Hi Ali,
If you read the post in this conservation forum, called Bangalore meeting part one - environmental group, it should make things a bit clearer. It will take ten minutes to read, but sets out how things should work both locally and on a national basis.
I'm working on a draft letter to send to various important people, as soon as it is ready, I'll email it to everyone I know with an interest, so they can sign it and pass it on, both to those important people and anyone else they know who may be interested to do the same.
Basically, the idea involves all local groups, like Clean and Green in Bangalore, and anyone else with an interest in the waterside environment, accepting a local group to oversee the activities and be the voice that deals with State Government and other bodies.
There would be North, Central and South Indian groups, possibly along the lines of WASI, and a National Body called the Indian Freshwater Foundation.
The North, Central and South bodies would look to build links between smaller groups and gain experience of dealing with State level government, Forestry Depts, etc. The Indian Freshwater Foundation would use education, mass media and dealings with National Government to raise awareness of the issues.
It will be a long, hard slog, but until someone actually gets on and does something, there will only ever be small groups sitting moaning and eventually getting pretty dissillusioned.
As an example, Sunder Raj, the Manager of one of the JLR camps, has been working to involve local poachers, as was discussed earlier on this thread. He really wants someone to start these groups happening, as he said at our meeting: "I've heard these things so many times, but nobody actually does anything!"
Time for someone to actually do something, is it going to be you?
And to anyone else reading this post:
Is it going to be you? Or will you sit back waiting for someone else to do the hard work and moan about it when no one does?
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