A pioneer of environment education in India, Erach Bharucha, has been named for the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) 'Earth Hero' award for this year.
“All of you need to work with conservation, whichever profession you are in. The significance of these awards are that it brings recognition for hotspots of biodiversity and the need for conservation... For conservation to be successful, we need the number of conservation conscious individuals to reach a tipping point and the press and schools are the two mediums which can make this happen,” he said.
Mr. Bharucha is currently the Director of Bharati Vidyapeeth Deemed University in Pune.
The winners of other awards, announced by RBS here on Tuesday, include Indian Forest Service Officer Sujoy Banerjee and P.S. Somashekar (Green Warriors), Nagaland's Pangti Village Council and Assam's Goutam Narayan (Save the Species award), Tamil Nadu's Kenneth Anderson Nature Society (KANS) (Earth Guardian), West Bengal's Padmaja Naidu Himalayan Zoological Park (Special Mention) and wildlife photographer Dhritiman Mukherjee (Inspire award).
Uttar Pradesh cadre forest officer Mr. Banerjee is credited with ensuring the breeding of more than 2,000 gharials in the National Chambal Sanctuary, which falls in Uttat Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan in
2012-2013.
He told The Hindu , “Simple measures like seizing vehicles of illegal fishermen and illegal sand miners go a long way. In the Chambal Valley seizure of a vehicle affects the social standing of an individual and an impartial crackdown resulted in the protection of the habitat which is home to half the world’s gharial population in addition to Red Crowned Roof Turtles and Indian Skimmers (birds).”
“Sujoy's Altimeter -- a device to measure the height of trees is under commercial production and his Chilly Cracker Technique to harmlessly chase away marauding elephants in under field-trial. Banerjee was transferred to Noida, where he handles his department's court cases, after a little more than a year in Chambal.
Hosur-based KANS was recognised for its efforts is making the government add the Melagiri Forests in the Eastern Ghats to the Cauvery Wildlife Sanctuary. The 500 square kilometre region is part of the Elephant Corridor between the Eastern and Western Ghats. Wokha's Pangti Village Council was recognised for successfully preventing the poaching of Amur Falcons which migrate to the region from Mongolia during winter. With the help of the Nagaland Forest Department, locals have moved from hunting to alternative livelihoods.
Goutam Narayan who was awarded for his role in the Pygmy Hog Conservation Programme in Manas National Park said that the species were most sensitive to climate change. “They were thought to be extinct,” he said.
“Raising the grasslands, which are their habitat, has also helped absorb flood waters,” he added.
Environment and Forest Minister Prakash Javadekar has been invited to give out the awards on Tuesday at the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, here.
