Happy New Year 2009

May I wish you all a very happy new year! I hope it is not too late to wish you and anyway this is our first blog entry for the 2009.

The year started with a really busy schedule. All ECO-V project staff members got together on the 1st January and started working on Monkey project. Still we all are in a stage where there are many questions in our minds about the methodology, field accommodation, data etc. We went to Waga on 1st January afternoon and found a place for all of us to stay during the project period. However the confirmation is still pending. I had a long discussion with Dr. Rudy on the 1st and did able to get more valuable advice from him.

The next day I had to fly to Bangalore, India to meet Ramesh Kannan at ATREE (Ashoka Trust for research in Ecology and the Environment). The purpose of the visit to Bangalore is to participate in a conference on Forest Invasive plant species. It was an International conference on this subject where there were many important speakers present from US, UK, South Africa and many other South Asian Countries. The symposium was held in Bangalore from 4th to 6th and following the course there was a field study tour organized by ATREE where we had a very good experience on Lantana Camara Management. We traveled to Male Madeshvaran Forest Reserve (M M Hills in Eastern Ghats) and Bilgiri Rangaswami Temple (B.R.T Sanctuary in Western Ghats) to see the level of Lantana camara spread as under story. It is really alarming and impossible to eradicate. We also did able to get a very good experience in how Lantana can be used to make furniture. India has a good potential for marketing furniture made out of lantana sticks and is also a good substitute for Rattans, obviously cheaper than cane products.

ATREE also agreed to develop the partnership with ECO-V in combating invasive plant species and I am sure their experience will be very useful for us to make it a success.

Visit of Ramesh Kannan to ECO-V

Ramesh Kannan whom I met in Chattanooga, USA during the Society for Conservation Biology conference visited us last week. He is attached to the Ashoka Trust for Research Ecology and Education (ATREE) India and working on Lantana camera, one of the invasive plant species in the world. He was very keen on starting a collaborative project with ECO-V on managing this species in Sri Lanka. We had a meeting with the Department of Wildlife and further discussed this issue. ECO-V will be acting as the local focal point for the project. I took Ramesh to Udawalawa to show him our project area for Pelicans where Lantana is a problem for the natural habitat there. He also visited the paper making project using Eichornia crassipes (Water Hyacinth) which is another problematic invasive plant damaging the water bodies. This project is successfully conducted by our dear friends Mr. Sakith and Richrd Perera.

Incidentally Prof. Sarah Hawkins from University of Cambridge was also with us and she has been helping ECO-V in many ways since its inception.

Two new volunteers join ECO-V

Gayan Tharaka who has been a member of ECO-V for past 3 years, joined ECO-V as full time volunteer at our new office. Now he is helping us in organizing the news letter and member correspondence. He lives close to the ECO-V new office. He has already formed a group of youth who are enthusiastic about protecting nature and we started technical guidance for them recently.

Devaka Jayamanna was recruited as the field coordinator to newly started Kalu Wandura Conservation Project (Protection of Purple faced langur) under supervision of Dr. Rudy Rudran from Smithsonian Institute. Devaka has experience with Young Zoologists’ Association of Sri Lanka and has participated in several environmental researches conducted by different organization and individuals. He was also been a member of ECO-V and volunteered in few projects since 2001.

Now he is getting ready to go to the field at “Waga” (off Colombo) from 1st of January 2009 to start the research component of the project. Last Monday we visited the Waga-Kahahena to discuss the project with some stakeholders and to find a place for the research station we are going to establish. We also recruited Ramyanath as Devaka’s assistant to help the data collection. Jaliya whom we have already trained during the last visit of Dr. Rudran will be joining Devaka from the village at the study area.

National Tree Planting Campaign

We are slowly getting settled down at our new home facing the Bellanwila-Atthidiya bird sanctuary. We feel it is one of gifts we got from the nature and our bird check list is going higher and higher day by day. Especially as this is the migratory season we are getting more birds in and around our garden. While enjoying the nature Kanchana had to spend time between Udawalawa and Anuradhpura delivering lectures and participating in the project activities.

We were invited for the National tree planting campaign organized by the Department of Wildlife Conservation in Sri Lanka two weeks ago. The Minister of Environment Mr. Champika Ranawaka was the chief guest and it was held at Udawalawa National park.

Both “Friends of Pelicans” and “Friends of Langurs” participated in the campaign and a plot was given to us to maintain following tree planting. Mr. Champika Ranawaka also inquired about the progress of our langur project and the Pelican project as he was aware about both projects we are conducting in Udawalwa and in Western province. Dr. Suhada Jayawardana , the Veterinary surgeon to the Eth Athuru Sevana (Elephant transit home) at Udawalwa also shared his views and experience on langurs with us on the same day.

We held a joint workshop for both “Friends of Pelicans” and “Friends of langurs after the tree planting campaign. This was the first time some of our youth members from langur project visited Udawalwa . It was an exiting event for everybody as they exchanged ideas and experience of two different projects and also different climatic conditions.

During the last weekend we participated at another programme of Holistic approach to motherhood at Kalutara where 200 pregnant mothers with their spouses participated .Kanchana also delivered a lecture on Child and environment to 50 parents at Moratuwa on Sunday as a part of a programme conducted by Ministry of Labor to combat child abuse and child labor.

Dr. Rudy Rudran was back in Sri Lanka

October was a busy month for both of us and we moved in to our new home. We located ECO-V office also in the new premises and its more spacious and there is enough space for our volunteers. Still we are unpacking and getting the things in place.

However Dr. Rudy was in Sri Lanka at the same time and he wanted to start the training for Western Purple-faced Langur project volunteers. Therefore we organized trainers of training (TOT) programme at Polonnaruwa at the very famous Primate Study Centre run by Dr. Wolf Dittus. This was mainly on identification of primates in Sri Lanka. At the same time we gave the initial training of bird watching, butterfly identification and field techniques. There were 10 participants at the training and we ran it for three days. We have already planned 4 more training programmes in future for the same batch.We will be starting more formal training with more new participants as we launched the Kate Stoke Memorial training course for our volunteers at Polonnaruwa with this TOT. There were 5 participants from the “Friends of Pelicans” team and they will act as trainers for the future trainees. Dr. Rudy is very much keen on training and has agreed to be the advisor for future ECO-V conservation training programmes. He had also given us more instructions and advices on establishing the proposed training centre and developing courses as he is having experience in similar projects during his career at Smithsonian Institute USA.

I traveled to Udawalawa again this month and formed the second group of “Friends of Pelicans” youth group as A/L exams are over and there are youth who are interested in joining us. Harsha is fully involved with the project and conducts weekly lessons on environmental conservation. He is using all his skills he acquired at CLP training and at Durrell where he was trained earlier. “Friends of Pelicans” group is now very popular at Udawalwa area and we are getting more volunteer feedback.

Meantime Kanchana continued to address the youth groups of National youth services council programme and busy with preparing the course module for their environmental conservation programme. She addressed the 3rd batch of youth (1500 youth) and two more batches to go.

As usual we are busy with the ECO-V as well as other work and we will update all of you on the progress of our projects.

A survey on distribution of Kalu Wandura (Western Purple Faced Langur) in the Western Province and SBP work in South

ECO-V team conducted a survey to find out the distribution of WPFL and level of conflict in the community with WPFL. People who have been interviewed revealed the problems faced by them because of WPFL. However we felt the tolerance level of the community in the surveyed population is very high though WPFL has been hindrance to their cultivation and the dwellings. We also approached some of the religious places on the survey route. There is a common agreement in the community that the human beings have encroached the habitats of the WPFL and other wild animals.Therefore they accepted the concept of coexistence animals and human beings in the urban settings in the Western Province. This may be mainly due to the Buddhist culture and believes of the people in the society.

Dr. Rudy Rudran who started this project will be visiting Sri Lanka next week to evaluate the progress of the project and to plan the future activities. In the meantime the youth team ,we formed following the Waga exhibition is constantly monitoring the WPFL activities in their villages.

Harsha, the coordinator to the Pelican Conservation project is presently fully involved in the survey of the distribution of Pelicans in 3 districts, Monaragala, Hambantota and Ratnapura. The water level of the man made tanks has been reduced leading to internal migration of Pelicans in the above mentioned districts. Therefore this would be a good opportunity to get the estimation of Pelican population in the southern part of Sri Lanka. The friends of Pelican teams we formed before are involved with this survey with Harsha and Department of Wildlife is helping us to get information from the parks in the area.

National Youth Service Council (NYSC) youth camp in Anuradhapura.

Honorable Minister of Environment Mr. Champika Ranawaka directed ECO-V to meet Director General of the NYSC to discuss the youth activities on environment.When Kanchana met Chairman/Director General to NYSC, Mr. Bhashwara Gunaratne, he requested her to get involved with their ongoing youth training programme called “Rata Dinawana Wishishtayo” as a resources person as there was no one to handle the proposed environmental component of the programme. We happily accepted the invitation as we felt we could do more with the experience we have conducting the ECO-V youth camps at the village level.

NYSC also requested to develop an environmental training module for their youth training programmes based on our experience. Kanchana traveled to Anuradhapura on the 9th of September to deliver a lecture to the first batch of 500 youth selected under the theme of Archeology and Youth. It was held at the garden of the Abhayagiriya Maha Viharaya reconstruction site. The lecture and discussion was focused mainly on Heritage and Environmental friendly lifestyle of our ancestors. All the youth participated enthusiastically in the discussion after 2 hour lecture and appreciated the insight given to them on the environment conservation by our ancestors.
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ECO-V also conducted a survey in major supermarket outlets on implementation of the National environmental guidelines given by the Central Environmental Authority on Polythene usage. This survey was conducted voluntarily by ECO-V on a request made by the Chairman of the Central Environmental Authority, Mr. Udaya Gammanpila. It was very satisfying to know the situation of Polythene usage by the customers as ECO-V has been trying to advocate the same policies for last 7 years.