Are we doing our bit to conserve Environment?

A few months back, we had an opportunity to visit Rann of Kutch during Rann Utsav celebrated every year from Nov to Feb. Kutch region is located in the State of Gujarat, India, and is blessed with one of the most ecologically and culturally abundant landforms. The spectacular sight of the boundless white desert under the full moonlight presents a stunning creation of nature, unique to this world.

We were there during full moon nights in February this year and stayed in luxurious tents with the best facilities created by Gujarat tourism, right in the center of the desert. We made multiple trips to the desert to capture amazing views of white sand at sunrise, sunset, and also mid-night with a full moon. Every visit was awesome and memorable with the best of nature’s magic at our disposal.

While we enjoyed every moment, the site of litter across the desert at many places was quite annoying. This was clearly a casual approach of tourists, who do not care to carry back their clutter along with them but just throw it around. This includes plastic wrappers, water bottles, and other packaging material used by the tourists and just abandoned on the beautiful site. While local government has made some arrangements of deploying some people for cleaning this waste, that can only yield a limited outcome.

We were quite upset about the issue and deliberated among ourselves on the sad state of affairs. We thought of sharing the same with multiple stakeholders after coming back and also picked up whatever litter we could, on our camel cart, and brought it back to the starting point, to dispose of in dust bins.

I believe that the larger solution lies in spreading increased awareness and taking collective responsibility by everyone visiting the place. However, some small steps by local administration and organizers of the event can go a long way in containing such problems.

“It is our collective and individual responsibility …... to preserve and tend to the world in which we all live.” —Dalai Lama

Suggestion

We saw a very effective initiative to address a similar problem when we visited Leh and Laddakh, in the northern part of India hosting beautiful Himalayas. In that area, the vehicles carrying the tourists were compulsorily provided with a sack at the first check-post, which they were supposed to carry throughout the trip. The purpose was twofold –

• Ensure all the tourists in that vehicle dispose of their litter in this sack

• Collect any litter noticed on the way

This bag is supposed to be emptied at the next check-post and if not found, the driver is questioned.

In a similar manner, the Camel carts being used at Rann of Kutch should be equipped with a sack and the driver should be made aware of the usage and importance of the same.

This will help in minimizing the spread of litter in a big way, as a large part of the problem will be contained at the source itself. The balance can be taken care of by the arrangements already being made by the organizers.

Any suggestions on the subject are welcomed and shall be shared with local authorities.

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