Jungle Ikebana

Beautiful lines

bamboo and vines

with the sun filtering through

in the forests of Sri Venkateswara National Park

close to Mamandur 

creating calligraphic forms

undisturbed, and free to flow

All over the forest floor

which, not even a Panorama shot will capture.

A Common Jay

Common Jay - Graphium doson - 

Fluttered by this morning as we walked the streets of Kottivakkam.

Adyar Poonga news

Adyar Creek gets green cover in second phase of restoration - The Hindu:





 Going Green:Workers planting saplings near Foreshore Estate as part of the Adyar Creekeco-restoration project.— Photo: M. Vedhan



More than 58,000 saplings to be planted this month ahead of the monsoon

As part of the second phase of the eco-restoration project, the Chennai Rivers Restoration Trust has started restoring the tree cover in Adyar Poonga that covers 300 acres around the Adyar Creek.

More than 58,000 saplings including six species of mangroves and 12 species of trees and shrubs would be planted this month, ahead of the northeast monsoon.

“All the species are endemic to the Coromandel Coast,” said an official.

Following the first phase of eco-restoration which covered 58 acres, the water spread area increased to 59 per cent in 2011. After dredging and removal of debris, the water spread area in the eco-park has increased to 250 acres. In the second phase, the water spread area has increased to 83 per cent.

A chunk of earth excavated from the creek has been used to create mounds around the water body to support intertidal plants such as mangroves, mangrove associates, reeds and terrestrial plants. After the eco-restoration, the park is expected to attract many species of birds and other fauna of the creek ecosystem.

The mounds are likely to serve as sound barriers against the vehicular traffic on busy stretches such as Santhome High Road.

Sewage mixing in creek

Despite all the efforts that have gone into the eco-restoration project, mixing of sewage in the creek remains a problem.

Even though the Corporation had constructed stormwater drains from neighbourhoods to the Adyar Creek, the problem persists.

The mixing of sewage is expected to reduce only after Metro Water develops the infrastructure for reducing pollution in the park.

Pangolin at GNP

How we view the environment these days

"Reeds, messiness and bushes are not part of the green imagination. Instead, lush parks, tall trees and forests populate many million minds."

I have come across the same reaction to scrub forest, or even desert ecosystems.  There seems to be a need to manicure, control, create order.

The Art of Living case illustrates how narrowly most urban Indians view the environment

The riverbed is rich in reeds; they were removed. The many tiny pits and mini-ponds were filled up, and the soft, spongy ground flattened and hardened.

In other words, the riverbed quality of the riverbed was finished.

..... The banks of the Yamuna should be restored – not polished into a bio-diversity park, but helped to grow back into the patch of plastic-free, spongy, squishy, sandy wilderness that it once was.
Across the country, in schools, children should be taught to appreciate India’s less glamorous, less stereotypical, rich eco-systems – reed-filled riverbeds, marshy wetlands, pale, swaying grasslands, clumpy deserts, along with the more popular dense, green forests and gently flowing ancient rivers.

Mitali Saran's piece Sri Sri Ravi Shankar and the art of too little, too late, is even more telling.

The World Culture Festival has managed this in the same way that many large projects do: by being politically connected, by quietly becoming too big to fail, and in the end by brazening out the public relations.

Amazingly, the citizens who petitioned the court have been accused of lazily speaking up at the last minute. As they rightly point out, they spoke up when it came to their attention; government agencies, on the other hand, exist to fulfil this function in a timely way. It is their job. Where was the Aam Aadmi Party government through this mess? 

....environmentalists have always had a hard fight against state and corporation, but the going is now a whole lot tougher. The new nationalism openly twins state and religion, makes a virtue out of loudly worshipping India even as it tramples all over it, and sees environmental concern as a nuisance. It wants to guard India, but is disinterested in protecting and nurturing it. It takes a staggering inversion of democratic and ethical values to think that public criticism tarnishes the image of India,