Cheruvayal Raman’s story of commitment to his roots that led him to conserve seeds of 47 varieties of rice, trees, herbs, and spices, has travelled far.
At home, the tribal farmer from Kammana in Wayanad won the prestigious National Plant Genome Saviour Award instituted by the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers Right Authority, two years ago. And now, he gets to narrate the story of his gene bank at an international symposium on Ethnobiology and Ethnoecology to be held at Belém in Brazil.
Mr. Raman has been invited to attend the four-day symposium to be held from August 7 to August 10. The programme, organised by the Federal University of Pará and the Museum Paraense Emílio Goeldi, along with the International Society of Ethnobiology and the Brazilian Society of Ethnobiology and Ethnoecology, focuses on the scientific, ethical, legal and political advances and challenges related to indigenous peoples across the world and sustainable use of biodiversity, Shaji Thomas, an environmental scientist and organising committee member of the programme, who works with Amazon tribal community for the last three decades, said.
It also aimed at setting a stage to bring the traditional communities all over the world together and discuss their problems in the present world, Dr. Shaji Thomas added.
The event would discuss the issues of indigenous people such as traditional knowledge associated with biodiversity as well as its legal, ethical and economic aspects; global changes—local perceptions and actions; food: diversity, sovereignty, innovations and gender; historical ecology and landscape ontology; traditional medicine, cosmology and biodiversity; and management and conservation of biodiversity; Jay Sreekumar, project associate, Crest, Kozhikode, who has also been invited to present a paper at the symposium, told The Hindu.
“The event is very important for the traditional community in the world, especially for those that are being displaced by large industries, multinational companies and governments, Jay Sreekumar, who is also the State executive committee member of the Kerala Sastra Sahitya Parishad, said.
Delegates from 50 countries across the world would attend the programme and close to 2,000 research works would be presented in the event, he added.
