Towards a School of Ecological Nurturance: a partnership between Gurukula Botanical Sanctuary and Rainmatter Foundation

[GBS]

Hello friends in the Rainmatter community,

Greetings from Gurukula Botanical Sanctuary (GBS) in Wayanad, Kerala. In December 2023 we entered into a partnership with Rainmatter Foundation, and this is our first entrypost in The Grove. This is an introduction to our mission and at the very outset, also an invitation to, everyone reading this, to come to visit us!

Regarding GBS:
For over 40 years we have been working on plant conservation, habitat restoration and community-based ecological nurturance in Wayanad, Kerala.To date, we have secured over 2000 species of plants from mosses ferns, orchids and trees, many from threatened or now destroyed habitats.

GBS’s original objective has been to provide a refuge for Western Ghats flora, and restoring and rehabilitating diverse habitats and microhabitats within private and public lands. This is ensured through ecosystem gardening, a pioneering approach to integrate species and habitat conservation with human-wellbeing, enabled by the following steps; (a) assisted migration, which is “the purposeful movement of species to facilitate or mimic natural range expansion as a direct management response to climate change”, (b) creating nurseries and habitats for propagation of these species, (c) restoring vegetation cover, and (d) nurturing community-based livelihoods. Our approach has resulted in a comprehensive ex-situ conservation program for endemic species of different growth habits.

Buffering this primary goal, parallel objectives include (i) protecting wildlife on GBS’s land; (ii) cleaning, monitoring and protecting 16 km of the Kallampuzha, a nearby first-order catchment stream of the Kaveri river basin, through our outreach program called the Green Phoenix; (iii) educating visitors on rainforest flora through free guided tours in GBS’s botanical garden, and immersive residential programs for school students; and (iv) encouraging food-forest practices on shared lands. These secondary objectives will hopefully serve as worthy models for others in the bioregion.

Rainmatter Foundation support has come in at a critical moment in our organization and community’s trajectory. The consolidation of the organization through its activities in conservation/restoration and education is of top priority in this coming year. The effect of the pandemic on GBS was dire. The diverse biological reserve and its human commitment need to be supported and strengthened such that GBS can go into the next phase of its mission to a regional level. The primary utilization of the Rainmatter funds will be for the local staff on whose work the whole place stands. Since the community kitchen is critical to operations, welfare through meals will take some of the remaining monies. The final amount will be utilized for infrastructure and refurbishment of facilities.

For this year we will attend to the following:

1. Plant Care: care of native and endemic plant species, nurseries and milieus
2. The Tropical Garden: organization and curation of main visitors area for educational purposes
3. The Rewilding Landbase: phasing out weedy plantation species for native understorey species
4. Immersing Self in Wild: programmes for adults and youth aimed at intimate reconnections with the forest
5. Reviewing School in the Forest and Apprenticeship in Ecological Nurturance programmes towards consolidating into a School of Ecological Nurturance.

As this is a year of consolidation and reflection, we do not foresee any changes in our practice. We will however, use this opportunity to intensify some of our activities in conservation and education. We will also invite alumni, collaborators and peers to help review the pedagogical experience in the place, such that we can support, or serve directly, broader missions in landcare, environmental and social wellbeing. Our long term intention to create a School of Ecological Nurturance will hopefully be the direct result of this effort. At the end of the year we will be in a better position to assess our capacities towards this critical next step in our evolution.

To end with, an invitation to all members of the Rainmatter community to visit Gurukula Botanical Sanctuary! You can contact us, if you are interested to come by at [email protected]. We will also be sending out special invitations from time to time for adult programmes and retreats, through this forum.

For more information please visit our website www.gbsanctuary.org. You can also follow us on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/gurukulabotanicalsanctuary/.

You can also read about Munnarakkunnu Trust, the
charitable and legal entity undergirding the mission and vision of Gurukula Botanical Sanctuary here: https://gbsanctuary.org/munnarakkunnu/

Looking forward to engaging further with all of you in your own projects and concerns in the coming months.

Very best wishes,

Suprabha Seshan
On behalf of GBS/Munnarakkunnu Trust

[GBS]

Overall updates (since the last update)

Deepening the Gurukula Botanical Sanctuary’s educational mission through a School of Ecological Nurturance (as proposed to Rainmatter Foundation in this preparatory period) is predicated on the following: cultivating affection between people and plants (and animals etc); exploring the myriad forms of caring for the natural world and being cared for in turn; experiencing the complex rainforest biome, and its edges, the infant forest raised by GBS, through immersive programmes, and sustaining various actions in support of the community. Our mission since 1981 is concerned with all the above, mostly in non-formal ways. At a time of unprecedented anthropogenic, industry driven destruction of the biosphere, the entire community at GBS strives towards the wellbeing and resilience of humans and non-humans. In particular, through short and medium term sessions and programmes, we are able to condense our learning and know-how to a wider audience. These include day tours for over 1000 persons since the last update, through short encounters and explorations with the amazing diversity of native and global tropical plants.

Longer term work with youth through residential programmes for schools has allowed for embodied learning, and culturing a deeper affection between children and the rainforest.
Three-day adult retreats and themed workshops have brought over 75 individuals to the place for dialogue, enquiry, study and exploration since April.

We are pleased to provide steady work-based learning opportunities for 7 Paniya youth from the nearest Paniya hamlet with the idea of training them in GBS methods of land and forest care, while at the same time supporting their apprenticeship with their own elders in Paniya forest culture.

5 young people from different parts of India have interned with us for varying stretches, from a few weeks to 3 months. New formations of educators within the community, and also with alumni volunteers, have facilitated the above. The community kitchen steadily embraces the feeding of many more persons, and also fosters a love of cooking together for everyone. Creating community is a varied and complex multi-modal action, ranging from land work, to study and exploration; from celebration through art and music, to shared meals.

Progress on the goals listed while on-boarding

The nursery and out-planted habitats are steadily multiplying hundreds of different taxa, and conserving them through various ex-situ strategies. We have propagated ferns, aroids, Impatiens, strobilanths, asclepiads, melastomes, begonias, ground orchids, labiates and legumes in this period of the monsoon onset. Intensive nursery activities, repotting, remounting epiphytes, transplanting, propagating are routine tasks in GBS (one of the largest conservation centres for small to medium-sized plants in the country). Senior gardeners and apprentices skillfully perform the operation of creating new habitats to transfer these species to semi-independent communities. Progressive and slow removal of common fast moving species, to enrich an area with native species of varying life forms has continued apace.

Thanks to the discretionary fund, we built an open hall for receiving more numbers of people, such that even in the wet season we can have overnight stays in a very wild area. We have also accomplished three quarters of a lakeland habitat, creating support for migratory birds and various animals, along with wetland plants.

Challenges

The severe drought has affected wild plants in unprecedented ways. It will take a few seasons to recover, and to mitigate extreme weather changes. This is not at all easy as we can only expect conditions to swing more wildly in the coming years.

With our increased capacity to host programmes, through our network of volunteers, we have to improve accommodation facilities (bathing, disability access, rainprotection, storage), especially if we want to have people visit in the wet season.

Increased visibility, though desired, brings increased footfall, which has to be managed with care and diligence.

New avenues of collaboration (with other Grantees of RCF or other NPO/NGO)

Sandeep G of Pikalara has been helping us with surveys at a local/regional level
Navendu Page (formerly WII) of Thackeray Wildlife Foundation will support a detailed botanical survey of the GBS lands along with amateur and professional researchers (including Calicut University Department of Botany)
A.P. Madhavan of NCF is undertaking an Ecological Recovery Monitoring project at GBS
An abiding connection with the Hume Centre for Ecology and the Wayanad Prakriti Samrakshana Samithi is fostered in various ways (recent issues of wildlife/human conflict).

Highlights from the initiatives being undertaken as part of your organization

The Rewilding Retreats and Ancient Worlds of Insects and Plants tremendous success, and increased interest in the public domain. Our bookings have exceeded capacity! The posters inviting participants have been shared on social media and also the Events portal on The Grove.

Outcomes being chased for the next 6 months

• Various monitoring and survey activities to create a baseline of biodiversity and vegetation.
• Mapping the lands in conjunction with various experts and indigenous people.
• Hosting 2-4 mid to long term volunteers and interns at any given point in time
• More workshops ranging from the Rights of nature, to Writing on Nature, Ecosystem
  gardening, and Caring for Kallampuzha (a Kabini Headwater stream), Art of Nature and Pedagogy of Nature.