create almost anything you ask, using wood. Samata got lately shut which is a huge loss as they were working for tribals since quite some time..
Jayashree took us to 2 schools. I taught frisbee to tribal girls in one school, that was a new experience. In the other school there was performance by girls on an english song, then a religious song. I was amazed by the talent of these kids..
And we met another influential person in the area, Mr.Raghu (I call him hunter always as his introduction started in that sense, searching for game :) ) God knows where this path will take but he is the one who promised us to provide all ground support for our education and awareness programs. He even offered us a patch of land for our field station, provided we only to scientific study and awareness programs through it. Raghu has been himself from a tribal background, his mother among one og PTG tribe (progressive tribal groups). PTGs changed my view of tribes, which I though live in harmony with nature. PTGs will take a forest land, clear it, do farming for a year or two and then leave to move to other location. I could see bare hills all around Araku as a result of this. Raghu blamed the provisions by govt that allowed this.
Raghu's Maryland resort organizes 4-5 day treks for groups (yea, this guy have a resort and all kind of nuisance people visit him). He facilited a tribal villager to guide us through one of the last patch of forest (Ganepalle / Gaalikonda) left in this area. The climb started steep, but from a monoculture plantation of coffee (another huge problem in this area) Araku may seem very green from distance but the greenery is the monocultivated coffee and silver oak plants only. Silver oak provide the necessary share to coffee and also pulp for paper (so all revenue plantation only). Biodiversity is at a big loss here. Few wild rhesus macque we saw, and no other wildlife As Raghu said, tribals have killed everything here (not sure how many he himself killed :P). There are sloth bears in this area as we learnt, thankfully we did not spot any as you are never sure of their behaviur. The chirps of bulbul were around but I kept ignoring until i realized, they were the white cheeked bulbuls (my life firstie). I was lucky to click few shots. Few streams on the way were good, but I remained confused and unhappy seeing the state of forest and tribes here. The noisy church near the resort of Raghu also made it a weird experience (i thought churches are silent places).
Another threat unveiled when Jayashree mentioned about the vast deposits of Bauxite in these rocks. Mining is a threat here and can actually start a sequence of disaster for the oldest mountain range in the world, the eastern ghats.Three road kills of trinket snakes and a kill of a bat made it all sad for me. High time to change all this. A lot for work for the upcoming years.
Later we visited an amazing serene place with the view of full valley. A stream on a side and forest beyond it, we could see a positive option for our field program. With support of Raghu we plan to launch our first program in Sept (mostly towards the untouched hill owned by Raghu's brother). Birdlife i observed is good here. Finding and narrowing to a location for field station is still long way to go. We will have to explore more forests in SKota, Madulapalli and other places along the ghats.. awareness programs, changing school curriculum, afforestation project, wildlife census are the projects for the taking and will be next steps.. We also learnt the tourism is huge in this area due to the famous Borra caves and the unique valley.. Our plan to tap some of it for the good is what we are targetting.. hope we create some thoughtful souls on these lines..
Other notes:
new idea of creating Paraecologists (or citizen scientists)
INDIAN NATIONAL TRUST FOR ART AND CULTURAL HERITAGE http://www.intach.org/ : Jayashree is a member
Etikopakka and Kondapalli : local tribal expert towns of wooden toy making. They are under threat from wooden toys replicate by Chinese manufacturers. Ironically, at a tribal museum in Araku we saw Chinese version of toys getting sold. This is INDIA :/
