Walk to Green, a two-day painting camp organised by Pintorus Art People, a collective of artists in the State, concluded on Monday. The camp was organised in association with the Forest Department at the Muthanga ecotourism centre under the Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary.
The camp was aimed at sensitising artists in cities to the importance of conserving forest wealth and regeneration of forests in the Western Ghats, Sreekumar Mavoor, convenor of the collective, said.
Disturbing scenes“We trekked inside the forest on the first day to soak up the wilderness. We thought we would get to see rare flora and fauna,” said Meghna Parkala, an artist from Bengaluru said. “But all we found was deer, elephants, and wild gaur desperately searching for fodder among invasive plants such as eucalyptus, senna spectabilis, lantana and eupatorium. The situation even near the core area of the sanctuary was not different,” she said.
Exotic plant species“We learned at the camp that the spread of exotic species of plants was posing a threat not only to the sanctuary but also to other forest reserves on the entire stretch of the Nilgiri Biosphere,” Ravindra Aralaguppi, an artist from Davangare, Karnataka, said.
Forest degradationThe alarming situation was created by human action and it should not be repeated, Mr. Aralaguppi said. The major theme of artists in their paintings was forest degradation. Twenty artists from across the country participated in the camp.
“We are planning to exhibit the paintings in various galleries in the country in the coming days to make people realise the significance of regenerating forests for humanity’s sake,” Vimal S. Kollarayil, a member of Pintorus, who coordinated the camp, said.
