Visit to NBA, Chennai

On the 15th of July, 2013, the Communicating Biodiversity team* visited the National Biodiversity office in Chennai. The meeting gave us a great overview of the kind of initiatives that are being taken for the preservation of the country's biodiversity. The current focus is strengthening the implementation of the Biological Diversity Act and Rules with focus on its Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS)Provisions through the UNEP-GEF and MoEF Project. 

We were fortunate to speak to the individuals, including the Chairman, Mr. Balakrishna Pisupati, about their initiatives and could gather many interesting facts about Biodiversity Management.

For one, the NBA has undertaken an exhaustive valuation of the countries biological resources by engaging and training village youth, traditional healers, womenfolk and local communities to identify and record the biodiversity in their vicinity in Peoples Biodiversity Registers.

It was note-worthy to see how Biodiversity was being geographically categorized under Wetlands, Forests and Agriculture to define the various ecosystems. Culturally, Biodiversity was identified in medicinal herbs, sacred groves and seasonal plants. Even though valuation focuses on the economic value of Biological Resources, their health and nutrition benefits were also highlighted. It was made visible to us how various livelihoods and practices are closely  linked with their ecology. The importance and vastness of the country's Biodoversity could be appreciated in just listening to the various details that the NBA initiatives cover. 

As for the Communicating Biodiversity project, we were given the freedom to explore various forms, narratives, subjects as long as we did it with sensitivity and empathy. The power of storytelling as a mode of communication is something that the NBA believes in and Dr. Balakrishna gave us several examples of how innovative communication such as board games or textbooks created from People's Biodiversity Registers can enhance people's understanding and interest in the subject of Biodiversity.

For us, it was extremely motivating to see their interest and enthusiasm in designing new modes of communication. Which leaves us with the responsibility of delivering something that does justice to this freedom. The task now is to pick the right themes, choose the appropriate form and design a powerful story.

* You can view the progress of the animation being created for the project on Harshvardhan's blog http://backyard-biodiversity.blogspot.in/

Why a storybook?

Since its establishment in 2003, NBA has produced several publications that can be accessed by the public. However, these modes of communicating biodiversity have a rigid informational structure. The representation of biodiversity currently is mainly through facts and quantitative data through jargon that may not engage the wider public.

This leaves the need for the wider public to assume their roles in the web of biodiversity unfulfilled. Endangerment of natural resources is caused by consumers who cannot wholly perceive this destruction psychologically. The vast network that is woven around biological resources makes it “humanly impossible for distant consumers to appreciate what their purchasing power is doing to distant areas.” (Anil Agarwal, Politics of Environment). The importance of our choices as consumers and its impact on biodiversity remains yet to be addressed in a digestible and effective form. We remain indifferent to the wide spectrum of reactions that occurs across all sections of society with the slightest change in biodiversity. 

Storytelling is an integral part of how we develop as people and as a civilization by carrying information, cultural code and wisdom.To bead together information in a narrative form is a primal and effective mode of communication and is a practice that pervades all cultures. It goes back to sitting around a bonfire and listening to the elders relate their experiences, packed with wit and metaphors. In this way, stories help connect people.

The power of stories has been identified as having a “high-concept, high-touch essence” by cognitive scientist Don Norman and storytelling has been identified as one of the six fundamental human abilities essential for professional and personal fulfillment by Daniel H. Pink in his book, A Whole New Mind, packing this tool with the potential  to empower its user.

A storybook gives readers characters that they can relate to, scenarios that trigger their imagination and situations that allows them to think alternatively or derive meanings from.

Most importantly, the stories need to be relevant and successful in portraying Biodiversity (and the lack of it) in the lives of the readers and reflect the world around them in its narrative. Only then can we evoke empathy and interest in the matter. Our greatest inspiration can be drawn from the following quote by John Steinbecks:

“If a story is not about the hearer he will not listen . . . A great lasting story is about everyone or it will not last. The strange and foreign is not interesting--only the deeply personal and familiar.”

Introduction - The Biodiversity Storybook

Welcome to the Communicating Biodiversity Project.

The Earth is benevolent and shares with us a dynamic and ever-transforming relationship. It sustains life in countless forms, allowing some to develop and evolve and others to slip into non-existence, embedding new lessons in the fabric of life everyday. Change is as certain as the fruit after the withering flower.

For centuries, we have held fast to our place in the complex web of  interdependence that nature spins. We have lost and found our footing innumerable times. We have survived and embraced nature's diverse conditions, responding to them with dexterity and giving birth to various cultures.

Yet today, mankind's role in nature seems to be one where we hold the pendulum of change, felling anything that might come in the way as it swings between destruction and development. Not only have we found our footing, we have invaded into the territory of other lifeforms in the web. The rate at which modernization is affecting biodiversity is alarming, as is the indifference or lack of concern on our part.We willingly partake in the fruits of development but not in the responsibility to undo its damage.

The role of design in communicating the importance of biodiversity is something that we will try to explore through this project. Do those of us who live in cities and lead an urban lifestyle consider biodiversity too remote a problem? Instead, do the choices we make, our consumption patterns and our outlook towards natural resources define which and how many species we will share the planet with in the future?

The project Communicating Biodiversity will try to address these issues in the form of a storybook, created for the National Biodiversity Authority of India. The project is housed in the Law Environment Design Lab (LED Lab) as my diploma project at Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology.

Here's to getting to the bottom of a very tangled subject, which is far bigger than all of us, and surfacing with stories about our ongoing struggle to maintain the harmony of biodiversity. Do keep a bookmark handy = )