The Environmental Information plays a vital role not only in formulating environmental management policies but also in the decision making process aiming at environmental protection and improvement of environment for sustaining good quality of life for the living beings. Realizing such need, the Ministry of Environment and Forests, Govt. of India set up an Environmental Information System (ENVIS) in 1983 as a plan programme for a comprehensive network in environmental information collection, collation, storage, retrieval and dissemination to varying users, which include decision-makers, researchers, academicians, policy planners and research scientists. ENVIS was conceived as a distributed information network with the subject-specific centers to carry out the mandates and to provide the relevant and timely information to all concerned.
The ENVIS Centre was established at SACON in the year 2004 with the theme “Wetland Ecosystems including Inland Wetlands”. The centre collects, collates, and disseminates information on various facets of Wetland Ecosystems including Inland Wetlands of India. The SACON ENVIS publication “Lakes of Coimbatore City” has crossed 6500 reads in Research Gate. While the book “A Bibliography of Tamil Nadu Wetlands” published in 2017 has also crossed 1907 reads. The centre was awarded ‘A’ grade for the years 2014-2015 and 2015-2016. Apart from secondary data collection, the centre also comes out with knowledge products such as newsletters, posters, pamphlets and calendars. The centre also conducts awareness activities about the importance of wetlands in schools and colleges on various environmental days. Based on the performance the ENVIS Secretariat involved SACON ENVIS in its pilot programme of Green Skill Development which was successfully completed during Sept 2017. On successful completion of the pilot programme, the ENVIS Secretariat has allotted “Bird Identification & Basic Ornithology” course to SACON ENVIS RP. As on now, SACON ENVIS RP had conducted two batches (2018-2019 & 2019-2020) of GSDP course.
MoEF&CC funded ENVIS Center on Wetland Ecosystems and Inland Wetlands – Dr. Goldin Quadros, ENVIS Coordinator & Principal Scientist
Research Personnel (Present)
Ms. A. Julffia Begam (Programme Officer – SACON ENVIS)
I pursued my Post Graduation in Computer Applications from Alagappa University. I joined SACON ENVIS Centre on 5th February, 2013 as Web Assistant. My roles and responsibilities are to collect and disseminate secondary data on wetlands and update the same in ENVIS Website and designing ENVIS publications. When I joined SACON I was not aware of nature conservation. Later, as I started reading and understanding the activities of SACON and the ENVIS center my love for nature developed. This made me to go for regular bird watching every weekend in Coimbatore wetlands.
While gathering information on wetlands, I learned the importance of wetlands and the ecosystem services provided by wetlands. The outreach activities conducted by the SACON ENVIS Centre helped me to communicate with the school children, college students and general public to create awareness on wetlands conservation.
As part of the ENVIS team I have been an active member and contributed to the data collection,
compilation, analysis and designing of books i.e. “Lakes of Coimbatore City”, “Glimpses to the Biodiversity of Ramsar Sites in India”, “A Bibliography of Tamil Nadu Wetlands”, “Prioritised Wetlands and its biodiversity in Tamil Nadu” etc.
In addition I have also written a chapter on “Computers” and contributed to the preparation of the manual for Green Skill Development program conducted by SACON ENVIS. I also collect the articles from newspapers and online portals to collect information to be compiled as e-News monitor for wetlands. I have also designed several knowledge products which includes posters, pamphlets, calendars, CD, Infographics, Games, wildlife stickers, logos and newsletters which were distributed among the school children on all different environmental days. I have also promoted the ENVIS activities through All India Radio (AIR) Coimbatore – FM Rainbow 103 on the occasion of World Ozone Day 2019.
Mr. N. Mohamed Ibrahim (Information Officer – SACON ENVIS)
Mohamed Ibrahim did his B.Sc in Information Technolgy from Vidyasagar College of Atrs & Science, Udumalpet, Tamil Nadu on 2011 and M.Sc in Geoinformatics from Gandhigram Rural Institute, Dindigul, Tamil Nadu on 2013. He was awarded for the completion of the “Certificate course on Software Testing under UGC” and also awarded for the completion of the “Diploma course on Software Testing”. He has completed his four months training in “LiDAR Division” in Geofiny Technologies Pvt Ltd, Chennai. He did his case study on OpenGTS fore warning System in Java Platform and he did his Project in LiDAR Technology Adopted in Cliff Area.
Mohamed Ibrahim joined ENVIS Centre, Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History, Anaikatty, Coimbatore, Tamilnadu on December 12th 2016 as an IT Assistant. His responsibilities are Designing, Website maintaining and GIS Mapping.
Ms. M. Devika (Information Technology Officer – SACON ENVIS)
World Fisheries Day1 World Fisheries Day2
International Day for Biological Diversity 2020
2019
Green Skill Development Programme (GSDP)
About GSDP
Most vocational training programmes focus on mechanical/technical skills rather than ‘soft’ or ‘green’ skills. Green skills contribute to preserving or restoring environmental quality for sustainable future and include jobs that protect ecosystems and biodiversity, reduce energy and minimize waste and pollution. In line with the Skill India Mission of Hon’ble Prime Minister, Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change (MoEF&CC) utilising the vast network and expertise of ENVIS Hubs/RPs, has taken up an initiative for skill development in the environment and forest sector to enable India’s youth to get gainful employment and/or self-employment, called the Green Skill Development Programme (GSDP). The programme endeavours to develop green skilled workers having technical knowledge and commitment to sustainable development, which will help in the attainment of the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), National Biodiversity Targets (NBTs), as well as Waste Management Rules (2016). The first GSDP course was formulated for skilling Biodiversity Conservationists (Basic Course) and Para-taxonomists (Advance Course) of 3 months duration each, on a pilot basis in ten select districts of the country (covering nine bio-geographic regions). 94 Trainees successfully completed the basic course qualifying as skilled Biodiversity Conservationists and 152 Trainees completed the Advanced Course qualifying as skilled Para-taxonomists.
Click here for more: http://www.gsdp-envis.gov.in/index.aspx
GSDP conducted by SACON Resource Partner
Dr. Goldin Quadros
ENVIS Coordinator & Principal Scientist
Wetland Ecology Division, Sálim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History (SACON)
Anaikatty P.O., Coimbatore-641 108
Phone: +91-422-2657128,129
Email Id: sacon-env@nic.in, goldinq@gmail.com, staff.envis@gmail.com
