Date:27/12/2006 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2006/12/27/stories/2006122712050400.htm

Karnataka - Bangalore

Symposium on environment from tomorrow

Staff Reporter

BANGALORE: Nearly 200 students from schools and colleges throughout the State will present papers in a dedicated session at the "Lakes 2006: Symposium on Environment Education and Ecosystem Conservation" beginning here on Thursday.

Organised by the Energy and Wetlands Research Group, Centre for Ecological Sciences, and the Indian Institute of Science, the symposium has chosen to link conservation with environment education in order to emphasise that the two aspects should become a fundamental part of the education system at all levels, according to T.V. Ramachandra, convener of the symposium.

Environmental management has gained momentum in recent years with the initiatives focussing on managing environmental hazards and preventing possible hazards.

The degradation of the environment was linked to the continuing problems of pollution, loss of forest, solid waste disposal, and issues related to economic productivity and national and ecological security, Dr. Ramachandra said.

The themes range from wetlands, solid-waste and biomedical waste, the status of wetlands in Bangalore and Mysore apart from case studies from Tamil Nadu, and from as far as Sudan and Tanganyika.

Dr. Ramachandra said the papers to watch out for would be on the discovery of a new amphibian species in the Western Ghats that skipped the tadpole stage, and on the Myristica Swamps of the Western Ghats.