An Introduction
Conservation approaches are integral to all projects at Keystone Foundation. From distant villages to urban taluks to districts within the state, work is now at a landscape level. The conservation focus keeps pace with enterprise and livelihoods.
Specific projects provide insights into the ecology of bees, forest fruits, resin yielding trees, endemic cycads, agriculture, water, wetland & mountain ecosystems.
Documentation of biodiversity values mesh indigenous knowledge and scientific information. In the past five years, support has gone out to students for their postgraduate dissertations. These studies build baselines on the biodiversity of the region.
We are often asked “Is the harvest of forest produce affecting the ecology?” Research at Keystone has shown that a host of other parameters like weather conditions, soil textures, geographical locations, institutional mechanisms and water quality have a role to play in the dynamics of harvest.
The Conservation Program is implemented through the area resource centers where communities take on the role of monitoring the quality and changes to their ecosystems. The centers need to facilitate conservation activities in nearby villages working together to build conservation villages which preserve and protect the ecosystem.
Our activities:
- Design and implement community based biodiversity monitoring protocols
- Field courses for harvesters, managers, students – sharing monitoring procedures
- Conservation education programs that address children of the indigenous communities and others
- Biodiversity studies through student research fellowships
- Raising of multi use forest species nurseries which are both commercial and village based
- Documenting biodiversity through indigenous knowledge
- Building knowledge networks to exchange action research findings and develop implementation of conservation principles
