Sustainability on Pitara Kids Network

Abdul Kareem's Forest

Fri, 19 Sep 2003 15:01:49 +0000

A lush green forest in the middle of a rocky wasteland. No, this paradise is not an illusion. Abdul Kareem has created it with his own hands.

Kareem’s 30-acre forest is in Kasargode district, Kerala. It is home to 1,500 medicinal plants, 2,000 varieties of trees, rare birds, animals and insects. Agricultural scientist, MS Swaminathan, has called the forest a “wonderful example of the power harmony with nature.”

Abdul Kareem’s Forest [Illustration by Shinod AP]

So, how did Kareem manage to convert a wasteland into a forest?

How Green is Your School?

Mon, 17 Apr 2000 02:17:19 +0000

Here’s a little check – list from the New Delhi based children’s newspaper Gobar Times, to rate your school.

Getting There

Optimum use of the school bus fleet: School bus routes should cover a lot of area, with the fleet picking up as many students as possible.

Car pooling: This is quite a workable idea today. Students coming to school from the same neighbourhood should be encouraged to car-pool, after working out the cost of petrol and vehicle wear and tear.

Creating Light from Garbage

Thu, 19 Apr 2001 18:49:43 +0000

July 22: We all create garbage. Every day we throw away armloads of things that we don’t need. Wrappers, leftovers, car parts, torn cloth, vegetable remains and mounds of other such stuff. What we throw away at home is domestic garbage. There’s much more that factories throw away. Garbage from factories is often very dangerous, because it could be poisonous chemicals, or plastics that choke the earth. The result of all this throwing away is that garbage levels around the world are rising, and fast. So fast that soon we will have no place left where we can throw our junk away.

World Environment Day on June 5: Become an Earth Warrior

Sat, 10 Oct 2009 01:58:06 +0000

Where: Worldwide

June 4, 2009 : World Environment Day is observed every year on June 5. It was established by the United Nations General Assembly in 1972. The guiding principle is that people have to take responsibility for the environment. The earth’s rain forests are disappearing, chemicals have poisoned our air, marine life is dying in our polluted seas, and harmful waste and toxins have reached even the least populated corners of the globe. The wake up call for earth’s citizens for 2009 is “Your Planet Needs You — UNite to Combat Climate Change”.

Worming into the Olympics

Mon, 06 May 2002 23:20:49 +0000

The organisers of the 2000 Sydney Olympics are very serious about projecting the Olympics as an eco-friendly event. So the Olympics village in Sydney, where the athletes are living, is entirely solar-powered. But the organisers haven’t stopped at that. They’re ensuring that even the garbage generated by people at the Olympics is eco-friendly.

For this, they’ve enlisted the help of the humble earthworm — three varieties of the earthworm, in fact. Thousands of these worms cluster behind eating areas at the Olympics. And chew their way through the garbage left there deliberately for their eating pleasure, reports an ‘Associated Press’ feature in ‘The Indian Express’.