CHENNAI: The lockdown has led to an increase in conservation campaigns and webinars on wildlife. Cost-effective online meetings have come handy providing a level playing field for both the top NGOs and small wildlife groups to promote wildlife awareness. There are two or three webinars dedicated this daily and this was not the case earlier, said a young forest ranger with Tamil Nadu forest department who is now regularly attending these webinars.
Bombay Natural History Society had also completed a series of webinars on bird watching and their ecology. Topics like birds in agriculture, introduction to dragonflies and damselflies, basics of butterfly, and marine biodiversity conservation are some of the topics covered in the past two months. Exclusive webinars on particular bird species like bustards, owls and weaver birds have also been conducted and there is a good response from school and college students, e-bird and BNHS sources said. On Thursday INTACH, Chennai chapter, organised a webinar on Sacred plants of India by Nadita Krishna of CPR Art Environmental Education Centre and Tiruchy-based Biodiversity Conservation Foundation hosted a webinar on shark fears. The old adage 'catch them young' is now the mantra of wildlife NGOs and organisations into conservation and wildlife awareness. There are cost-effective options these days and it is easy to attend a webinar from your home, explains conservation scientist A Kumaraguru of Biodiversity Conservation Foundation, Tiruchy. In the past two months, more than 20 webinars have been conducted and all of them had surplus registration and most of them are students Interestingly these webinars are getting traction from the US, the UK, Russia and South American countries, he said, adding that the free provisions given by Google support only 100 participants and there is a steady online waiting queue during live sessions. On Thursday, BCF conducted a webinar on fear of sharks by Selvam Ravindranath, correspondent, Sharks Educational Institute, Maldives, and the response were jam-packed without additional seats, he said.
