Kolkata and Hyderabad had topped a programme of observation of urban bio-diversity conducted by school students among four cites including Mumbai and Delhi using mobile applications. The project is also aimed towards monitoring the change in urban bio-diversity due to climate change. There were three applications for birds, butterflies and trees developed by a Mumbai-based private organisation.
“Students from both Hyderabad and Kolkata recorded more than 1,000 sightings (of various birds, butterflies and trees),” said V. Shubhalaxmi, the founder and director of Ladybird Sustainability Consulting that developed the applications. At the programme called Urban iNaturewatch Challenge, the participants shared their findings on International Earth Day. While in Kolkata more than 600 students from 10 schools participated in Kolkata, Hyderabad also witnessed participation of similar number of students from eight schools. In Mumbai about 300 students took part in the programme from about 15 schools and in Delhi about 200 students participated from eight schools.
Whereas in Kolkata, Hyderabad and New Delhi the programme was organised in collaboration with the World Wide Fund for Nature-India (WWF), in Mumbai it was done in partnership with another non-government organisation. “We had to work with another organisation in Mumbai as WWF does not have much presence in Mumbai,” Ms. Shubhalaxmi told The Hindu later in the day. The applications namely iTrees, iBirds and iButterflies respectively contain information about 50 species of tress, birds and butterflies. These applications are free and can be used offline. The species of birds, butterflies and trees that were not in the database, the students can send them to the organisation’s database where a group of scientists would identify the species and send back the details.
