TEAK GARDEN PLATFORM WORK - NREGP TIE-UP
Teak
Garden is a dream project of the Payyanur Educational Society realized
with the help of Rotary Club, Payyanur and managed by the Dept of English
and the Forestry Club. Occasional help from the students of the PES
school is also sought as and when needed. The project was made possible by
the the mediation of Dr Santhosh V M who is on the faculty and a
Rotarian too. Sri P K Kuriakose of the Dept of English is the
consultant. This year the club was able to tie up with the
Kunhimangalam Panchayath in which the college is situated to make use of
the NREGP labour pool to help maintain all the projects of the FORESTRY
CLUB and some of the pioneering projects of the College in
collaboration with other willing organizations and funding agencies.
This teak garden with 500 saplings planted and almost all surviving
would be one of the rare organizational projects in north Malabar
towards attaining environmental sustainability, soil protection and
enrichment and preservation of remarkable wood heritage. With the
proper flourish of this cultivation, there is also the possibility of
wild life being provided a secure place in this area where rabbits, wild
pigs, porcupines, Jungle Fowl (some of them being the threatened
species) are seen in small numbers
It is obvious
that projects of the kind is contributing to the goals of the nation,
its productivity and sustainability of a culture on one hand while on
the other it promotes an earth friendliness that is fundamental to all
the ancient cultures of the world. A statement in paraphrase from Gita
Mehtha may drive home this point better: The forest was the source all
Indian knowledge and wisdom - it was ancient India's lab, university and
source of great philosophies - the rishis lived there and Kings went
there to consult them. So it goes without saying that our schools,
colleges and universities and all institutions of creativity and service
should be surrounded by small civilized forests declaring human
understanding of the interconnectedness and interdependence of all life
forms as essential to the sustainability of human life on earth. It
is duty of the enlightened human being to do away with the rivalry
between the binaries 'city and the country' and 'Grama and Aranya' that
exist in our society in the words of the famous historian and intellectual ROMILA THAPAR.
The department of English is implementing small projects like the FRUIT
ORCHARD, MAHAGONY AND NEEM FORESTS, and the TEAK GARDEN in the
direction of evolving an earth-friendly community.
