Two stories

This last month I read two rather different books, each in a very different way dealing with nature and the environment. One was set in Kenya and the other in an imaginary futuristic US. One was joyous and heartwarming and the other bleak and foreboding.

I shall not go into the stories or plots of each, as you can read that on Amazon, instead here's what I thought of each of them.

The Kenya book was borrowed from Chitra, and is called A Guide to the Birds of East Africa. It was a delightful, charming read, with the central character, gentlemanly Mr Malik being challenged to a bird race by the more racy Harry Khan. I think I enjoyed it all the more because of the bird descriptions that I could relate to, the vagaries of a bird race that I have also experienced, and the familiarity with descriptions of Kenya, so similar to colonial India. But above all, it was uplifting to read a book where no one is really bad, if you know what I mean, and people make ethical choices and ambition takes a back seat. Nicholas Drayson is the author. There's this bit where Mr Malik strikes it rich finding so many birds around a sewage pond, and it reminded me of our trips to Pallikaranai, and our wonder at seeing so many birds so close to garbage and polluted waters!

Margaret Atwood's The Year of the Flood was a completely different reading experience altogether. I picked it up from the library. So bleak, it was like being among the Deatheaters I tell you, peopled by greedy, unscrupulous, fickle characters. And yet, I could not put it down. It's one of those apocalyptic future books, where a group of committed eco groupies are fighting the system, with an alternate way of life. Why is it that every future scenario is imagined with humans at their basest character, with the only advances being made in technology? Dystopic rather than Utopic? There is no change in human thinking at all. Atwood takes our current socio-political structures to its logical extreme end, with gated communities and governments run like corporations and everything artificial - gene splicing, cloning, all kinds of new creatures.

I don't know why, but I am greatly affected when women characters are so badly abused....it just bothers me to read about women so powerless and exploited, as they are in the Atwood book. I found it completely joyless, the book I mean, and even the eco groupies (called God's Gardeners by the way), seem to have no sense of joy or wonder, more a sense of "this is my duty, and this is what I have to do".

I would readily recommend the Drayson book to all, but not the Atwood. Besides the bleakness, the plot itself and its resolution is all too pat and disappointing.

But, it is the Atwood book that had me thinking for days....does it really need us to believe in the cause of the environment like a religion to make a change? Do we need to create new gods and saints, like Adam One does in the book? Why does the Asian psyche not lead to such future-scenario books?

Spreading shade

The Hindu : Life & Style / Society : Spreading shade


Planting, nurturing and protecting trees…Nizhal, an NGO, is committed to transforming Chennai into a green city

Every morning, Vasanthi Rajiv goes for a walk along with her pet dog. And while they fill their lungs with fresh air, Vasanthi also takes time to remove the advertisements nailed on the trees.

A member of Nizhal, Vasanthi says, “This is part of our organisation's ‘ Free the Tree' campaign. I used to pull out the ads on Sundays but they would be back on Mondays. So I decided to make it a daily activity.” And with the aid of a long custom-made claw hammer, she goes about her job.

“As a result, there are no ads on trees in Alwarpet, Mandaveli and R. A. Puram,” laughs Shobha Menon, one of the founder members of Nizhal, an NGO that plants and cares for trees and promotes concern for them in the city. It is about empowering people to speak for trees. Established in 2005, by a group of five tree lovers, the organisation's first activities included planting and surveying trees.

Tree walks

With expert advice from Shekhar Raghavan, Director of Rain Centre, and G. Dattatri, their chief advisor, they then came up with the idea of tree walks where people were taught about trees, their properties, and the abuse of trees in urban areas. “The first walk was organised in Besant Nagar with around 30 participants. Ever since, we have only seen the number growing,” says Shobha. Such is the popularity of this activity that apart from corporates, even parents want to make it part of their child's birthday party!

Shobha feels that most people don't even look at a tree till the roots damage their compound wall. “Trees are our lifeline; should we not do our bit for them? If you see a tree being abused, and can't do much, just inform the Corporation about it,” she says. She nostalgically points to a tree which stands about 7-ft tall and smiles, “I remember it being knee-high. Look at it today. It feels so good to see a tree grow.”

We are in the PWD Tree Park where Nizhal is currently working along with the State Public Works Department to commemorate the park's 150 years. Four acres of barren land that was a dump is now green with grass and 240 trees belonging to 200 different species. Keeping them company are birds, multi-hued butterflies and spotted deer.

The purpose of the park apart from providing a green canopy is to educate children, who may reel out videogame names but may not be able to name more than 6-7 species of trees. The park is expected to be ready in three months' time. According to her, planting saplings has become a fad these days but it is not about the number of trees that are planted but about choosing the right species, planting them properly and ensuring there is enough space for them. One must also take care to see that after they are planted, the trees are tended to and nurtured till they can survive on their own.

Working with prisons

Into its fifth year, Shobha attributes Nizhal's success to its committed core team and volunteer network. Nizhal's other projects include school and college programmes, neighbourhood initiatives, gardening and growing vegetables as occupational therapy for patients in the IMH, and working with prisons across Tamil Nadu. It started with ‘Puzhal and Nizhal,' a campaign that helped green the prison grounds. Prisons in Cuddalore, Pudukottai and Tiruchi, and now the Palayamkottai and Madurai prisons, have been covered by the green brigade.

They are given seeds, panchakavyam and vermicompost. Dr. Dayanandan, an expert, educates them about what to plant and when. At the end of the year-long programme, the prisoners are given a certificate. So, when the vegetables and fruits grow, there is considerable excitement and gleeful shouts of “Takkali, vendakkai valandirukku… ingay avarakka valandirukku!” Says Shobha, “This way, we heal not only the minds of people but also the environment.”

WHAT'S REQUIRED

* Regenerate biodiversity

* Plant local and natural species

* Report / stop abuse of trees

For details, log on to www.nizhaltn.org

Keywords: biodiversity, Nizhal

Save as WWF, Save a Tree :�Home

The New Scientist in an article titled as File, save - the planet: Hello green Computing says,

The latest way to save the planet isn't to install solar panels on your house or drive a Toyota Prius - it's to save your computer files differently.

The conservation organisation WWF has launched its own file type. So now as well as saving documents as .docs or PDFs, you can also save your work as a WWF file. It's just like the humble PDF, with one key difference: it can't be printed. It's a simple way to try to curb the amount of waste paper created in offices around the world.

Users can decide which of their documents don't require printing, and then save them using the new format. When these files are distributed to colleagues or friends, they won't be able to hit "File, Print", so reams of paper will be spared. That might annoy some, but it could also save hundreds of trees from the clutches of the paper mill.

With the quest to become environmentally friendly so complicated, a simple step like this towards the utopia of the paperless office can only be a good thing.

To use the file type, you need to download a small piece of software. WWFs are currently available only on Mac OS X, but a Windows version is due for release soon.

I just downloaded it and it works!

Save as WWF, Save a Tree :�Home