India is a land of biodiversity with rich vegetation and wildlife. No doubt, it is under threat due to various reasons and making conservation of this valuable diversity important. In India, officially it is the State that formulates the policy and controls the ambit of conservation. But, in a country like ours, there are communities that have lived and are living in the spaces of conservation. Here, it becomes a need to involve them and also other stakeholders in the act. One of the ways to involve is by incentivizing conservation.
Kinship Conservation Fellowship is one such mentorship programme which promotes innovative and market based solutions to environmental challenges. The main objective is to create leaders who can seek different tools in the area of conservation.
I was amongst fortunate few to be part of week long “Kinship Conservation Workshop”( https://www.kinshipfellows.org/program/regional-workshops) held at Discovery Village, Nandi Hills, Bangalore from January 5th to 10th . It was a rich experience to get exposed to different market based tools for conservation. The highlight of all was that all the tools got linked to livelihoods.
Few of the tools discussed were, Carbon finance, ecotourism and Conservation enterprise. We had guest speakers to share their experience and lessons to inspire and motivate us. Mathew John from Last Forest Enterprises also was one of the Guest Faculty and he shared his views on conservation Stewardship. It was nice to see young faces sharing the stories. It included different geographies too, like India, Srilanka, Indonesia, Malaysia, Bhutan and Australia.
Apart from the guest speakers, it also gave an opportunity to interact with peers and build network. We did have some fun through treks in the Nandi Hills and Rope course. It was a time to chew on some good ideas on conservation and get feedback from the participants. Well, to end the workshop was a beginning for thinking on new ideas and build on in future.
By Bhavya George
