I’ll get back to the Greening India Mission shortly, but let’s take a small digression to talk of an exciting new project. This is a fully illustrated coffee-table book on “The Forests of India”, to be released on the occasion of the 2nd Indian Forest Congress, to be held in early November, 2012 at Bangalore.
The book is proposed to be of around 250 pages, which implies around 10 pages for each State/UT plus or minus a few pages depending on the material submitted. The contents should cover the basic ecology & distribution, interesting accounts of their history, exploration, flora/fauna, ethno-geography; record of administration & management, working plans & results, and biographies of the principal persons involved. For each state, 2-3 box items are envisaged, which will go into the details of a few outstanding or important forest locations.. those with, so to speak, iconic identities.
The idea is to highlight the contributions, even sacrifices, made by various people, especially frontline staff, citizens, village communities etc. Here is where the positive aspects of the forest administration & forest services can be projected. Benefits to local communities, especially women, should be prominently described with facts & figures, supported by case studies and photographs.
This will be a great opportunity to bring out case studies, and the “voice of the people”, through supporting videos. That was also an underlying element of our “Voices from the Field” project for the 1st Indian Forest Congress, and we understand ICFRE is working on the video part... a “Voices” book has already come out, and preparatory steps should be underway for the 2nd “Voices” volume for the Bangalore Congress in November 2012. This “Forests” volume will be an additional product, and another feather in ICFRE’s cap if they take it up in right earnest. The book will be for the general reader, especially aimed at policy-makers and leaders in society, hence it should be of global standards in concept, content, and production, like the Marg productions on the Indian Lion and on the Asian Elephant (the latter by Sukumar, our elephant expert at IISC Bangalore), various TimeLife or NatGeo publications, and so on... we are spoilt for choice as far as models are concerned.
For each State, a competent resource person needs to be identified, who can put together a draft within a month or two. We anticipate that this will usually be a senior or retired forester, but in case there is an academic or writer who can contribute, that would also be welcome.
The Director, Institute of Wood Science & Technology (IWST), Bangalore, is to coordinate this effort, in collaboration with Vinay Luthra, Addl.PCCF, Government of Karnataka, Aranya Bhawan, Bangalore. They will be in touch with the PCCF’s or the nodal persons assigned in each State for further follow-up.
So far, they have not thought of making any payment for this work, but a modest honorarium may be made available for incidentals, apart from TA/DA for any follow-up tours/visits by the resource persons. It is also possible that research assistance may be provided... especially if we get interns from the Indian Institute of Forest management (IIFM), Bhopal, who could be sent to the field to collect extra material, video and still photographs, record the voices of the people on the ground, and so on.
Contact Nos./addresses are as follows:-
1. Shri Vinay Luthra Tel. No.080-23348544
Addl .Principal Chief Conservator of Forests,
1st Floor, Aranya Bhawan,
18th Cross, Malleswaram,
Bangalore.
2. Shri S.C. Joshi, Tel.No.080-23341731
Director,
Institute of Woods Science and Technology,
18th Cross, Malleswaram,
Bangalore.
We will be zeroing in on the resource persons now...those interested (better, passionate!) about this may also email back on this site, apart from the contact persons above. Maybe we should start a separate blog for this... but we’ll run it here for now!
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