The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Peek into BR Hills flora, fauna

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Wednesday, Mar 19, 2008
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Peek into BR Hills flora, fauna

Staff Reporter

A CD has been designed for schoolchildren
It is packed with drawings, maps and educational aids

Bangalore: Nestled in the easternmost edge of the Western Ghats, the Biligiri Rangaswamy Temple (BRT) Wildlife Sanctuary has an astonishing variety of ecosystems for its rather modest size of 540 sq.km.

Dry scrubland and woodland savannas; deciduous forests and evergreen forests; and sholas and grasslands that together support as many as 245 species of birds, 145 species of butterflies and dozens of mammals including the tiger.

The Biligiri Rangaswamy Temple (BRT) Wildlife Sanctuary will now be brought alive for children in classrooms in the form of a CD. “Forests Alive!” is packed with drawings, maps, 175 activities and educational aids such as posters, flash cards and game cards specific to BR Hills. It is designed for students of classes I to X as part of an environment education programme.

The CD also deals with socio-economic issues of environment and development, the lives and livelihood of the Soliga tribal community, agricultural diversity, non-timber forest produce, health and nutrition.

The CD is the result of a three-year-long collaboration between the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE), Pune-based Kalpavriksh Environment Action Group and the Vivekananda Girijana Kalyana Kendra (VGKK). The BRT sanctuary may be the special reference for the CD, created for teachers of the VGKK School located within the sanctuary. But it can be adapted by educators in co-curricular learning programmes elsewhere too, say the authors. It can provide information to wildlife tourists, non-governmental organisations and just about anyone interested.

The Kannada version of the CD “Vana Sanjeevana,” translated by writer and Rajyotsava Award winner Nagesh Hegde, will be out in book form shortly.

For more information, mail kvbooks@vsnl.net

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