TIBETAN TEAM ON ECO-STUDY TOUR

Mussoorie, April 5
A group of 22 Tibetan students and teachers from three institutions in Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh visited Woodstock School organic farm in Mussoorie under the second leg of a10-day eco-study tour today.

The eco-study tour is jointly organised by Winterline Nature Trust and the Tibetan Children’s Village (TCV) School in Selakui, Dehradun, which has provided more than half the participating students.

Under the programme the team spent a half-day at Woodstock School, well-known for its progressive eco-programmes.

The Tibetan students began their Woodstock visit with an in-depth interaction with KLEEN (keeping landour environment and ecology natural), an organisation that is involved with processing and segregating non-biodegradable waste in their recycling shed near Dhobi Ghat. Following that, the team moved on to the Woodstock School’s three-tier composting pits and the Turner Organic Farm.

The senior outdoor educator and a key leader of the school’s eco-initiatives at Woodstock, Darab Nagarwalla, educated the students about the turner organic farm and how it has grown since it's inception a couple of years back. He also said that the organic fertiliser produced here is used in the gardens of the school, thus ensuring the effective use of the recycled waste produced in the school premises here.

Nagarwalla, speaking to The tribune, said: “It is always a pleasure to receive our Tibetan visitors, and particularly so since all the schools on this visit are aggressively moving from eco-theory to eco-practice. I myself visited Sambhota Tibetan School in Paonta Sahib and was delighted to see their eco-progress. We at Woodstock certainly do not claim to have a copyright on eco-knowledge and are

more than happy to share it with other students so that they also carry forward what they have learnt here”. The team will also visit Tehri Dam and other sites in the area before moving on to Rajaji

National Park and Sonanadi Wildlife Sanctuary, along with Jhillmil Jheel Conservation Reserve, the Gujjar resettlement village in Gaindikhatta and other spots of ecological significance.