Footprints on the Mountainside

Its becoming a habit. I have a conversation with someone that sets me thinking and I come here and write about it

This time it is about Kanheri Caves and what is happening out there.

When I learnt climbing, Kanheri was a regular haunt of climbers. On Sundays and public holidays, the place was literally swarming with outdoor people. A public bus service ran up to the caves from the Borivli station. We used to use that shabby bungalow to hold training camps. Those were the good old days.

Today, the crowd is hardly there. For some bizarre reason, the authorities have forbidden climbing there. Probably something to do with their weird sense of preservation of ancient monuments.

Let’s face it. Rock cut caves that have withstood the centuries and have fairly nothing in terms of paintings or delicate art are not exactly going to crumble when they see climbers. In any case, no one actually climbs the cave walls (mostly - no promises - climbers are crazy). Climbers sweat a lot, but I am fairly certain that caves will not faint or erode from it.

Sarcasm aside, I see this as a situation changed for the worse:

1. The area has hardly any people any more, and trouble with anti-scial elements is on the rise. Earlier, the abundance of the climbers made it a pretty busy area with an abundance of fit and valuable free people who were passionate about the sanctity of the place likely to come across trouble makers.
2. Climbers generally have a well developed sense of affinity with nature and served as excellent policing of trash throwers and often brought back stray trash they found in remote spots. Today, you have families throwing garbage all over the place with no one to try and make them aware of the need not to do such things.
3. The social feel of the place. The climbing community, the families and the overall busy feel brought an impression of a busy, thriving place with immense value to a variety of people. Today, there are few people who dare to go beyond the main area for fear of the isolation, except for couples who use the caves like private bedrooms to make out in.
4. Monkeys are a menace there. A busy community makes it less likely for someone to be attacked and hurt. A simple suggestion of not bringing any eatables to the caves would have sufficed to discourage moneys over time when they realized that there was no food stuff forthcoming. However, the authorities are not interested in anything like that, even after repeated suggestions of solutions, complaints about monkey attacks…..

I miss the old Kanheri Caves, where I as a teenage girl could walk around without fear; where we were there to stop tourists from littering, rather than make occasional visits and be depressed by the litter; when monkeys could actually be scared away without resorting to extreme measures……..

I happened across this article on the net and thought that it was worth sharing. For once, it doesn’t speak of dwindling populations of animals and effects of pollution, but an astounding initiative.

Eco-tourism now includes adventure, anti-poaching - Newindpress.com

Eco-tourism now includes adventure, anti-poaching Wednesday April 9 2008 12:10 IST

BHUBANESWAR: The eco-tourism concept which, till recently, was the buzz word for nature lovers inside Chandaka Sanctuary, has incorporated new elements like hands-on experiences on anti-poaching activity, protection and adventure tourism.

While the visitors could now go with the forest staff on an anti-poaching drive to sensitise villagers on the importance of conservation of elephants — the flagship species of the reserved forest — they could also experience trekking along the odd forest paths along with forest staff and security agency like Central Industrial Security Force (CISF).

Even the sanctuary authorities have started a dialogue with the CISF officials at Mundali in this regard, says DFO Akshaya Pattanaik, adding for this visitors would be taken in groups or phases according to availability of accommodation and base camps within the sanctuary limits.

On the nature education front, to let the visitors know the various plant varieties, display boards are already in place at major tourist spots and boards on animals are in the pipeline, the DFO says.

‘‘A natural garden containing 30 medicinal plants and 30 herbal species is already commissioned near the main gate at Godibari. There is also a plan to start souvenir centres at Deras point and Godibari in future so that tourists can take some memory of Chandaka with them,’’ Pattanaik reveals.

The sanctuary has submitted a proposal of Rs 40 lakh for the information dissemination process which will also include a separate and dedicated vehicle to ferry visitors inside the forest area and to make the entrance point another major tourist hot-spot with state-of-the-art facilities for nature education, he adds.

What I enjoyed reading about this was the proactive feel of the whole thing. Most visitors to sanctuaries feel strongly about nature and being involved in safeguarding nature beats looking at it hands on. This move is brilliant because it achieves several admirable things at once.

1. Really, I cannot say it often enough. Its a cheerful, proactive step that is far more tempting than forecasts of doom and entreaties to do some vague “something”.
2. It delivers a far more real and intimate experience with nature to the visitors.
3. It serves to further develop a sense of responsibility and pro-activeness in safeguarding the environment and creates a belief that it is not impossible to create our bit of impact.
4. Makes people wiser about the natural life in the sanctuary, the local cultures that live in and around it and the role of the government on the scene.
5. Its viral. I can imagine far more people hearing about this and wanting to do it themselves than ordinary trips. So it should result in a revenue, public support and awareness as well as regular vigilance in the sanctuary.

Folks at the Sanjay Gandhi National Park, are ya’ll reading? Could this idea work to help get the park trash free?

This is a paid review. One of the few that I found these days that give me something really interesting to talk about on my blog.

NYC Attractions

CitySights NY is a double decker sightseeing tours company in NYC.
Other than double decker bus tours the copany offers attraction
tickets, daily trips to Boston, Washington DC, and Philadelphia as well
as shopping trips to Woodbury Common Premium Outlets.

What I enjoyed about this site is the sheer number of tours on offer. You have tours for the day or night or a few hours, tours to specific locations, tours along themes, tours on double decker buses, boats, helicopters…. and even a tour of premium outlets for shopping for a day or even 4 days!!!

Just reading around on the site made me feel like a busy tourist and I found myself planning things and picking up on stuff that sounded interesting.

The links to the descriptions of sights attractions and points of interest are interesting as well. I enjoyed the informal style of writing and the immediacy of the writers experience in the words. I could imagine myself being there and enjoying myself. Temptation at its most tempting or maybe I suffer from chronic wanderlust.

If you live in NYC or are planning to go there, do try and do some of these things and let me know how you find them and of course, if I go, you’ll read about it here.

I found this page on the greenpeace site, and throught it is important for readers here to notice.

©Bivash Pandav

Consider this… Olive Ridley turtles rely on an inexplicable, in-built
navigation system that guides them, when it’s time for them to
reproduce, back to the precise coast on which they were born.

Now
consider something else… The proposed Tata port at Dhamra threatens a
nesting site that is amongst the last honeymoon suites for the
remaining Olive Ridleys, a highly-endangered species that swims all the
way here from places as far away as Australia and the Philippines.

When
you consider these two facts together, it seems only logical that Tata
would reconsider its decision to build the port at Dhamra, and build it
in an area that’s less ecologically sensitive. It seems especially
logical when it’s Tata we’re talking about.

After all,
Tata has grown from a national giant into an international player,
while constantly stating its commitment to the principles of social
upliftment, environmental justice and sustainable development. The Tata
brand is ubiquitous, present in hundreds of products that have
genuinely improved the lives of generations of Indians; from the Tata
salt that flavours our daily bread, the Tata BP solar geyser that warms
our winter baths, the Tata Telecom that manages our communications, to
the Tata cars that ‘drive a billion dreams.’

©Bivash Pandav

And yet, in Orissa, we’re witnessing a different side to the same Tata.
A Tata that shuts its ears to reason. A Tata that looks the other way
when confronted with evidence. A Tata that cares nothing for the
community, and even less for nature.

The port Tata is proposing to build in Dhamra will directly
affect the Olive Ridley turtles. With 150,000 to 350,000 Olive Ridley
turtles nesting in the vicinity, the average number of hatchlings is
believed to range from 15 million to 35 million.

When confronted by Greenpeace
Tata promised concerned citizens that it would abandon the port ‘if
evidence of turtle presence and the ecological significance of the area
were ever unearthed.’

©Pratyush Mohapatra/Greenpeace

The evidence was submitted , but this promise wasn’t kept. The perfunctory EIA
carried out in this area isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on. Another
nesting season has passed us by, with turtle mortality from mechanized
fishing agonizingly high. Coming in addition to this annual death toll,
the Tata port could be the final nail in the turtle’s coffin, ensuring
that this area is never safe for turtles again.

Will this willful destruction be the legacy that Tata leaves behind in Orissa?

Not if you can help it. To write directly to Ratan Tata and ask him to change his mind, simply sign the letter on the right.

I am often asked and even criticized for being over friendly with clients. Which service provider explains components of a potential invoice and easy ways of doing parts of it themselves with little effort?

A case in point being corporate programme proposals having potential location contacts and a suggestion that a direct negotiation might work out cheaper.

Or adventure sport clients who are basically enthusiastic youth on the look out for tips getting as many tips as they want, contacts and advice to organize their trips themselves and so on?

The way I see it, my purpose is in my skill in the services I provide. I am doing no miracles, but I do what I do exceedingly well. It does me no harm and gains a lot of good will if my client saves some money on the buffers on hotel charges, or if a group of people manage their own tour.

There are clients who don’t want the hassle and will still pay me to do it, and there are people who go away with information so reliable and unique that the next time they go out, they budget to be able to pay me.

Within a few years of the creation of this site, I have over a thousand people subscribing to a newsletter that goes out maybe 4 times a year and stays shut if there is nothing extraordinary to say.

I see this as a strength which, like the open source softwares, is transparent. I have clients suggesting that I start offering some kind of tour, or recommending me to others. Like the open source softwares, it may be silly to offer this kind of information for free, but it brings me great goodwill and I get to be appreciated and hired for the things only I can do.

Seems unprofessional? I see it as warmth and true commitment to my clients needs.