Documenting Diversity : An Experiment
Madhav Gadgil
Centre for Ecological Sciences,
Indian Institute of Science,
Bangalore 560012, India.
and
Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research,
Jakkur, Bangalore 560064, India.
Table of Contents
1. Summary
2. Introduction
3. Science As A Process
4. Down To Earth
5. Biodiversity
6. International Convention
7. An Immense Task
8. Western Ghats
9. Research Methodology
10. Network Profile
11. Landscape Ecology
12. Sampling Biodiversity
13. Practical Ecological Knowledge
14. Capacity Building
15. Strengths And Weaknesses
16. Financial Outlays
17. International Programmes
18. Prospects
19. Acknowledgements
20. References
Comments, Suggestions, Reprint requests to: madhav@ces.iisc.ernet.in
Copyright © CES 1995, Last update : 28th November 1995 by avn
1. SUMMARY
Complex natural systems such as soils, groundwater, and populations of disease
vectors like mosquitoes exhibit a great deal of variation in space and time. Documenting such
variation is essential for good management of environmental resources; it can also provide for
students and teachers excellent opportunities for first hand scientific observations. This report
describes such an experiment, focussing on inventorying and monitoring of biodiversity of the
Western Ghats. Initiated in early 1994, this experiment involves a network of over 20
undergraduate colleges collaborating with ecologists at the Indian Institute of Science in
Bangalore. Experience gained so far in this programme suggests that such field research could
serve as a valuable teaching device, as well generate useful inputs for decentralized
management of natural resources at the panchayat and district levels.
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2. INTRODUCTION
Complexity and diversity are the new frontiers of science. The focus is now on systems
like climate, and on the extent to which it will change as a consequence of an increase in the
concentrations of greenhouse gases. It is on the diversity of life, and on the rate at which this
is being eroded through manifold human impacts. It is on contagious diseases like AIDS and
on understanding how these spread as a result of human social behaviour. The most
significant challenges before science today lie in understanding complex systems with a great
diversity of behaviours in space and time (Gellmann, 1994; Waldrop, 1992; Wilson, 1992).
This shift in focus to complex, diverse systems has important implications for a country
like India. Biologists have identified India as one of the top twelve megadiversity countries of
the world; harbouring an estimated 500,000 out of some 10 to 30 million species of living
organisms (Groombridge, 1992). Indian monsoon circulation is amongst the most variable in the world, and is
suspected to drive the El Nino - La Nina oscillations. India harbours amongst the culturally
most diverse societies in the world, with shifting cultivators and artisanal fisherfolk coexisting
with shrimp aquaculturists and software engineers (Gadgil and Guha, 1995). So India offers a wealth of fascinating,
complex, diverse systems for our scientists to work on. There are interesting new facts to be
discovered about these systems and we are placed in an advantageous position to do so.
This is not the case when dealing with relatively simpler physical, chemical systems.
Such systems are more universally accessible for investigations. In consequence, relatively
readily accessible facts tend to be already known, and discovering new facts calls for
elaborate, expensive experimental set ups, highly purified, expensive chemicals. As citizens of
a relatively resource poor country Indian scientists are at a disadvantage in working with such
simpler systems. But India with its large numbers of trained men and women could be at a
considerable advantage and make significant contributions worthy of it, if our scientific
community purposefully addresses the challenge of working at the new frontiers of science; of
complex, diverse systems.
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3. SCIENCE AS A PROCESS
Admittedly we are far from geared to take on this challenge. One of our main
shortcomings is the system of science education (Indian Academy of Sciences, 1995). Any worthwhile system of science
education would teach science as a process ; a process of discovering new facts, organizing
them in appropriate systems, making new predictions on the basis of such understanding and
going out to look further for yet more new facts in the light of these predictions. But our
current system of science education tends to treat science as a collection of facts, to be
memorized by rote and reproduced at the time of examinations. This is in part inevitable in
teaching about simpler systems of physics and chemistry, for in these contexts new facts are
so hard to come by. Given the difficulties of properly equipping the laboratories in our
teaching institutions, students have very limited opportunities of familiarizing themselves at
first hand with even the known basic facts, let alone explore new facts. So science education
ends up as an exercise of learning facts by heart from books, with little contact with the real
world. This is not a system conducive to producing scientists equipped to explore new
frontiers.
In the study of complex, diverse systems, in contrast, new facts are all around us and
these are facts both of scientific interest and of practical value. The West Coast of India
receives as much as 3000 mm of rain in many places. Yet many coastal villages and towns
experience acute scarcity of drinking water in the summer. Moreover, more and more such
places find brackish sea water encroaching on the ground water aquifers supplying their
drinking water wells. It is important to understand the water cycle in these tracts, the
relationship between surface run-off and percolation to the ground water aquifer, the role
vegetation, soils and rock structure play in this context, the interplay between the freshwater
aquifer and the sea water (Gadgil, 1990). The pertinent facts change from locality to locality, from season to
season, from year to year. So they need to be continually monitored everywhere, interpreted
in the proper theoretical framework and used to predict when and where water scarcities will
develop. To take another example, India's west coast abounds in a diversity of medicinal
herbs as well as a diversity of medicinal uses of these herbs by the various tribal, rural
communities and in systems such as Ayurveda, Siddha and Yunani. Populations of many of
these herbs are being decimated today through overharvests by agents of pharmaceutical
companies, and through destruction of their habitats in many different ways. It is important to
document the various reported uses of these herbs, to assess their efficacy, to monitor the
status of their populations. These facts also vary from locality to locality, from year to year.
They have important practical applications in terms of commercial production of
pharmaceuticals, of providing readily accessible health care to large numbers of our people, of
maintaining long term viability of the populations of these species (FRLHT, 1995).
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4. DOWN TO EARTH
These are just two of the many, many examples of how the study of behaviour of water,
rocks, soils, microbes, plants, animals, human groups would generate new facts of scientific
interest, and with practical implications. Surely involving science students, and of course,
teachers as well, in a process of discovering, interpreting and predicting on the basis of such
new facts observed first hand would be the best way of training practicing scientists for India.
The difficulty of course is that such a system of training scientists cannot be organised in a
routine, unimaginative, centralized fashion. Moreover, the training students receive through
such a process cannot be assessed through routine, unimaginative, centralized examinations. It
would therefore call for more initiative, more effort on the part of teachers and administrators.
It would also mean much less scope for private coaching in which many teachers are involved
today. So there would undoubtedly be some inertia and some vested interests against
implementing such proposals. But the students, unless they get away with copying at the
exams, would stand to gain in every way. For now their effort would go into making first
hand scientific observations, interpreting new data in place of learning dead, seemingly
irrelevant facts by heart. The process would not only help produce a scientific manpower and
womanpower that can work far more competently on real life problems, but the process
would generate information that would be of use in tackling real life problems of relevance to
the society.
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5. BIODIVERSITY
The fact that such a process can generate information of social relevance means that the
society would be more readily willing to fund this type of science education. I would like to
discuss here a concrete example of how such funds can be available, and can be put to use to
generate activities of both educational and practical value for science teachers and students.
The activities pertain to inventorying and understanding on-going changes in the levels of
biodiversity of living organisms. Such an understanding of levels, distribution and dynamics
of biodiversity has assumed considerable significance over the last decade for two reasons (Solbrig and Oordt, 1992).
Firstly, recent developments in molecular biology now make it possible for us to move genes
across completely unrelated organisms - from mammals to yeasts, from bacteria to insects.
This has added an entirely new dimension to the possibilities of putting genetic resources to
human use, so that organisms once thought of as totally insignificant may now be put to use
and result in large commercial gains. Along with this have come the possibilities of patenting
of living organisms and their products (Reid et.al, 1993). Thus Japanese have applied for a patent on the
digestive enzymes of an Australian frog that broods its young in its stomach. Perhaps these
enzymes hold clues to the treatment of stomach ulcers. Japanese also reportedly import from
the west coast of India insectivorous plants belonging to the genus Drosera ; they may be
developing some applications based on their unusual enzymes. Along with such technological
developments and opening up of commercial possibilities has come the realization that the
world's heritage of biological diversity is being rapidly eroded and requires urgent action for
conservation.
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6. INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION
These two-fold developments, a realization of tremendous value and a concern with long
term conservation, have recently resulted in an International Convention on Biological
Diversity (CBD) initiated at the Rio Earth Summit in June 1992 and in force since December
1993 (UNEP, 1992). CBD, for the first time recognizes the sovereign rights of all countries over their
biodiversity resources, commits all parties to the convention to facilitate access to their
resources, and in return promises the countries of origin of such resources favourable
treatment in terms of transfer of technology and of financial resources. CBD commits
countries to prepare proper inventories of their biodiversity resources, to monitor their fate, to
organize adequate information systems for such resources, and to take steps to conserve
them (UNEP, 1993; 1994). CBD also recognizes the role of indigenous communities in conservation and
sustainable use of biodiversity resources and enjoins member countries to share benefits of
utilization of biodiversity resources with these indigenous communities.
India, along with 125 other countries is a party to CBD and therefore committed to
developing an inventory of its biodiversity resources, monitoring their dynamics, organizing a
computer-based system of such information and working out an effective strategy of
conserving these resources (Gadgil, 1994). It is also committed to documenting the knowledge and practices
of conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity elements by its indigenous communities (Gadgil, Berkes and Folke, 1993).
These are major challenges before India's biological, informatics and anthropological
communities, challenges that can be turned into significant opportunity for injecting a new
vigour into our educational and research establishments, and to contribute towards
conservation of our national heritage. There is genuine social demand at the national as well
as international level for addressing this challenge, and financial resources are being
mobilized. What is needed is the will to organise the effort.
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7. AN IMMENSE TASK
The task of inventorying and conserving biodiversity is immense, for valuable elements of
biodiversity are not restricted to a few pockets, in a few national parks. Wild relatives of rice
for instance occur in numerous wetlands dispersed over the Indian countryside and wild
relatives of taros and yams are to be found along road verges. The insectivorous Drosera
plants being quietly collected and exported to Japan occur in small rain puddles on sheet
rocks all along the Western Ghats. So the task must truly cover all of the country, and
concern itself as much with lowly lichens and leeches, mushrooms and mayflies as with tigers
and rhinoceros.
Such a task cannot be carried out in a routine, centralized fashion for the ecological
systems are highly variable in space and time, and must be investigated and more importantly
managed in ways sensitive to this variation. So it is necessary to organize an effective
network covering the entire country. Such a network will have to be erected on two pillars;
the large numbers of students and trained biologists working as teachers in undergraduate
colleges throughout the country and the even larger number of practical ecologists - fisherfolk
and shepherds, dispensers of herbal medicine and ratcatchers who depend on living resources
for their livelihoods (Gadgil, 1994). If mobilized such a group will not only generate valuable information,
of both basic and applied interest but the process will also serve as an excellent tool of
training in science.
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8. WESTERN GHATS
In 1993 funds for such an experiment became available to me through an award as a
Pew Foundation Fellow in Environment and Conservation (Current Science, 1994). The foundation provides to the
fellow's institution an amount of $150,000 to be spent over a four year period in a flexible
fashion at the fellow's discretion. This support has been used to organise a network of
undergraduate colleges, university departments, and NGO's to investigate the biodiversity of
the Western Ghats. The hill chain of Western Ghats, has been recognized as one of the
World's 18 Biodiversity Hot Spots, i.e. a region of high levels of biodiversity under threat of
rapid loss (Myers, 1990). The Western Ghats are an island of tropical humid forest at a considerable
distance from the large humid forest tracts of Southeast Asia, and harbour a large number of
endemic species i.e. species occuring nowhere else in the world. Inventorying, monitoring and
conserving the biodiversity of the Western Ghats is therefore an important concern.
Along with the adjoining West Coast, the Western Ghats are a region of highest levels of
literacy on the Indian subcontinent. It therefore has a large number of biology teachers,
certainly well over 1000, many of them Ph.D. holders working in undergraduate colleges. I
have been in touch with several of them over the years, having organised a successful project
to evaluate the impact of the Western Ghats Development Programme with the help of
students and teachers of 28 colleges in Karnataka in 1990-91 (Ravindranath et.al, 1991). So when the Pew Award
funds became available I invited 45 Biology teachers from the Western Ghats states of
Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, Tamilnadu and Kerala to consider the possibility of working
together on biodiversity problems of the region. We met in Bangalore from April, 4 - 7, 1994
and agreed to collaborate. A series of intensive workshops, including several on field
methodology followed. This has resulted in the establishment of the Western Ghats
Biodiversity Network (WGBN) functioning in a co-ordinated fashion with a common
methodology jointly evolved by the whole group.
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9. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
This methodology involves the following elements :
1. Each team selects an area of about 25 sq.km, preferably close to the location of their
institution, for biodiversity studies. These study sites include examples of both
relatively natural, as also human-impacted ecosystems.
2. These study sites are investigated as a landscape composed of different individual
elements such as evergreen forest, moist deciduous forest, tree savanna, grasslands,
ponds, seasonal streams/streamlets, habitation etc. Initially different types of
landscape elements are identified and mapped with the help of a Survey of India
toposheet.
3. This landscape map is compared with a false colour composite of a satellite imagery
and correspondence is established between ground truth and imagery. Certain ground
control points which can be reliably located on the topographic map and on the
satellite image are identified, and ground truth ascertained in the vicinity of such
points. The control points are used to correct the geometric distortion in the satellite
imagery. All this information leads to generation of supervised classification of the
landscape under investigation.
4. The landscape map serves to locate representative elements of each type of landscape
element for an investigation of levels of species diversity in selected groups of
organisms such as freshwater molluscs and insects, mosses, flowering plants,
butterflies, ants, legless amphibians and birds.
5. These landscape maps are compared with information obtained on earlier status of the
landscape from older topographic maps, satellite imagery, as also oral accounts of the
local people to reconstruct the ecological history of the landscape.
6. Local people are interviewed to document their knowledge of occurrence and uses of
various plant and animal species as also of local conservation practices. Also
documented is their perception of ongoing patterns of landscape change, ongoing
changes in biological communities as well as species of particular interest such as
medicinal herbs, and their perception of forces driving these changes.
7. All of this information is put together to derive a picture of ongoing changes in
biodiversity, forces driving such changes and of how local communities perceive these.
Attempts are being made to use these as inputs for the development planning process
at the panchayat, taluk and district level to steer development on to a more
environment friendly course.
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10. NETWORK PROFILE
The programme was kicked off with a 4-day methodology workshop held in field at
the Integrated Rural Technology Centre of a Kerala Sastra Sahitya Parishat at Mundur near
Palakkad from May 28 - 31, 1994. It brought together 35 science teachers representing 27
institutions with researchers from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), M.S. Swaminathan
Foundation (MSSF) and the Foundation for Revitalization of Local Health Traditions
(FRLHT). These 27 Institutions included 2 University botany departments, 20 undergraduate
science colleges and 5 NGO's. Two of these NGOs were in fact channelising funds to 2 more
colleges. As Fig. 1 shows the network spans the entire north-south stretch of the Western
Ghats in the states of Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamilnadu. It covers the
elevational gradient from sea level to 1200m; the greatest concentration being in the range of
0 to 600m. The sites under investigation thus do not include higher altitudes above 1200m.
Indian Institute of Science, however, has a field station in the upper Nilgiris at an altitude of
2000m, helping to fill this gap. The sites cover the rainfall gradient from 1000 to 6000mm a
year, as also over 3 to 8 dry months a year. The vegetation types investigated by the network
span wet evergreen forests and various cultivations through moist and dry deciduous forest
and scrub, leaving out only the high altitude sholas and grasslands; these are being studied
through IISc's field station.
Figure 1 : Study sites of the Western Ghats Biodiversity Network members in relation to the
distribution of vegetation types. Open circles refer to the headquarters of the member
institution, filled circles to the study sites. The letters L, M and H in brackets following the
vegetation type refer to low (0 - 600 m), medium (600 - 1200 m) and high (above 1200 m)
elevation zones.
The actual study sites range from a distance of 10 to 200 km from the location of the
institution involved; the median distance being 40 km. Most study sites are considerably
impacted by human interventions; all of them however do retain some tracts of forest
vegetation with near natural composition. The landscapes are intricate mosaics of patches and
linear elements. For our purpose only those above 2500 sq. m in size are recognized. These
have been assigned to 45 types of terrestrial and 10 types of aquatic elements. The study sites
are mosaics of several individual patches, belonging to 4 to 20 types. Of these scrub,
disturbed moist deciduous forest and tree savanna are most widespread, occuring in 60% of
the study sites; 5 other element types occur in only one site each.
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11. LANDSCAPE ECOLOGY
Development of a standardized system of classification of landscape element types,
their mapping in the field, leading to supervised classification of the satellite imagery on the
basis of such a map has been completed for 20 of the 27 study sites. The Regional Remote
Sensing Service Centre (RRSSC) of the Space Department in Bangalore has played a key
supportive role in this programme. Attributes of these landscapes are now being analysed with
the help of Geographical Information System, and we should soon be able to publish a rather
comprehensive study of the landscape of the Western Ghats as a result of the co-operative
effort of WGBN in collaboration with the RRSSC, Bangalore. The system of classification of
landscape element types for this biogeographic province could be the starting point of
developing a comprehensive system of this type for other parts of India as well (UNEP, 1993; 1994).
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12. SAMPLING BIODIVERSITY
Mapping of the landscape provides the context for field sampling of diversity in a
variety of taxonomic groups. The attempt is to sample patches of all types of landscape
elements with greater emphasis on types such as evergreen forest supporting higher levels of
diversity. This sampling involves laying of quadrats of 10m x 10m at 40m interval along
transects 600m long, if necessary in more than one segment in smaller patches. Birds and
butterflies are sampled along the entire 600m transect, while trees and other taxa such as ants
and frogs are sampled in the quadrats. Freshwater molluscs and insects are being sampled in
aquatic habitats through as yet unstandardized methodologies. Caecilians (legless amphibians)
are also being sampled opportunistically in their preferred habitats, apart from quadrats.
Such sampling has progressed to varying degrees. A total of 250 transects have been
laid over 25 study localities; sampling of trees has been concluded in 3000 quadrats of 100 sq
m each over these transects. Birds have been sampled along 75 transects in 15 study
localities; butterflies along 90 transects in 15 localities. Some limited sampling of freshwater
molluscs, fishes, mosses, freshwater insects, ants, caecilians frogs and snakes has also been
completed. Much of these data have been computerised using a common format; its analysis
is now being initiated.
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13. PRACTICAL ECOLOGICAL KNOWLEDGE
WGBN has, from its inception, attempted to interact with and involve local
communities in the exercise. An important component of the programme is to document the
perceptions and knowledge of the local communities regarding the landscape over which they
gather resources such as fuelwood and medicinal herbs, the status and ongoing changes in the
soil, water and biological resources. This programme of community level documentation is
being undertaken as a part of the larger countrywide exercise of "Community Registers"
initiated by FRLHT. Based on the field experience gained over the first year, a 4-day field
methodology workshop on comunity register was held at Phansad Wildlife Sanctuary in
Raigad district of Maharashtra in August 1995 under the leadership of Prof. K.C. Malhotra
and Prof. M.K. Prasad. Following this workshop systematic case studies of 4 localities have
been initiated. At a more general level such documentation continues in all localities. The use
of plant poisons to collect fishes and protection to sacred Ficus trees is being
comprehensively documented in many of the localities.
This exercise of community register includes an important component of local
knowledge of changes taking place in the landscape and forces driving these changes. These
changes are related to changes in levels of biological diversity deriving from habitat changes,
as well as changes due to direct exploitation of biological resources. Local people are then
encouraged to propose how they would like to see the processes of landscape transformation
and of changes in biodiversity regulated. It is hoped to use these proposals as inputs to the
decentralised processes of management of natural resources at the Panchayat and district
levels. It is also hoped that the documentation of the knowledge of uses of elements of
biological diversity by local communities could aid in their sharing in the benefits of
commercial uses of this diversity within the framework of the Convention of Biological
Diversity.
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14. CAPACITY BUILDING
WGBN has elicited enthusiastic participation by a number of undergraduate science
teachers and students. The field work is spearheaded in some cases by committed teachers, in
some other cases students are the driving force. A total of 300 students were reported to have
participated in the field work; of these 206 students have been active throughout. Five of the
students involved have taken up special projects on their own, on bird and butterfly
communities, attributes of tree bark and local knowledge. A total of 33 teachers belonging to
Zoology (19), Botany (10), Statistics (2), Computer Science and Economics (1 each) have
participated; of these 20 have been particularly active. Seven of these active teacher
participants were invited by the Museum of Natural History in London to work at their
collections over a six-week period in June-July 1995. They were accompanied by one scientist
each from the Botanical and Zoological Surveys of India. We are thus in the process of
establishing active collaboration with the Surveys to help in identification and build
systematic-biological capabilities at the colleges.
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15. STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES
Experience of the network over the last 18 months has helped us understand both
strenghs and weaknesses of the institutions involved. University post-graduate departments are
very much dependent on Ph.D. student research and cannot readily involve in a co-operative
programme of this type. NGO's, especially those dependent on one or few active individuals
are also at a disadvantage. Under-graduate science colleges, can, however function very
effectively in such a programme. There are of course certain limitations. Currently all such
activity has to be on a voluntary basis, since no academic credit is available for such field
research. Therefore teachers and students can spend a limited amount of time in the field, and
this has to be fitted in with the annual calendar so as not to interfere with the examinations.
Given these limitations, their performance has been very encouraging. 200 students and 20
teachers who are more serious have put in about 4000 total person days of field research over
the first year i.e. 18 field days per head per annum. As the methodology gets well established,
they may be able to do better, and we may expect each individual teacher and student to put
in 30 days of field work per academic year. Given that there are over 6000 undergraduate
science colleges in India, this could amount to a substantial contribution.
The programme started off with 20 colleges 5 NGO's and 2 University Departments.
Of these 3 colleges, 1 NGO and both the University Departments have withdrawn after
completing some limited amount of work. But 17 colleges and 4 NGOs have done well and
are keen on long term continuation of such a programme. We had initiated the network by
contacting 45 institutions, of these 27 could be invited to actively participate because of
limitation of funds. Of the 27, 21 continue, and at least 12 have performed extremely well. I
believe this to be a very encouraging success rate.
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16. FINANCIAL OUTLAYS
The investments required for the programme have been very modest. Each institution
has used between 20 - 30 thousand rupees (700 to 1200 US dollars) per year to support the
field work and computerisation of the data. The Indian Institute of Science has provided
additional support to the network with the help of 2 full time staff, training programmes and
literature at the cost of some Rs. 300 thousand (10,000 US dollars) per year. These modest
financial outlays that have yielded substantial dividends.
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17. INTERNATIONAL PROGRAMMES
India, along with 125 other countries is a party to the Convention on Biological
Diversity and therefore committed to inventorying and monitoring levels of biological
diversity, record this information in computerised data bases and use it to develop strategies
of conserving biodiversity (UNEP, 1993; 1994). India has also agreed, as a member of the Commission for
Sustainable Development, to implement decentralized programmes of integrated
environmental assessment as a part of Agenda 21 (UN, 1992). Programmes being undertaken by WGBN
could be a useful model for organising such activities within the country, and perhaps
elsewhere in the world as well. These programmes also deal with several elements of a major
international scientific effort, Diversitas, being co-ordinated through UNESCO, ICSU
and IUBS (Wake, 1995). It is hoped that WGBN would develop in the years to come mutually beneficial
links with such international efforts.
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18. PROSPECTS
A great deal could and should be done to take this experiment further. We need to
create in our educational system much greater flexibility to encourage original research by
teachers and students, especially at the undergraduate level. Such work should be rewarded by
academic credit. As argued above, field work on soil, water, biological resources could form a
most valuable component of such research. Such field work needs to be promoted by greater
flexibility of teaching schedule.
Institutions of higher learning and scientific agencies such as Botanical and Zoological
Surveys of India need to be encouraged to actively work with undergraduate colleges in such
programmes, perhaps through award of special grants. At the same time, we need to create
mechanisms for using the results of such research as inputs for a decentralized process of
development planning at the Panchayat and District Levels. Programmes such as District
Level Units of National Natural Resource Management System of the Department of Science
and Technology and Paryavaran Vahinis of Ministry of Environment and Forests could
fruitfully collaborate with such efforts.
While much thus remains to be done, there are many hopeful signs of progress in
these directions, with a much greater interest in nature study amongst the younger students
and a stregthing of the Panchayat Raj Institutions. We must now make serious efforts to
explore these spaces, and to infuse genuine vigour in our scientific investigations, as well as
efforts at taking good care of our natural heritage.
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19. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am grateful to the numerous enthusiastic science teachers and students as well as
other colleagues who have collaborated with me in this experiment. I particularly appreciate
the help of Utkarsh Ghate and M.D. Subash Chandran in preparing this article. Financial
support for the work has come from Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of
India and the Pew Foundation.
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of Western Ghats Environment and Development. CES and KSCST Report, Indian
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19. United Nations. UNCED ; Agenda 21. New York, USA, 1992.
20. Wake, M.H. 1995. Biology International. 31, 7 - 18.
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