On 5th Jan, 2011, Dr. Sai Bhaskar Reddy, founder of GEO (Geoecology Energy Organisation) and an expert on efficient cook stoves and biochar visited The Shola Trust. The three day visit started off with a visit to a nearby village, where Dr Sai could see the traditional stoves which are currently used by the tribals, their cooking patterns and eating habits. The next day, based on his observations, Dr. Sai designed a cookstove which is very similar to the traditional stoves but is more efficient in
1) Fuel wood consumption
2) Visibly less smoke
3) Increased charcoal yield
Based on the initial, positive test results of our new stove, we are eager to give out these stoves on an experimental basis to a few local people. Depending on their feedback, we aim to introduce it on a larger scale covering many households in the area.
Dr. Sai also shared his views about the importance of biochar in agriculture and maintaining soil fertility to the members of the Shola Trust and some other interested youth. He also visited the sites where we are conducting soil trials to prove that biochar does indeed enhance soil fertility and shared his learnings and hands on experiences on how this can be further improved.
Overall, the visit was extremely productive for our team and the passion shown by Dr. Sai towards biocharculture, a term coined by him, is something worth admiring and a source of inspiration to our team here.
Since you’re on our website you probably know a bit about us!
We are hoping to start two new projects:
Standardisation and branding of the Lantana Furniture. We currently help indigenous communities make furniture out of Lantana camara, an invasive weed (see more on the lantana page). The process so far has not had any serious design intervention and has ended up with communities largely replicating cane furniture. We’re looking for someone who can work with the communities (and designers) to standardise a few of the products, and then help streamline the production process. This also has to be branded and marketed.
The qualifications for this position are (1) a keen eye for design and detail (2) a good business sense and enthusiasm (3) some knowledge of Tamil/Malayalam.
Elephant dung paper. Mudumalai has a large number of captive elephants at Thepakadu, all of which eat a lot and poop a lot. Thepakadu is also home to a large number of adivasi families, many of whom have very few livelihood options. Elephant dung paper is being made in other parts of the world, and we are hoping to help the adivasis start a unit along these lines. We are looking for someone help set this up and monitor it for a year or so till it is starts running smoothly.
The qualifications for this position are (1) you are willing to take on a lot of crap! (2) an entrepreneurial attitude and (3) a willingness to see things through successfully.
Requirement for a full-time position for our ongoing work with the schools kids
Coordinator for the conservation education and awareness programme. We have started a range of ‘CAN Clubs’ (Children Act for Nature) to give kids in Gudalur more exposure to wildlife in the region and interaction with nature (See more on our awareness page). This has been going on for a while, but we are now hoping to scale things up a bit, and make sure there is a regular interaction with school children in the region.
The qualifications for this position are (1) you have to like kids (2) be keen on conservation and wildlife and (3) have some knowledge of Tamil/Malayalam.
Mail us at info at thesholatrust dot org if you are interested, with a few paragraphs about yourself, related or unrelated work you’ve done so far and a bit about why you want to work in conservation and are interested in either of these jobs. You could send us a CV as well, but that would be secondary! The ‘interview’ will involve a visit to Gudalur to make sure you like the place and us and we like you.
Looking forward to hearing from you!
Lavasa is a private city being built in the Western Ghats, between Pune and Mumbai.
All the problems around it have been well documented, and below are a few articles.
We recently found out that James Cameron is coming to Lavasa for a INK/TED conference, and are trying to stop him from doing so, given his track record of supporting environmental concerns and indigenous people’s rights.
We sent him a public letter on the 24th of November, which was also posted on the New Internationalist Blog.
The Ministry of Environment and Forests has also issued Lavasa Corporation a Show Cause Notice on the 25th of November for its violations under section 5 of the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986. Unless the company is able to prove it has not violated the Act, all construction from 2004 onwards will be demolished in entirety.
Please sign the petition asking him not to visit Lavasa.
Learn More