Nature Inspires

Manojkumar Indian Forest Service

We cannot win this battle to save species and environments without forging an emotional bond

between ourselves and nature as well – for we will not fight to save what we do not love.

- S. J. Gould

Agri Domestication

Dance

Painting

Architecture

Velcro is a fabric hook and loop fastener

One lovely summer day in 1948, a Swiss amateur-mountaineer and inventor, George de Mestral, decided to take his dog for a nature hike. The man and his faithful companion both returned home covered with burrs, the plant seed-sacs that cling to animal fur in order to travel to fertile new planting grounds.

Interpreting Nature

It’s harder to fight for what you don’t love than for what you do, and it’s hard to

love what you don’t know you’re missing. It’s harder still to fight an injustice you do not perceive as an injustice but rather as

just the way things are.- Derrick Jensen

Insects

• Unlike the fungi cultivated by leaf-cutter ants, which the ant colony uses as food, the Termitomyces culture in a Macrotermes nest aids in the breakdown of cellulose and lignin into a more nutritious compost which serves as the termites actual food. The fungus garden is, therefore, a kind of extracorporeal digestive system, to which termites have 'outsourced' cellulose digestion.

• The fungus-growing termites of the old-world tropics build impressive mounds consisting of thousands of workers and soldiers. These societies domesticated African Termitomyces mushrooms more than 30 million years ago and became obligatorily dependent on farming their own fungal food in their often gigantic nest mounds

Hornbills Watch

Hornbill Trail Wayside

CEECentre for Environment Education

Hornbill Trail at Dandeli

Distance : 3.5 km Start point : Near RFO office building End point : DFO office buildingTime required: 2 hour and 30 minutesRoute : Undulation landKey features : Gregarious sighting of birds

on variety of fig tree

Malabar Pied Hornbill birds are the pride of the Dandeli. Here, they are found in large numbers than anywhere else in the state. They are unique when compared to other birds as they feed on poisonous Strychnos fruits. Timber Depot at Dandeli is a delightful place for bird lovers to understand the Hornbill birds' characteristics and behavior.

Trail Details

Hornbill Trail Booklet

Hornbill Conservation Reserve07.01.2007

Books to Refer

• Kannada– Jeeva Jaala

by K Puttaswamy, B. S. Krupakar and K. Senani- Hasuru Honnu by B. G. L. Swamy- Hasira Kolalu by T. S. Vivekanand and M. V.

Setumadhav- Dharmika Vruthagalalli Vrukshagala Patra by

Karnataka Forest Department

• English– Survival Strategies Cooperation and Conflict in Animal Societies by

Raghavendra Gadagkar– Social Life of Animals by Sukanya Datta– The Secret life of Plants A fascinating account of the physical, emotional,

and spiritual relations between plants and man by Peter Tomkins and Christopher Bird

– Secrets of the Soil by Peter Tomkins and Christopher Bird– On A Trail With Ants by Ajay Narendra and Sunil Kumar M– A field Guide to Animal Signs by E. A. Jayson and P. S. Easa– Spiders of India by P. A. Sebastian and K. V. Peter– Butterflies of Peninsular India by Krushnamegh Kunte– Pictorial Guide to Frogs and Toads of the Western Ghats by Gururaja K. V.– Sacred Plants by Karnataka Forest Department

Books to Refer

We cannot win this battle to save species and environments without forging an emotional bond

between ourselves and nature as well – for we will not fight to save what we do not love.

- S. J. Gould

Thank You……