Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
-- by Great President Theodore Roosevelt
President Roosevelt, was a key person, involved in saving several National Parks and Wildlife Refuges.
Last weekend, I had the privilege to visit the America's first wildlife refuge that was created in 1903 - Pelican Island Wildlife Refuge to save wildlife.
Pelican Island
American White Pelican in Pelican Island wildlife refuge
Leaders should follow his footsteps to preserve the remaining forests and wildlife areas for the betterment of environment.
If we follow President Roosevelt and do what you can, with what you have and where you are (Good and Positive deeds) at least something (good) will happen. For example:
Couple of years ago we had this free cherry tree from a tree giveaway program. We planted this tree in our backyard.
Free Cherry Plum Tree Sapling
This year it gave us wonderful cherry plum fruits.
It also added aesthetics to our backyard and helped bringing in wonderful songs birds to our backyard.
I am also proud that the people I trained have gotten into real world jobs. Hope they help others to get the jobs as they did.
I had followed President's words by creating beautiful environment for the birds in my own backyard and trained people in Information Technology to get real time jobs.
So wherever you are - Do whatever good you can, with what you have and where you are, it is going to create a wonderful society.
Most of the time you hear nature environments are being destroyed all over world.
Deforestation happen at an alarming rate. Water bodies are heavily polluted.
Air is contaminated with chemicals that are harmful for breathing. In most polluted cities already people are starting to wear masks. You should be thankful if you are living in a clean air environment and drinking good water. Others are not privileged as the people living in good environment. Most of the cities are being converted to concrete jungles.
On the apposite side, as an Environmental scientist, I feel better and take pride when I see an excellently restored area that was once most polluted environment.
Today had the opportunity to visit Lake Apopka environment for a festival called Birdapalooza .
Lake Apopka was one of most Polluted lake in Florida. Hard working people with the help of government had secured the area and made it a wonderful natural habitat. As always, I reinstate that wetlands are very important for any country. Never destroy wetlands.
Good that these lands have been purchased from private owners and had been restored. Several birds and animals live there. Fresh air, greenery and good water are very hard to get these days.
I hope other countries all over globe should have this type conserved areas, so that at least some of those areas in their country gets protected. Otherwise people in those countries would only see buildings without any natural environments, trees and wildlife such as birds and animals. These Environments and their inhabitants are very important and would not be there for them and their children.
In this industrial era, it may seem that it cannot be avoided to leave a piece of land like these, but real leaders should save the environment and preserve these type of areas (at least few areas) in their respective countries.
It was a joy to breath fresh air, watch wonderful lake environment and view majestic birds and animals with family and make friendships with people who equally respect Nature and Environment.
Swamp Brothers were there.
Audobon society were there and along with Orange county people, who gave a wonderful Bird Watch Tour around Lake Apopka.
People such as pew environment, who work towards better environment were there.
Also felt good that so many children actively participated and were very interested in birds, animals and environment.
I am always for CLEAN TO GREEN and for Protecting & Restoring Our Water Resources.
I was envisioning to spend quality time with him on all ends - professional, recreational and personal - during Thanksgiving week, 2012.
The day came and Hatha was with our family. I got the true feeling of friendship when I received him. That's when I actually experienced the following-
Even though friends are apart from each other, when they meet, it will be the same as before.
Next day I drove Hatha and my family to Everglades, a sub tropical wetland - an important ecosystem.
As we both are Environmental Scientists and nature loving people, we had wonderful time at Everglades. During boat ride to Coot bay from Flamingo center, we were watching Mangroves, beautiful birds and alligators and walking in the Anhinga Trail was excellent. As usual, I stopped at "Robert is Here" and had a tasty mango shake.
Evening after visiting a family friend stayed at another friend's house at South Florida near the
Both were very well delivered and relevant people, who attended got what they wanted from the seminars. Hope and pray these teams will work together and co-ordinate in future for the betterment of various environments (esp. the Ocean Environments - they are concentrating on) and people. I will do my part on that also.
After the seminars, stayed at friend's house close to Lion Country Safari (LCS). Again with my family and Hatha, I visited LCS. So many varieties of animals are there - Lion, rhinos, several varieties of deer, birds, zebras, giraffes, monkeys and camels. Every animal roams freely, has vast areas to roam and we ride in our cars to see the animals and birds. Wonderful Safari.
Next day we were at SeaWorld. Another fun place for watching sea animals especially for scientists who work in Oceans. Killer whale (Shamu) show, Dolphin show, Manatees, Polar bears, Beluga whales, Otters, Sea lions, Humongous Walrus, birds, sharks and thousands of varieties of fishes and sea animals - all at one place. It was great to be at Sea World with a Marine Scientist.
Next day at Disney World - EPCOT center - Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow - at Siemens's Earth Space ship, we designed our future workplace and home. Of course it was completely green living and environmentally friendly. Visited the 'LAND' area and twice road the boat through Disney's green house. We soared in SOARIN across the great state of CALIFORNIA.
Also, we experienced Mexico, China, Norway, Japan, France, Italy and Canada in the EPCOT country pavilion and finally finished the day seeing the EPCOT laser show with wonderful fireworks.
Final day of tour was at NASA - Kennedy Space Center (KSC). Those Imax movies take you to the out of world experiences. We spent quality time in the Rocket gardens, KSC Bus tours, Apollo Rocket experiences, Nature and Technology areas and space history pavilions. Driving back we saw the excellent views of Florida (Sunshine state) sunset.
On the day we all relaxed, Hatha was kind enough to give the Arctic Expedition and his scientific research experience presentation (That he gave in NOAA - AOML) to our family. Again it was well taken and I envision that one day my daughter would be a scientific person.
Everything has to end at sometime. The send off day has come and had to send off Hatha after his visit with us. But the wonderful time we spend as now mature Environmental Scientists, has its own merits. We have planned to do more good work in the future to better the environments and its inhabitants. Every minute was well utilized by good friends.
At EAFarms, we practice artificial chemical free farming. We use farm manure, natural defenses in our agriculture practices. Our aim is to produce artificial chemical free produce. Also we avoid Genetically Modified Organisms.
We strictly use farm manure instead of chemical fertilizers. We are Tamil Nadu Organic Certified farm:
We also laboratory tested our produce and found no traces of artificial chemicals.
Since food is one of the most important part of human life it is better to produce it in natural way. In Hindi language SONA (Sustainable Organic Natural Agriculture) means Gold. We at EAFarms, consider our produce as GOLD (Green Organic Land Development). Creating habitat and protecting Wildlife: At EAFarms we have created forests with lots of trees. Trees are important part of our EAFarms ecosystem. Lots of birds and animals have come back to this area. One of borders at EAFarms is with a huge banyan tree with lots of living organisms and we call it as
AtEAFarms we really know the importance of water conservation. We have created a Swale
and Ground Water Recharging Pits to recharge our ground water.
These methods have improved the ground water level to a better level even when there is low rainfall in a season. We also use drip irrigation and water pitsin center of four trees to increase the utilization of the water more efficiently by the trees.
Permaculture - Contours for water conservation
At EAFarms, we practice all these efficiently and want to spread our information to the World. Anywhere in the World, if we work with the tune of Nature without disturbing the Nature, you really feel the satisfaction it brings and it can't just be expressed by words. Earlier I have written about spiritual farming too. Along with the other organic natural methods you include spiritual farming it takes the farming to another level. Live stock is main part of EAFarms. Cattle grace our farms and we grow fodder in the farm. Cows are important part of our farm system. Goats also graze the fodder and do their part for the farm.
Chickens follow them and do their job at EAfarms.
Because of all these livestock the soil gets richer and this can be visualized clearly by the presence of moisture and earthworms.
We also see bees buzzing around.
Wild birds are also frequent visitors to the farm,
making the farm a regenerative farm. Some of our Organic Produce free of synthetic chemicals:
Utilizing Renewable Resources for Farming
Solar
BioGas
சுழன்றும்ஏர்ப் பின்னது உலகம் அதனால்உழந்தும் உழவே தலை.
Meaning of this Thirukural by the Great Tamil Poet Thiruvalluvar -
After searching and trying various employments in this revolving EARTH, humans finally resort to Agriculture and understands that it is the excellent form of labor even though it is really hard.
This is our real World experience, just wanted to share to the World.
With a BS in Biology, MS in Environmental Science focusing on Environmental Chemistry and M.Phil in Environmental Science focusing in Environmental Physiology and a PhD in Environmental Sciences from University of Maryland MEES Program and person who identified the Toxicity of Pocomoke River, MD with scientific evidence and research, before the massive fish kills in the Chesapeake Bay area, and another Master’s degree in Computer Science with focusing in Data, Leading as a technical adviser for compliance software development, this is not anecdotal nonsense based on the appeal to nature fallacy (mentioned as a comment when presented in a website), but our real world experience.
Makesh Karuppiah, PhD Environmantal Scientist and Information Technologist
