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Sunday, May 14, 2006

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Top U.K. award for Indian

Suprabha Seshan has been conserving rare plants of the Western Ghats

Chennai MAY 13: Suprabha Seshan, 39, a dedicated conservationist working in the Western Ghats, has won the UK's top conservation honour, the Whitley Award, for her commitment to protecting and propagating some of India's rarest and most unique plants.

Ms. Seshan received the award sponsored by WWF-UK from HRH The Princess Royal at a prestigious ceremony at London's Royal Geographical Society on May 10.

As the director of the Gurukula Botanical Sanctuary located in Wayanad, Kerala, Ms.Seshan has lived in the forests of the Western Ghats for 13 years. She works with a trained team of local women on "ecosystem gardening" - propagating, nurturing and reseeding the largest collection of native plants in the region. She has collaborated with local villagers and farmers to re-introduce species to degraded habitats where they were originally found.

The Western Ghats, among of the world's most diverse and unique ecosystems, retain only an estimated ten per cent of the original forests. Nearly half the native plant species found there are taken for the medical market and 20 per cent of native species are under threat of extinction within the next 20 years.

Over the years the Sanctuary has acquired small parcels of degraded land and restored them back to native forest. Species diversity and forest structure has returned in areas that were once ecologically devastated.

Forty per cent of the gene pool in the region is endemic, notably orchids, impatiens, peppers, grasses, gingers, mosses and ferns. The Sanctuary, located 750 metres above the edge of a reserve forest, and endowed with a wet, warm climate (it receives eight months of rain a year) has helped grow rich and complex semi-natural plant communities.

Explaining the work of the Gurukula Sanctuary, Ms. Seshan said, "Our ecosystem gardening involves tending, reseeding and reconstructing habitat structure in a variety of native ecosystems, as well as removing exotic alien species. Now we have begun to re-introduce species to degraded places." The Sanctuary has been overwhelmed by requests to share its expertise with a vast range of interested parties across the Western Ghats, particularly forest departments, colleges, NGOs, scientists and plantations.

The Whitley Awards have been awarded annually since 1994. They are worth GBP £30,000 each and are among the largest nature conservation honours. They recognise outstanding work by conservation leaders in the fields of scientific research, protection and involvement of local communities.

Former Head of the BBC Natural History Unit and series producer of the recently launched Planet Earth series, Alistair Fothergill, who hosted the awards evening, said, "The threats to the world's wild species and spaces are becomingly increasingly complex and we do not know the effects of these losses. Many small countries with mega diversity, growing populations and a large national debt need all the help they can get. The winners of these awards demonstrate how to fight to maintain that biodiversity, engage local communities and contribute to the greater understanding of these irreplaceable assets."

In praise of Ms. Seshan's work, Edward Whitley, Founder and Chairman of the Whitley Fund for Nature said, "Suprabha's dedication and hard work has helped to establish this unique Sanctuary as a vital resource for the future. As well being an important learning centre that is visited by thousands of urban and rural people, and schoolchildren each year, she is restoring whole habitats in the Western Ghats. We are delighted to announce Suprabha as Winner of a Whitley Award, and hope this award will give her the support and publicity she needs in order to achieve her future goals for expanding the Sanctuary."

The award, Ms.Seshan said, will make it possible for the Sanctuary to build an additional greenhouse and acquire a jeep, which will help conduct plant survey and make collection trips in the monsoon. "All plant survey and collection work has been accomplished, at great expense and trouble, without our own vehicle," she added. The Sanctuary also hopes to document the places it surveys and record essential propagation processes such as pollination, seed dispersal, and wildlife behaviour."

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