After the enthusiasm shown by the students of the Bharathiar College, we decided to have another session with them. On the 20th of February, we organised a visit to Mudumalai. The agenda was very similar – do something useful while at Mudumalai, interact with some of the officials present, and also have some fun at the end of the day!
The key part of this trip was to get the kids to interact with tourists and raise levels of awareness about the landscape, the need to conserve nature and act responsibly.
We started around 11 from Gudalur in the forest department van, and had a much bigger crowd than the previous time – about 25 students. Oh the way to Thepakadu we were quite lucky and watched an elephant close to the road reaching up and breaking branches off a tree!
On reaching, we we had a quick briefing and then put on our badges and gloves and started picking plastic.
We focused on interacting with tourists and educating them. We found a van full of young people form Kerala, and convinced of all them join in the plastic picking as well!
We cleared up the parking lot area and collected over 10 sacks of plastic and waste. The visual impact of this huge pile of rubbish helped us, as could show this to the tourists we spoke to! Most people were willing to listen to us, and agreed with us in theory. We hope some of them might actually use less plastic or at least think twice about it!
The whole gang then went down to the river to wash and freshen up for lunch. After a somewhat leisurely lunch, everyone sat around and chatted for a bit about their college and various conservation related issues.
At about 3 pm everyone moved towards the elephant camp and spent an hour or so again interacting with tourists.
After that, at about 4 pm, Dr. Kalaivanan, the forest department veterinarian joined us, and talked about the problems caused by plastics in forest areas. We were lucky to get so much of his time and had a long interactive session where we asked him all sorts of questions about a range of things related to animals. Dr. Kalaivanan was as dedicated and enthusiastic as ever – thank you so much for inspiring us!
Towards dusk the forest department van came around, and took all of us for a trip into the forest, and finally dropped everyone off at Gudalur at about 7.00 pm.
Another day well spent!