Saturday, May 5, 2018

E.T. settles in

Two years ago, after I made the somewhat unsettling decision to move to Sri Lanka, I felt like I was an alien that had unknowingly arrived at the correct planet. Many years prior to that, I felt that my interests in wildlife conservation were a little strange and highly idealised, even. Having spent a good part of my early life stuck in the obsession of being a veterinarian and eventually having to concede that it was not practically possible, I thought it was too late in life to ever find satisfaction in a closely related job and that I'd die with regrets. It was my stint at the Singapore Zoo that gave me a renewed sense of hope. I still work with more people (i.e. lesser animals) than I would like to, but I feel strangely at home in these circumstances I have fallen into. For the first time, I've found many more people like me (or better even), so much so that I am no longer an outlier in contrast. For once, I feel that talking about saving animals and having those conversations at work is not something that would raise eyebrows or sound silly enough for others to make jokes about it.

Yesterday at work, we completed a 2-day workshop for 18 NGOs (consisting of about 60 individuals) who will be working with the UNDP GEF Small Grants Programme for the next two years. Sure, there were small hiccups here and there, but our efforts in organising the event mostly paid off. Even though I was on the event management side of things, I learnt quite a lot of things on formulating projects according to the Logical Framework Approach (LFA) method, applications of Geographic Information System (GIS) tools in projects and the importance of using good communications.

On Day 1 of the workshop, I was put on the spot with a request to be the compère. Despite the great lengths I go to avoid standing behind a podium, I get cornered sometimes. And being an adult and realising I was one, I had to play it cool. First, I was given the simple task to welcome the participants, do a quick run through of the agenda and introduce the first speaker. Being me, I messed up, of course. I accidentally introduced the second speaker first. After that blunder, I fared better. Thankfully, I realise that with age, I am getting more humiliation-proof. Those small things that used to embarrass me and make me very anxious are becoming fewer in number. Even the really embarrassing things that happen, I realise, are but a moment that will be soon forgotten, or would end up a good lesson or become fodder for a good laugh in future. And these are all equally good outcomes.

On the morning of Day 2, just as I woke up, in a state of semi-sleep, I mentally drafted the best opening lines for the workshop. I come up with the best imaginary speeches at that time of the day and some of those speeches really blow me away. As usual, I remembered none of that when I stood behind the microphone. The segments where I had to use the microphone for bossing people around to remind them to hurry up, submit forms, etc, were easy. Someone I knew from my childhood once pointed out (to my surprise at the time, I admit), that I am bossy. This small talent of mine for pushing people around, especially if they are lazy, incompetent, uncooperative or ridiculous and reverses the "forward-flowing" energy of life can be good sometimes. It's no wonder that I took a liking to the quality assurance and regulatory compliance (i.e. policing) aspects of my previous profession, which involved setting things "right" (to accepted standards), despite the unpopularity. This is making so much sense now. But Shuri, you are lazy too!! Shhh, this isn't about me. 

The workshop left a profound impression on me. The participants were people from different walks of life who bid and won grants (through a tough selection process) for environment-based projects involving communities to improve things in Sri Lanka. To see the vision and ideas of how different people proposed to do things, including the introduction of innovative solutions, were very interesting. They spoke with passion. Sure, these were only at a conceptual level for now, sounding great on paper, and implementation on the ground would be a challenge. Still, it was nice to play with the thought that if done right and all these projects achieve a high success rate, it would be a great accomplishment. Given the little experience I have gained from this job, I know that there will be plenty of obstacles, for example, failures, mismanagement of funds, disputes, unforeseen circumstances, show-stoppers or even grantees losing interest, after the project kicks off.

The projects to be implemented touched on various areas like eco-tourism, agriculture, community livelihood development, increasing biodiversity and environment conservation. I have already taken a special liking to a few projects that focus more on wildlife.

One of the participants was a young lady (possibly under 30 years of age) who's made herself a name in the wildlife conservation circles here for being a passionate and driven individual. She's made it her life's mission to protect the Fishing Cat population living in the highly urbanised city of Sri Lanka's capital, Colombo. During the applications process, she wooed the panel with her charisma and youthful optimism in wanting to fight the odds to carry out her mission. Fishing Cats are nocturnal, so many city-dwelling people don't know about their existence or the decline of populations, unless they become roadkill or are caught and killed by people for attacking poultry. In her project, she's used the Fishing Cat as an indicator species to assess the health of Colombo's urban (inland) wetlands, which are its natural habitat range. This is a project I am looking forward to since it is going to involve the building of an animal rescue and rehabilitation center (* gets distracted thinking of Fishing Cat kittens * SHURI, focus on finishing this post with a serious tone!)



The Fishing Cat is found in various parts of Asia, including Sri Lanka (Image Source: http://www.fishingcatcambodia.org)


One project is going to increase nesting areas and habitats for the wildlife in urban Colombo, such as for the endangered Purple-face Leaf Langur, insectivorous bats, wetland birds and the Fishing Cat. With an increasing human population in the cities, animals are rapidly losing their homes. While we can't do anything about an increasing human population, there's hope in trying to help humans and wildlife co-exist. The project will also carry out various activities to remove invasive plants that are wiping out indigenous species of plants and slowly destroying the balance of wetland ecosystems. The person leading this project is also a passionate zoologist who volunteers his weekends to educate members of the Young Zoologists Association. He has experience in working with the National zoo and he led a project which was instrumental in establishing the only official wildlife rescue and rehabilitation centre in Colombo through a previous grant.

Another noteworthy project will be implemented by a university in the north of Sri Lanka. The project is led by a young gentleman (also under 30 years) who is a passionate zoologist and a probationary lecturer. He also wooed the panel with his subject knowledge, humility and his determination to improve the lives of the people in the area who were for decades affected by Sri Lanka's 30-year old civil war. Their project will involve the establishment of an outdoor laboratory for university students in the midst of a coastal wetland and will include boardwalks, etc. The site will also be promoted as an eco-tourism destination for activities like guided nature tours, boating and bird-watching for generation of income to the impoverished and isolated communities living in the area.

Another one of the projects is led by a leading herpetologist/ photographer. In November last year, he was part of a team that discovered the newest species of snake in Sri Lanka. In addition to that, his research findings have led to discoveries of over 20 (and counting) other new species which include snakes, amphibians, geckos and skinks in Sri Lanka. He didn't have a pompous air about him, despite his impressive career background. With my liking for reptiles, it was hard not to want to strike reptile-related conversations with him (nothing even remotely intelligent-sounding came to my mind, to be honest) or make him talk about his subject to satisfy my inner fan. I just stuck to small verbal exchanges relating to the workshop. I am happy and shameless to say I was able to manipulate the course of events and get a (group) photo with him in it. Seriously, Shuri!

It takes the coordinated effort of many individuals in various capacities to make a project a success. The grant that we (the organisation I work for) received was to oversee the knowledge management and capacity building aspect of several of these individual community projects located in the Colombo urban wetlands landscape. We are one of the mid-way links between the ground level and the funding agency. It will be our job to monitor progress, to facilitate project activities, to intervene when things are not going well, to link the ground level project persons with higher level authorities, to help communities to link their enterprises to larger market chains and finally, to use communication tools to showcase and document what the projects are up to and have ultimately achieved. Because ultimately, grant-based development work is part of a cycle where good work (as showcased by good publicity) will attract more sponsors and grants, which will in turn bring more opportunities to people and community level organisations to carry out good development work (mostly for the environment, in our case). That's the theory, at least.

On the downside, working with NGOs entails some effort to be optimistic and trust that people will maintain their good intentions and not become too corrupt in the face of extra money, and if they do, to be as vigilant as possible to close any loopholes that would allow it, without letting emotions run you over and make you form a too negative outlook in life. On the upside, there are several capable and driven people working in these projects, including young people who give the conservation field much hope, and there will certainly be a few successful projects that will leave a lasting impact. I don't know where life would take me in the next two years, but the end results of this phase of projects are something I'd really like to see.

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