Going wild in my neighbourhood
I am not cynical, if I say in another 50 years from now we would be watching wild life from a roof top garden. With the projected land cover less than 10% in less than half a century and with the rate of expansion of high (property development) rising super markets all over the countryside this scenario is not out of place. The super markets would be running a garden centre (only for the very rich) on the roof top with wild life section for display. The wild (what remain of the wild) life would be fully sustainable on the high-tech biodiversity project housed within the same perimeter of the roof top. The animals would be on a strict diet of large capsules simulating natural food articles developed from the space age know-how. Their natural diet dispensed only on special occasion for human display. I would not count on the number of projected species on any of these locations since my calculation of today would be laughing stock for the then (future) scientists.
This scenario not far away I have some suggestions for the future biologists and naturalists of this country. Do have some field work now itself. The descendents of the present day bio-scientists (not doctors) are the most sort-after job of future world. What can we do to train them?
A lot can be done. A section of the one’s garden could be allowed to go wild without any care except liberal watering to sustain vegetation in the dry season. My belief is that every wild plant would sustain a number of animal and insect species as long as it is left without any attention. We should train the children to watch this section of the garden gone wild and observe and make a careful record of their observations. The young scientists should do this observation in the night. There is lot of activity in the night and watching the discovery channel without knowing what is at hand as far as I am concerned is counter productive. Unless the children watch the bees, the spiders, the butterflies, mud-dauber wasp and the birds nesting learning biology has no meaning. Getting a distinction in biological science is only meaningful if that can be matched with the observation capacity and faculties thus developed in young children’s mind.
In fact, this is what I did for the last 10 years and I am fighting a losing battle with my in laws and neighbours.
With the Ministry of Health and Education on a war footing against the dengue phenomenon every body is becoming neurotic and chopping every tree in the neighbourhood.
I have become only a passive watcher in disbelief.
Little science is more destructive than no science at all!
Even though, I have many stories of the garden wild (private) variety that I have observed over the past ten years, I should start with a story from abroad. We had a lovely back and front garden of our (rented) house with a beautiful hedgerow and a stream running at the edge.
One summer day with my children in the garden, the topic of lady birds came up and we took turns and started looking for them.
This is a game we played when we were children.
Catch them and close the fist and with arms crossed asking the question which one of the fists had the lady birds?
Then we palm over the lady birds to the winner and release them when we had enough of fun.
I wonder how many of our children play this game?
Coming back to the story to our amazement we did not find a single lady bird in our garden. Few inquiries later we were out for a long journey nearly 200 kilo meters looking for a patch of safe jungle. Incidentally, I almost dropped to sleep in the driving seat and we had to detour and stopped at a house and beg for some coffee and biscuits from a very old gentleman with a hip problem. He was one of the most charming personalities we met and he was house bound because of his hip problem. No sooner I came back I made arrangements for his hip operation and that was one of the most satisfying days of my clinical career. He of course directed us to the most likely place of all further 50 kilo meters down. We collected bottle full of lady birds for our garden and some wild berries too.
Near at home all the paddy fields are converted into shanty houses there is no room for the small paddy birds to nest.
We left a little patch of land to go wild because of the distance and the incline and this was the place where successive generations of birds had their nests. This time around a pair decided to built a nest on a slender hanging plant from our balcony (relatively safe from any predators) well hidden. I was more concerned of their stupidity. The plant did not have supporting roots and would not support the weight of the eggs let alone the young ones. True to my prediction the nest collapsed in two days and luckily eggs were not laid. They disappeared and I was happy of their departure.
My gut feeling was that this may be the last pair in the neighbourhood. I would not see them again (like the humming birds) in the next season.
Previous season our dog caught (catch them but would leave them when dead) one of the pair and I had to rescue the remaining one who came looking after the companion with great difficulty.
One night my daughter came rushing up to our bed room stating there are four young birds in the sitting room. Having the dog restrained, in about half an hour I managed to catch three of them but the fourth one was smart enough to avoid me and escape. I released them with a threatening gesture lest it would be a prey within my household.
The message is clear I am seeing the last of the Bohemians of nature.
It was with interest that I read an article on “looking for bioindicators”.
The concept is fine in a scientific sense but be of no value unless comprehensive and without a recorded history. It is high time we look at this problem in an integrated manner. The highest in my list of indicators are the human population growth, activity, mobility, the rain fall and failure of rain.
With the unusually prolonged rainy spell this time around I saw a single eagle hovering in the sky to my amazement. There were lot of animals and insect activity. The paddy birds also survived because of the abundance of food with the rainy season.
We are looking down the barrel of habitat destruction and changing whether patterns.
Man is the culprit.
12th of January 2006
Sunday, February 11, 2018
Palm Tree
Palm Tree
Torrential rains and inclement weather spared me some plant watching activity.
This time of course palm variety.
Looking out side from an advantage, a bird's eye view, I could see only one coconut tree about ten feet tall and probably of the same age with no signs of flowering. Looking down the precipice a few out of the twenty odd palm trees that survived the dry spell has sprung into activity.
After a year long vigil and watering (when I had time) their survival was a bit of a miracle.
The soil not conducive and the water logging not possible (due to the incline) their survival may have been contributed by my vigil, perhaps.
Palms unlike the coconut (which loves the salty soil) are plants that love hot humid and muddy conditions, which support their roots with fungal symbiosis.
The torrential rain was the most conducive and for nearly a decade we did not have similar weather conditions. I have tried all varieties including arecanut with no success over ten year period so my mind wondered the last time there was a spill over at Victoria Dam.
Incidentally this was after the elections and the change over from the previous regime to the present. The saying prevalent at that time was “to wash the sins of the previous regime”.
This time whose sins I would not wonder or ponder!
Coming back to palm trees there are over 1000 ornamental varieties and they are very expensive and home delivered for the wealthy in United States.
In Sri-Lanka context, the “Cap Rukha”, the gifted plant is vandalized by the rich developers.
Very soon they will be exported to US polythene wrapped. This is quite an irony. I am not sure where the coconut, the arecanut and the Kithul tree's position in the merit order on the1000 palm trees of the gardener's guide to tropical trees.
I guess the Americans who are likely to be categorized very tall in the merit list of democracy do not like tall trees in their neighbourhood. Also their democratic nuts are not as hard as a coconut and they do not like the impact of coconut falling on their heads.
This is why the oil industry in America had a vicious campaign against coconut oil for nearly fifty years.
The real reason though is that they have lost their evolutionary talent like that of the monkeys in climbing trees and swinging from one tree to another.
Going from country to country and looking for ecological trouble spots is only a pastime.
This is where our politicians who have a coconut size head and arecanut (some of them peanut sized- the American variety) sized brains should explore the possibility of exporting the coconut trees to America.
The justification is that when the next tsunami hits our shores they can re-export them back as aid for the Sri-Lankans (tourists included) to climb and save their lives. The coconut trunks well preserved would be a new form of life support system developed in America. Few of the tourists of course saved their life hanging on to them a year ago. They could share the experience with the few tree climbers left in this country.
We can promote this as a new millennium sport. Since most of the tree climbers (party climbers) have joined the parliament over the past half a century they can act as trainers and referees in this sport of tree climbing.
One a lighter note and in a scientific sense the real reason for declining interest in coconut, arecanut and Kithul tree is that all three of them are labour intensive like the tea industry.
Only way to revive these flagging industries is to promote selective breeding of high yielding variety with short trunks so that harvesting is not labour intensive.
For some unknown genetic reasons the short plants and animals have the ability to withstand adverse environmental conditions and it is not a challenge to go for such a variety.
One of the reasons that the tall trees and dinosaurs disappeared from this planet is their enormous size. They could not withstand the adversity. One area we are far behind is the palm oil industry and our Asian giant in hibernation, Malaysia, pioneered the research in this. They have gone for palm oils even destroying their rain forest. We have to learn a lot from them.
Biodiesel is going to be an area we should explore instead of drilling for gas /oil in limited resources offshore.
For me looking down the plane at Katunayake and seeing the coconut trees spanning the landing site is a fascinating scene.
Sadly this scenery is not going to be there in another ten years. The developers are eyeing every peace of land to plunder. In the process they are developing social and economic disasters in the so-called palaces they are building. The coconut triangle is going to be zigzag in no time. We have so many ministers and ministries in this country a Palm Ministry would not be a burden to the country. In any case some of the parliamentarians are coming from that back ground both in oiling the palms (heads included) and climbing the trees and this is a one sure way to climb the political hierarchy.
For the super market chains and range for this Christmas should include the imported artificial palm trees from India, which do not need any watering, plant care or plant watching.
For a change we could have Santa on a palm tree. How about that?
21st December 2005
Torrential rains and inclement weather spared me some plant watching activity.
This time of course palm variety.
Looking out side from an advantage, a bird's eye view, I could see only one coconut tree about ten feet tall and probably of the same age with no signs of flowering. Looking down the precipice a few out of the twenty odd palm trees that survived the dry spell has sprung into activity.
After a year long vigil and watering (when I had time) their survival was a bit of a miracle.
The soil not conducive and the water logging not possible (due to the incline) their survival may have been contributed by my vigil, perhaps.
Palms unlike the coconut (which loves the salty soil) are plants that love hot humid and muddy conditions, which support their roots with fungal symbiosis.
The torrential rain was the most conducive and for nearly a decade we did not have similar weather conditions. I have tried all varieties including arecanut with no success over ten year period so my mind wondered the last time there was a spill over at Victoria Dam.
Incidentally this was after the elections and the change over from the previous regime to the present. The saying prevalent at that time was “to wash the sins of the previous regime”.
This time whose sins I would not wonder or ponder!
Coming back to palm trees there are over 1000 ornamental varieties and they are very expensive and home delivered for the wealthy in United States.
In Sri-Lanka context, the “Cap Rukha”, the gifted plant is vandalized by the rich developers.
Very soon they will be exported to US polythene wrapped. This is quite an irony. I am not sure where the coconut, the arecanut and the Kithul tree's position in the merit order on the1000 palm trees of the gardener's guide to tropical trees.
I guess the Americans who are likely to be categorized very tall in the merit list of democracy do not like tall trees in their neighbourhood. Also their democratic nuts are not as hard as a coconut and they do not like the impact of coconut falling on their heads.
This is why the oil industry in America had a vicious campaign against coconut oil for nearly fifty years.
The real reason though is that they have lost their evolutionary talent like that of the monkeys in climbing trees and swinging from one tree to another.
Going from country to country and looking for ecological trouble spots is only a pastime.
This is where our politicians who have a coconut size head and arecanut (some of them peanut sized- the American variety) sized brains should explore the possibility of exporting the coconut trees to America.
The justification is that when the next tsunami hits our shores they can re-export them back as aid for the Sri-Lankans (tourists included) to climb and save their lives. The coconut trunks well preserved would be a new form of life support system developed in America. Few of the tourists of course saved their life hanging on to them a year ago. They could share the experience with the few tree climbers left in this country.
We can promote this as a new millennium sport. Since most of the tree climbers (party climbers) have joined the parliament over the past half a century they can act as trainers and referees in this sport of tree climbing.
One a lighter note and in a scientific sense the real reason for declining interest in coconut, arecanut and Kithul tree is that all three of them are labour intensive like the tea industry.
Only way to revive these flagging industries is to promote selective breeding of high yielding variety with short trunks so that harvesting is not labour intensive.
For some unknown genetic reasons the short plants and animals have the ability to withstand adverse environmental conditions and it is not a challenge to go for such a variety.
One of the reasons that the tall trees and dinosaurs disappeared from this planet is their enormous size. They could not withstand the adversity. One area we are far behind is the palm oil industry and our Asian giant in hibernation, Malaysia, pioneered the research in this. They have gone for palm oils even destroying their rain forest. We have to learn a lot from them.
Biodiesel is going to be an area we should explore instead of drilling for gas /oil in limited resources offshore.
For me looking down the plane at Katunayake and seeing the coconut trees spanning the landing site is a fascinating scene.
Sadly this scenery is not going to be there in another ten years. The developers are eyeing every peace of land to plunder. In the process they are developing social and economic disasters in the so-called palaces they are building. The coconut triangle is going to be zigzag in no time. We have so many ministers and ministries in this country a Palm Ministry would not be a burden to the country. In any case some of the parliamentarians are coming from that back ground both in oiling the palms (heads included) and climbing the trees and this is a one sure way to climb the political hierarchy.
For the super market chains and range for this Christmas should include the imported artificial palm trees from India, which do not need any watering, plant care or plant watching.
For a change we could have Santa on a palm tree. How about that?
21st December 2005
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