CITIZEN SCIENCE: YOUTH AND ENVIRONMENT

                  CITIZEN SCIENCE: YOUTH AND ENVIRONMENT

Virat Jolli: Himachal Pradesh is known for its rich diversity of birds. The varied topography, landscapes and optimum forest cover and proximity to Delhi, Punjab and Haryana States has promoted tourism related activity in towns of Himachal Pradesh. Apart from this Himachal is also known as Dev Bhoomi which means it’s a land of Gods many Hindu’s, Sikh deity places have been worshiped since time immemorial. As a result lakhs of pilgrimage visit HP during summer. These towns has emerged as major economic centre for State. These towns are rich in bird diversity due to proximity to forest and farmland. However there is no continuous and long term monitoring in these towns there we establish monitoring sites in Kullu, Mandi, Sainj, Dharamshala, Palampur, Kangra, Dalhousie, Chamba and Bharmour. We have been monitoring towns along Beas River since 2015. 

84 Mandir (Bharmour, Chamba, HP)

Students attending the lecture

Students Counting Birds-1

Students Counting Birds-2

Students Counting Birds-3

Teaching Staff and Students of Shivalik Public School, Bharmour

However during June 2017 we have added Dalhousie, Chamba and Bharmour sites in our monitoring program. In order to engage students, an environmental awareness lecture was organized in Bharmour Tehsil of Chamba to identify common birds of their backyard. We selected Shivalik Public School, Bharmour (T), a school situated in the lap of nature and located close to India’s historical and religious temple 84 Mandir. Students took great interest in lecture where they were informed regarding the importance of Himalayas in harboring rich diversity of flora and fauna. Some of the important current issues that affect the biodiversity of Himalayas were also discussed.  After the lecture 25 students of the school participated in field exercise. They were encouraged to count birds of their school campus. Following students participated and counted the birds.

1) Abhishek
2) Kartik Thakur
3) Pallavi Sharma
4) Satakshi Thakur
5) Abhinandan Pathania
6) Salochna
7) Nikhil
8) Kartik Thakur
9) Vikrant sharma
10) Anchal
11) Pallavi
12) Vinod
13) Saksham
14) Kartik
15) Tanish Chouhan
16) Aditi
17) Tanuja
18) Ankush
19) Seema
20) Abhishek
21) Riya
22) Rohit Thakur
23) Abi Chauhan
24) Sahil Sharma
25) Kamal Kishor

House Sparrow at 84 Mandir

The student bird count showed 52% of the total birds belonged to House Sparrow, 34% Large billed Crow and 14% Russet Sparrow.