By Akhil Sivadas, Programme Coordinator, Climate Change, Keystone Foundation
On January 16, 2025 Keystone hosted the global team of Environmental Defense Fund including their trustees as part of their Global Climate Convening covering three regions – Mumbai, Nilgiris and Coimbatore. The team was lead by Mr. Hisham Mundol, EDF’s Chief Adviser in India, who also supports Keystone in advocacy on climate and carbon policies with the Tamil Nadu government.
The event started with Hisham’s introduction to work that Environmental Defense Fund does and their association with Keystone’s work in climate change. Our Founder Directors, Pratim Roy and Snehlata Nath, Anita Varghese (Director, Biodiversity Conservation) and Akhil Sivadas (Programme Coordinator, Climate Change) presented Keystone’s illustrious story over the past three decades and work done in focus areas like ecosystem restoration, community based conservation, livelihoods, forest governance, health, Indigenous Community led research and action and climate resilience. Following this was a Q&A session with insightful discussions on communities in disaster management, coexistence with wildlife, management of invasive species and challenges of working with a diverse range of stakeholders and partners. In addition, attendants were able to explore exhibition stalls for Climate Change, Aadhimalai, Last Forest and the People and Nature Collectives.
This was followed by a virtual meeting with Tmt. Lakshmi Bhavya Tanneeru I.A.S., District Collector, Nilgiris. The EDF team enquired about the challenges in administering a hill district like The Nilgiris. The DC spoke about the need to improve its capacity to manage disasters and reduce adverse impacts and ongoing activities in the district to attain net zero.
