Offering Map and themes for storybook

The Offering Map was a tool that was used to chart all the gathered information, research and analysis on one plane. It helped me connect everything back to the topic of Biodiversity and observe these links to understand the many themes that can be covered in the storybook.

Using this tool, I could draw the following inferences. They were then associated with the six dimensions of understanding to look at the nature of these themes. 

Topics to explore

From the feedback that I received after the first seminar, the most important was to focus on the topics that need to be explored further. The topics were then assessed for relevance :

As can be seen, Monocultures, the link between Cultural Diversity and Biodiversity and the need for Indicators are topics that have more scope for exploration. They are more inclusive and not specific to a class or gender, and can help us look at conserving Biodiversity as a collective responsibility.
The other topics can be auxiliary in understanding the effect of degradation of Biodiversity and be explored to a lesser degree. 

India and Biodiversity

To gain insights about the discussions that surround Biodiversity in India, I read Ashish Kothari's Understanding Biodiversity. The text gives a detailed background of Biodiversity management in India, the threats to Biodiversity and what measures have already been taken. It was a great way of understanding the subject with respect to the diversity that our country harbours based on availability of resources, various livelihoods, cultural differences, disparity in class and addresses the debate on Intellectual Property Rights on traditional knowledge. The book also cites examples of inspiring people and movements that have preserved and maintained biological diversity in India.

A comprehensive and concisely written study on the ecological issues in India from the National, Urban and Agricultural perspectives is Anil Agarwal's Politics of Environment. The study helped me identify a few topics that can be explored further.

The topics identified were:

Diversity gets transformed into Monocultures. This can be said for the cultural diversity in cities and the biological diversity in farms. Furthermore, cultural diversity is born out of biological diversity.

Urban migrants are not economic refugees but ecological refugees, displaced by building of dams, mining, deforestation, etc.

The biggest ally for an ecologically / socially sound environment is Womankind.

We do not yet know how to construct a social / economic / ecological indicator for urban residents to detect depleting biodiversity.

Of these topics, one will be explored further to shape the narrative of the storybook.

Biodiversity- The Context

How can the two subjects of Biodiversity and the Urban audience be brought on the same plane?

Let's look at the 3 main objectives that various biodiversity conventions and organizations stress upon.

CONSERVATION : The biggest threat to biodiversity is how forest cover, wetlands and farms are stripped down to make way for urbanization without conservation of the species who inhabit these areas. We are losing species at 1000-10,000 times the natural rate of extinction, dangerously affecting the interdependence of various species. Not only this, we are also controlling the natural variability through genetic modification and promoting the development of only a few varieties of a certain plant or animal. Raising monocultures to increase productivity, eliminates diversity.

SUSTAINABILITY : There is a great disparity in the rate at which we consume biological resources and the rat at which these resources replenish themselves. The biggest consumers of energy and raw natural material are cities and industries. Exploitation of resources for development in a manner that leaves no sustenance for the future exhausts natural resources and threatens biodiversity.

ACCESS AND BENEFIT SHARING : Traditional knowledge about plants and animals, that is protected and preserved by indigenous tribes and farmers is patented and used for commercial means by capital powers, often providing no profit or access to the rightful custodians. When urban consumers promote the commercial use of such products, we put the power of controlling diversity in a few hands. 

Here's a map that identifies the various facets that define the context of this project