On Nov 21, 2012 the E-Base in Pench National Park, India celebrated its 1st birthday with a year of milestones. Similar to the 2041 E-Base in Antarctica, the E-Base in India runs entirely on renewable energy. Serving as an educational and environmental platform for the local community, the E-Base focuses on wildlife conservation; largely, for the tiger.
Tigers are important players in our ecosystem. As a top predator of the food chain, tigers help maintain an equilibrium within prey populations. According to the WWF, the loss of the tiger will “upset the ecological balance” and lead to a decline of support–prey species would inflate. Consequently, challenged by habitat loss, the tiger population has become more susceptible.
India holds over half the world’s tiger population and through the E-Base individuals not only learn about the importance of these symbolic cats, but the overall importance of creating a more sustainable world. At the E-Base children are inspired and attain the knowledge and values necessary for becoming future sustainable leaders.
Recently at E-Base India, Chandini, who joined us twice in Antarctica, teach 250 kids from schools near the Pench Tiger Reserve. She focuses her teachings on earth’s limited resources, climate change and why the youth has the power to be Leaders of Sustainability.
The E-Base, Pench- India is a center for educating the community, living in and around Pench on conservation and sustainability. Through the showcase of renewable energy, a series of monthly weekend workshops have been sponsored by the Ashok Piramal Group and conducted by Chandini Chabbra
The first workshop was held on January 21-22, 2012 with more than 200 students from three different district schools in Pench, Madhya Pradesh. Chandini, presented a talk on Antarctica and Robert Swan, who inaugurated the E-Base in November. Different activities that included information about Antarctica, solar powered E-Bases, different species living in Antarctica and how we can make a difference to help protect the last greatest wilderness, were eagerly understood by the children who participated in these workshops.
Chandini using ice and gloves to teach the kids about how penguins keep themselves warm in Antarctica and how human bodies cannot adapt to the cold easily
The children were excited and thrilled to learn about a new continent; they showed tremendous team work in outdoor activity and were able to easily identify and answer questions asked at the end of the workshop.
By engaging community children, we hope to instill a sense of protection for the environment and at the same time create a model that we can replicate in national parks and tiger reserves across India.
If we can have educational workshops run entirely on renewable energy for these students, we can successfully communicate and promote clean energy to the tourists who visit the park and persuade them to be sustainable back in their respective cities.
View clips from the forthcoming documentary “Cool School Antarctica,” a film by IAE 2010 participant Liz Courtney. Liz captures the life-changing experience of visiting Antarctica through the eyes of 2009 Australian Idol runner-up Hayley Warner and 40 other young people from 15 different countries. You can view the documentary on September 25 on Foxtel Nickelodeon at 7pm. The film will also be featured at the Toronto International Environmental Film Festival in October, 2010.
