Environmental Collage

The 1999 Bish Brown Award

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Gayatri Raghwa, teacher in Abu Dhabi Indian School, has been awarded the Emirates Natural History Group’s (ENHG’s) Bish Brown Award for 1999. The award recognises Gayatri’s enormous contribution to the study and promotion of the UAE’s natural history, particularly through the involvement of students. Instituted four years ago and named after the ENHG founder, the award has gone to a school teacher for the first time.

Gayatri, who is a M.Phil in Geography from the University of Delhi, has been the originator and primary driving force behind her school’s vibrant environmental programme. She is also the founder of its nature club, Prakriti (meaning ‘nature’ in Sanskrit). It began in 1990, the year she joined the Abu Dhabi Indian School to teach Geography to ninth and tenth graders. She organised an environmental exhibition on World Environment Day (June 5). Next came a traffic survey and illustrated essay – Abu Dhabi: A Breather’s Paradise? – extrapolating peak hour pollution at some intersections. Shell presented them the first prize for this and the stage was set for a series of other Shell-sponsored projects that sound as if they could possibly be conducted only by some professional environmental body. In actuality, they are by students of the Indian School. Under Gayatri’s guidance, they delineated the ecology of Bateen woods, using the ecosystem approach to study the biotic (living) and abiotic (non-living) elements and their linkages. They assessed solid waste management in Abu Dhabi. Next, the question, “why do flamingos come to this wetland?” led to a nature study of Al Ghar lakes (presently the Al Wathba bird sanctuary). Yet another query, “has vehicular pollution worsened since our last traffic inquiry?” resulted in a repeat air quality survey to track trends (1992-98).

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Still underway are projects on Seer Bani Yas (as an example of holistic approach to conservation); recycling of aluminium (reducing aluminium foil to potash alum for use in the school chemistry lab, just so that students get familiar with the recycling process and recognise the need for it); and one on a critical resource - water: its availability, demand, consumption and utilisation practices (a questionnaire-based survey).

Meanwhile, the World Environment Day exhibition is a regular feature, becoming more enthusiastic and creative with each passing year. As has the annual Environmental Awareness Week, incorporating a number of events involving different grades, which was initiated in 1992. In addition, students have been exposed to the Environmental Research and Wildlife Development Agency’s sophisticated scientific research projects on desert ecology and marine ecology.

Gayatri’s efforts must surely spawn serious future environmentalists. Just as her own motivation emanates from her teacher, Prof. Dr. Savitri Burman. “She started me off on a subject and before I knew it, I was hooked. It became my profession, my hobby, and an inescapable part of my life. Anything that I achieve I owe in large part to her. In fact, ever since Prakriti started, I feel even closer to her,” Gayatri emotes. Prof. Burman is no longer among us mortals, but those who have been closely associated with her and her teachings on ‘human impact on the ecosystem’ (including this writer) have sworn to do whatever is within their reach to help make planet earth a better place. Even if it is, as Gayatri says, “a miniscule dent in the form of education and awareness raising.”

A prominent supporter of Gayatri’s endeavours is her husband, Karan, also a geographer, environmentalist and teacher in the same school. He is an avid photographer and the two of them collaborate in school ecological projects. “But,” reminds Gayatri, “Nothing would have been possible without the consistent, wholehearted backing of the Indian School administration and management. I owe them a lot.”

HE FOUND THE SOLUTION IN HIS BACKYARD
Chewang Norphel, a retired civil engineer living in the cold, arid environs of Ladakh, India, has been awarded the Asian Innovation Award. Jointly instituted by the business weekly Far Eastern Economic Review and the chemical company Dupont, the award honours individuals in Asia who develop new ideas, methods or technologies, or apply existing knowledge in a way that improves quality of life and enhances productivity.
Ladakh is a remote Himalayan desert that experiences long, severe winters and brief summers. The growing season is short and farmers must sow their annual crop of barley and wheat between April and June, irrigating them with melt water from glaciers. Often the growing season finishes even before the natural glacial runoff begins its flow in a substantive way. It is this dependence on the vagaries of nature that Norphel wanted to reduce.
He found the solution in his own backyard. Observing how water in his garden would freeze each winter and thaw in early summer, he put his own (an engineer’s) mind and skills to work. As winter set in, he diverted water from a stream along a large wall (consisting of locally collected boulders) at the foot of a mountain. Then channelled the water through inch-thick pipes to a spot sheltered from the dazzling high altitude sunshine. Here it accumulated in an expansive pool. As the temperatures dropped with the onset of winter, the water froze. And because the pipes, through which it had coursed, constricted and restricted its flow, it congealed in layers to form thick sheets of ice that consolidated into a solid block, just like the ice in a glacier. This was different from rapid freezing that would result in just one solid sheet of ice on the surface with water in its liquid form below it.
Summer came. Norphel’s artificial glacier melted and drained into fields. This is how the Ladakh farmer’s helpless dependence on the whims and fancies of glacial runoff gave way to an assured supply of irrigation water.
Norphel has created five such artificial glaciers, each at a cost of $3500. He plans to construct another five this year, while villagers whom he has influenced are building an additional ten. Norphel hopes that improving the economic viability of farms will stem the emigration of youth into the plains of India.

Recovering rubber from tyres

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In the near future, it may be possible to utilise the huge quantities of disposed rubber tyre scrap. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., Akron, USA, has obtained a patent for a process that will recover a high percentage (as much as 80 per cent) of rubber from existing tyres making it possible to recycle them into other products, including tyres. This is good news because recycling of cured rubber had proven difficult (permitting a recovery of only 1 to 2 per cent) since, once vulcanized, rubber cannot easily be melted and reformed into other products. When Goodyear’s new technique becomes applicable on a large-scale commercial basis it, reportedly, could be used to recycle over 800 million scrap tyres in North America alone.

Energy-efficient, long-lasting bulbs

Bulbs made of gallium nitride, a recently developed material, emit intense light, consume one-fifth the energy of ordinary light bulbs and, in homes, could virtually last a lifetime. Whereas normal traffic lights need to be changed every six months or so, gallium nitride lights would last 10 years. So far, only Nichia Chemical Industries, a privately owned Japanese company, are making these bulbs but other companies are following suit. In the UK the bulbs are being tested in traffic lights in London and in Bristol. Addressing a British science conference in September, 99, a Cambridge University professor was reported saying that gallium nitride is probably the most important new material since silicon. It would revolutionise electronics and could be used in applications such as laser surgery.

WHAT ON EARTH CAN WE DO?

Devika Kar from Abu Dhabi writes:

I really enjoy reading Earthsense. Having worked in environmental education for the last ten years and now being relegated to the role of a housewife, I voraciously scan the papers and magazines for environmental news.
Being in Abu Dhabi for over six months now I have been both delighted (by the efforts of the public and private sector read about in this column) and disgusted (at the apathetic attitudes one reads about in the letters to the editor in the local papers.) What never ceases to amaze me, however, is the number of plastic packets, styrofoam cartons and other recyclables one manages to collect in just a single trip to the supermarket…yes, time is of the essence, and, one does require the tomato pureed and chicken deboned and skinned. But can’t we make an effort to reuse the packaging as far as possible? Since Earthsense has asked for suggestions from readers, here are some of mine…

Reuse the larger plastic packets to line bins.

Plastic yogurt containers can be used for your washing up solution and the smaller ones can be used as measuring cups for your rice, flour, etc.

The vegetable and fruit peels, along with eggshells can nourish your indoor plants...we needn’t give them those new age energy sticks.

The municipality does a great job of clearing the garbage vats every evening and one must congratulate them on their efficiency, but, isn’t it time they installed more bins for recyclables instead of dumping it all at the landfills? Why don’t schools have a signature campaign to promote this idea?

The greatest area where change is needed is in our attitudes.... Be it cruelty to animals (why is it that children here feel it is their birthright to kick stray cats?) reducing our consumption of non-recyclable disposable items (Styrofoam, tetrapack) using unleaded petrol or merely cleaning up our own litter on the beach or park.
I look forward to reading more about the various environmentally friendly attitudes being promoted by some of the corporate houses and individuals and I am sure several other corporations have Earthsense to thank for making them aware that one can do ones bit for Mother Earth. ..without losing out on the profit.

Environmental Collage

January 2000

WHAT ON EARTH CAN WE DO?