CMS VATAVARAN 2006- 2nd Environment and Wildlife Travelling Film Festival

Bangalore CMS VATAVARAN 2006
Environment and Wildlife Travelling Film Festival
6-8 October, 2006, Alliance Francaise de Bangalore, Vasanth Nagar, Bangalore

CENTRE FOR ECOLOGICAL SCIENCES
INDIAN INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE

The Centre for Ecological Sciences at the Indian Institute of Science was established as the first of the Centers of Excellence sponsored by the Department of Environment, Government of India in 1983, with the mandate of focusing on the ecological problems of the Western Ghats. Government of India provided the seed money to develop the infrastructure and to initiate the functioning of the Centre for the VI Five Year Plan period ending March 1985. The Indian Institute of Science took over the payment of salaries of the 15 core staff, fellowships for the Ph.D. students and recurring expenses through support received from the University Grants Commission/Ministry of Human Resources Development as of April 1985.

The Ministry of Environment and Forests has, however, continued to provide a grant to the Centre for Ecological Sciences towards the salaries of temporary project staff and working expenses for the research programmes, workshops, visitor programmes and library on the basis of specific project proposals submitted under the various Five Year plans. The Centre has also received support for specific research programmes of projects from the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, Department of Biotechnology, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, Indian National Science Academy, Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Karnataka Department of Ecology and Environment, the Planning Commission, the Indian Navy, Anthropological Survey of India, Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, Ford Foundation, Pew Research Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation.

A Monitoring Committee constituted by the Ministry of Environment and Forests regularly monitors the work of the Centre. The work of the centre since 1983 has already resulted in the publication of over 300 papers in scientific journals and books and about 100 technical reports, in addition to several monographs. Apart from this substantial published scientific output the Centre has been active in applied action research and practical implications. These have included a major role in the establishment of the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve, providing management guidelines for Project Elephant and collaboration with the State Government in work on two programmes of microwatershed development in coastal Karnataka and in developing an activity - oriented programme of environmental education for standards 6 to 9. The Centre has also provided extensive consultation to agencies such as the Planning Commission, National Wasteland Development Board and the Scientific Advisory Council to the Prime Minister. The Centre has interacted vigorously with a number of voluntary agencies in the field of ecodevelopment. It has an active visitors programme and has conducted a number of training programmes and workshops.

To provide the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Science and Technology, Environment and Forests, with a flavour for the different research and extension themes being addressed by the centre, we have compiled a representative set of publications categorized under the following broad subject themes: