Indian Youth Climate Network

"OOO It's gettin' HAWT in here,

There's-too-much-CARBON in the atmosphere,

Take action, Take action,

And get some SATISFACTION."

That was the jingle that was stunk in our heads after the 3-day workshop IYCN conducted in the beginning of the month (from 4th -6th January).

The Indian Youth Climate Network has the same vision as the Inconvenient Youth (a US of A based international student network, spreading Al Gore's anthem- The Inconvenient Truth.)They are driven to empower the young generation (that's US) to stand up to fight global warming in our country.

The event conducted in Infosys, on the 5th, comprised of highly interactive sessions with fellow college students. First, a presentation was done by Caroline (active and supportive member of IYCN) and Kartikeya Singh (executive director). It had excerps from The Inconvenient truth and facts about the current scenario in India.

Most facts were alarming such as, India being the FOURTH largest carbon emitting country and China overtaking US at prime spot. But we were also awed at the fact that a small district in Rajasthan filled with solar panels, could potentially run current all over India, for FIFTY YEARS!

The documentary prompted a round of discussion among the audience. We discussed how India has the solutions to crack the climate change problem - well, we enacted them out in mime and had people guessing. (That was a total ice breaker!) we had no difficulty making fools of ourselves, but hey the audience loved it, and most importantly, we had ALOT of fun! :)

We broke for lunch and had gathered to listen to the Solar Punch. They're musicians who run all instruments with solar energy! Can you believe that?! Unfortunately, we couldn't grab that gig, for technical reasons.

The "what can YOU do to over come climate change" session was next on the menu. Like the previous sessions, groups of 5 to 6, ran through a 5 min Plan of action and presented it.

The day ended with a group singing the IYCN jingle and a picture of all of us chiming in to Caroline's cue "Who is the solution?"

- "WE ARE THE SOLUTION!"

The following day, we visited The Energy Resource Institute(TERI). The architectural design and concept of using purely renewable sources left us speechless; Utilising wind in maintaining pleasant temperature in the office and solar energy for lighting and electrifying purposes, is just a tip of the iceberg.

All in all, our workshop was WELL WORTH! we were inspired by people from different walks of life, concerned about the environment. oh i forgot to add that we met Mr. Syed, the only autodriver in Bangalore who owns a solar powered engine! "It runs for about 70 km a day and I can save about 400 rupees a day if I use it." he adds confidently, in English. :)

Get in touch:

IYCN network: http://iycn.in/

IYCN blog: http://www.whatswiththeclimate.org/

TERI: http://www.teriin.org/

Solar auto: http://jace.seacrow.com/archive/2006/12/08/solar-powered-autorickshaw

Yes, il have 2 shots of Coffee , extra stripes and spots please

{Note : All photographs are google Borrowed. and not stolen or taken by me or any of the people who work at the CWS.
Danke` }
Roar.

More than sounding scary , a Feline Roar sounds so enigmatic and powerful that if i were to ever encounter a tiger i would just freeze in awe.

I spent my December vacation volunteering at the Centre For Wildlife Studies, Bangalore.
If someone asked me to rate my vacations based on how the learning:enjoying quotient fared, id say 'o8 would ...and by a mile! stands Numero Uno.

I approached them in Late november in hope of interning either in the Field or at the office for desk-based research. After going through my CV they requested that i head over to their office for a chat. Turns out two weeks in their opinion was too short a time to go to any of the sites if i wanted to get any learning done. So it was settled, that id be 'stuck with them' with a 9am-5pm slot for two weeks at the office. But nah! to me, i struck Christmas Gold.

okay just to warm you up a bit, the Center for Wildlife ( CWS) initiated by Mr Ullas Karanth is the Indian wing of the Wildlife Conservation Society. They dedicate their lives to protect the 'charismatic' endangered megafauna in the protected Reserves of our country and in doing so , preserving the rich biodiversity that we have been blessed with.

During my time there i worked under Mr Samba Kumar , who has been instrumental in the implementation of Project Tiger in India. However, i worked more closely with two very brilliant and down right FUN people, Pallavi and Mr Patil. The office was very nice and the least bit...office like! Despite the line of computers sitting in each room, the fact that there would almost always be an oriole , a bulbul or a warbler sitting outside my window could make me smile like sheep all day. Just like Pallavi. i began to look forward to our daily rounds of coffee, turns out it really gives you the Kick that you need!

The work i had to do was pretty monotonous...is what i WOULD have said , had i been a painful MCC noob. I totally freaked out with joy each day like i was eating a heap full of Mousse and pretzels.

Well, one of the projects they undertake is Predator and Prey census, following camera trap methods or simply by conducting line transect surveys respectively. By predators typically that would include tigers and leopards. Since each of them have unique patterns on their skin , comparing them using photographs makes it easy and greatly accurate in terms of figuring out how many of the species are currently surviving and thriving (Our forests are simply exceptional) if i might add. The catch here however is that, to manually compare the stripe/spot patterns taken in that year with those that had been, in the previous years can be quite tedious. ha! But yes, that has been the protocol over the past years.
Until ofcourse, this year ..when the CWS has begun to use a software which uses a database that records, extracts and gives a unique identity to each stripe pattern thus making the whole differentiating process automated.

The three main sites that they focus on are the Nagarhole, Bandipur and Bhadra reserves. Of the three mentioned, the first two had been added to the database earlier and is now fully functioning. However adding to the database for the third remained pending. And thats when yours truly comes into the picture.

According to Pallavi, everything in an area like this is greatly connected and correlated, that my friend sometimes can really test your patience.For instance if you encounter a problem while calculating One parameter, it is most likely that someone entered it in wrong, which in a way could be because the values fed wrong in the first place, which means the raw data must be checked , subsequently the original datasheets must not be ignored either..... and all this just because you wanted to see if the animal was male or female.

I encountered that problem in the very first minute of my job which pretty much changed my job description completely. I focused mostly on the Bhadra reserve data. i had to update their original records starting from the year 1997. Then i had to work on their raw data spreadsheets and photo albums. I had to prepare material for a leopard comparison software test run (which was seriously Cool)

The concept of camera trapping is very interesting. It seems easy when looked at superficially but once you sink in , even ankle deep into the whole method one will begin to see how there really is NO room for error. Go two paragraphs up to know what happens when errors decide to crop up.
CWS currently uses Roll based active infrared cameras, that have both pros and cons. Pros being the Active nature of the camera almost always gaurantees a picture of the animal being taken. It is cost effective as these cameras are placed at the risk of being stolen or sometimes trampled by our Jumbo friends when they feel like it. On the other hand , the fact that the camera is not digital makes the process of acquiring the photographs tiresome and highly multi-staged. what with the click + develop roll + print roll + scan (each photograph) + coding for each roll of each block in each site , each year. And not always does a tiger or a leopard get captured. there are so many amusing pictures of procupines, rabbits, wild board, sloth bears, poachers inquistive villagers and sometimes even A leaf.

One might wonder, WHY? why go through all of this drama only to count tigers? Well to answer your question, look at a picture of a full grown lean female tiger (okay say with her cubs) resting cosily in the brilliant greens and browns of our Western Ghats, she looks so majestic, she leaves you in a trance. Then check her stripe pattern with those in the confiscated tiger skin records. I did that, and i found a match.


www.wcsindia.org

Notice board

One of the main objectives when we started with green shield was to enlighten the students of MCC about the presence and working of the Dept. EN Sci , yeah most of them were ignorant of its existence.
Once we got the authorization to make use of the notice board not a minute was wasted,
"THE DEPT. OF ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE" caption was put up barely 24 hrs after sister (principal) gave us her consent to utilize the board.
The very first information we put up was the "save the turtles" issue which was captioned as "Don’t say TATA to the turtles". Our creative team (comprising of katya, meghna and keerti) did an impressive job for our opening. Amidst the major issue were the minor snippets such as kick the habit where info about replacing daily habits with eco-friendly means was put up and SUP? This essentially was the recent newspaper clippings of environmental issues.
The next issue addressed was "PLANTATHON", structured by an organization called TREES FOR FREE. Green Shield members actively took part in this sapling planting spree in Devanahalli. The date and timing for the next plantathon was also put up incase students were interested and wanted to join in.
The most hazardous product in nature-plastic was the topic for the next board. Katya along with keerti did an inconceivable job. Since "no plastic" issue was being addressed in college at that point the timing was just perfect. This issue also appeared in a newspaper with Katya commenting about the current no plastic drive in college.
The present political scenario about NUCLEAR ENERGY paved the way for our next issue, ALTERNATE ENERGY- NUCLEAR POWER. Meghna single-handedly (i.e. apart from the nuclear reactor which Madhu drew) handled this issue and did some commendable job.
Our next board was captioned as "The E-Waste time line". A serious brainstorming session lead us to make a graphical representation of the amount of electronic waste produced over the years. This was our last board for the year 2008.
The next issue we plan to address in going to be put up when college reopens. Since it is a time when resolutions are made. We decided to use this as our theme.save the earth in 2009 for 3009!!!