Interactions on Conservation Education ~ Awareness

We had decided to conduct interactions on conservation education ~ awareness and communications for colleagues from Meghalaya field base; however with the increasing role that we saw of the informants of our elephant monitoring programme they too joined us as participants. This one day programme, held at Daribokre (near Nokrek National Park) during May 2009, was primarily towards helping us get the measure of where we stood on issues of communication and conservation education ~ awareness and determine how we could best advance forward. Nokrek as seen from Daribokre in the evening

A day prior to the programme we had walked from Daribokre to the watch tower in Nokrek National Park. The programme thus began with each of us sharing our experience of the walk. We took our time and used the language (English ~ Garo ~ Hindi) we were comfortable in to share our experience of the previous day. Few participants talked of how they missed seeing wild animals (and their pug ~ hoof marks) despite the forest being good; some said they were appalled at the sight of plastic litter they came across, while others were sad that they saw only ordinary and not special tree species and disappointed with the absence of orchids (this also led to a brief debate on local species!). There were others who were glad that they finally were able to visit the Nokrek peak (highest peak in their Garo land) and also the origin of Simsang (major river of Garo Hills). We then had a brief interaction on why they thought wild animals and birds were absent and how different was the situation in the forests near their villages. At this juncture we brought to close the discussion by putting forth that Conservation Education ~ Awareness was interaction on nature ~ wildlife; while these interactions could be with children or elders and we could use tools like film screenings or paintings, these walks in forests and subsequent sharing was also conservation education ~ awareness. The idea was to get participants actively involved in conserving nature by raising their sensitivity and awareness on these issues.

This done we had a break which was followed by a short session on why we were all talking of conservation education and awareness when all of us played varied roles in the office. Our discussions (that had taken place earlier) on how involving people was deemed critical for conservation of wildlife and the crucial role that conservation education and awareness would play in involving different segments of the society were brought forth. This done we stretched a bit and sipped tea. It was fun having the sessions outdoors.

sharing the experience of walking in Nokrek National Park

We then undertook an activity where one of the participants sat down as if having a meal and others were to provide forks ~ spoons to him from a bunch of forks ~ spoons lying on a table placed a little further from the dining person. A bunch of these forks ~ spoons lay on this table. Some of us went and placed a spoon or a fork on the table, some placed both, some slowly and some in a hurried fashion; some asked if the person wanted the spoon and or fork, some asked if he was still having food and how it tasted, one participant took the entire bunch of spoons ~ forks and put it in front of the person dining while one threw a spoon at the diner after asking if he needed. I stopped the action and asked the participants for reactions. One participant said that throwing of spoon was disrespectful while other mentioned it as being an informal and friendly act. One pointed out that we handed over spoons ~ forks without knowing if the person dining was in need and even gave them despite seeing other spoons ~ forks on his table. The dining person said he was fed up of the spoons ~ forks and one participant asked why we never asked why the dining person never stood up to take the spoon ~ fork he needed. We took time to discuss these and other actions ~ reactions stopping at one point to draw parallels between “communications” and the activity. The design was to facilitate a thought process on “communications” rather than push down a definition.

Thought processes warrant a break and so did I then. After the break we took a departure from the stretching exercises and instead decided to discuss in a standing position for the coming minutes. While we had been positioned in a circle since morning we decided we would stand such that none of our partners (colleagues on either side) would be same as those before the break. The next activity was film screening; I told the participants we would see a beautiful 10 minute film “A Hunter’s Tale” made and shared by Kalyan Verma and Aparajita Datta. The film was in both English and Hindi; to overcome the language barrier and help viewers soak the film better we had 2 screenings ~ 1 in each language. For this we used laptop computers instead of projectors (since the latter would have warranted using a generator and its sound would have been greater than that in the film). This steered us to lunch time and we munched on jackfruit curry, dry fish and rice.

film screeing in the bamboo hut on laptop computers

Post lunch the participants got into 3 sub-groups (inside the bamboo hut) to discuss our experiences of the film; including thoughts that occurred while we saw it. These sub-groups had 30 minutes to discuss and put the main points on chart paper before sharing them with the rest of the participants. By this time luckily the rains stopped, tea got ready and we moved out of the bamboo hut to share our experiences of the film. The focus of group-1 was on species they saw in the film stating that while the film depicted Arunachal Pradesh most of the species were also present in Garo Hills. Group-2’s experience was that the film talked of the need to stop hunting and that hunters could also be transformed to conservationists. They added that while they got to know of hornbills and camera traps they missed detailed information on some issues. Group-3 talked of wanting to see conservation action in Garo Hills and felt the need to cooperate with people for the purpose. They got the message that not only wildlife but flowering plants also need to be preserved. This sharing by the groups also led to interactions on hunting prevailing in Garo Hills and the need to curb it. One of the participants expressed desire to take pictures of Garo Hills’ wildlife and showcase them while other to screen such films in his village. The message emanating was that hunting needs to stop and forests protected if wildlife in Garo Hills is to be conserved.

sharing views on the film

We had consumed more time and energy on the film then I had envisaged and I put to rest my earlier plan of facilitating a debate on one of the issues germinating from the film screening. We took a break, some of us had tea while some brought out bed sheets to keep the cold at bay. We then had participants engaged in the activity of listening. We all got silent for 10 minutes and listed what we heard ~ any sound. When we sat to collate the list of sounds I saw the one of the participants had listed 3 and another 33 sounds; others lay between these 2 figures. These ranged from sounds of wind, rain, leaves, stream to coughing by colleagues and cleaning of utensils in the kitchen. I enlisted these various sounds on white-board and 2 participants then segregated the list into sounds of nature and human made sounds. We discovered that majority of the sounds were those of nature. I stated that nature was all around us and we need not go to a National Park to see and feel it; but we need to give it time and make efforts to first understand and then conserve it. Streams, birds, trees all occurred in and around our villages and we need to conserve them.

closure

This done we moved on to the closing (feedback) session. The reactions ranged from feeling cold and that the programme had a feel of being incomplete to the programme being interesting, different and invigorating. Later in the evening we decided to take this activity ahead by planning the dates for the next round of interactions.

Thanking all participants and Kamal for help with text and pictures.

Also thanking Kalyan Varma and Aparajita Datta for the film.