Tiger's

Destiny

by

Anthony Marr

Part 3c

How to

save them all

now

Deep Rural Expeditions

Our field team is based at the Kailash Sankhala Conservation centre at Kanha National Park, Madhya Pradesh, India.

The KSCC is equipped with

a free medical clinic for the nearest four villages of the 178

in Kanha's Buffer Zone, where there were only three

other clinics .

The doctors, nurses and med students come from nearby towns as volunteers, The KSCC is also equipped with a free school for village children

With colleague Faiyaz, volunteers Anne and Janice, lodge/KSCC manager Taroon and his wife Dimple who

also volunteers as a teacher.

"Who wants to save the tiger?"

"I do!  I do!"

Village elders are invited into the KSCC for slideshows, videos, alternative  technology demos and a park drive, transport provided.

Girls just want to have fun, and would rather spin yarn than pack wood.

These are some low tech alternative energy devices that can be made manually with locally available material. They are to alleviate deforestation. We do not give. We teach..

This is a demo biogas plant.  Biogas is methane. The raw material is cattle dung, which India has plenty of.  Still, I wish the guy would use a stick though since he is also our assistant chef.

A communal-sized biogas plant, capable of supplying several families for weeks with one filling.

An experi-mental

solar mirror, designed

to use

on a

hotplate.

Faiyaz

experimenting

with solar mirror

hotplate made entirely of

locally available material.

Faiyaz demonstrating solar oven

to visiting professionals, tourists

and villagers.

Vancouver

volunteer Anne Wittman demonstrating

our communal solar oven. 

The inside temperature

reaches

300^oF.

Solar lantern complete with manufacturing manual for whatever

villager

interested in learning how

to make them

 in quantity.

For those villages

too far to visit us,

we visit them. On this day, we hiked 10 km along this river to visit Chichrunpur (God Forsaken Place),

Along our hike, we

came upon another village performing a post-funeral ceremony. 

En route, we came upon illegal wood cutting activity.

Volunteers Chris Lindstrom

and Anne assisted the villagers in

the digging

of a well.

Chris and Anne

mingl-ing

with the locals.

Playing an eco-game with the village school in front of their "school".

At the end of three visits, we were practically honorary citizens of Chichrunpur. Not only would they try out

solar cooking, they are thinking of making cookers to sell.

Speaking as Canadian delegate and tiger expert at

the 140-nation environmental conference at Tilonia, Rajasthan.

Anthony Marr

was guest of

honor at the Bandhavgarh

tiger reserve conference. In

the end, 23

villages signed

up for the

solar cooker.

In 1998,

Anthony Marr was featured as the "Champion

of the Bengal Tiger" in the TV documentary series Champions of the Wild aired in 20 countries worldwide.