welcome to the science for the public lecture series science for the public is an organization committed to bringing science information and issues to the general public this is our website for our program  good evening i'm a step and i welcome you to contemporary science issues and innovations tonight to discuss an outstanding model for conservation based on an organization in india we are honored to welcome international expert come on dr bala is distinguished professor of biology at university of massachusetts boston and founder president of the trust for research in ecology and the environment called a tree for decades he's been a world leader in conservation climate change and ecology research in addition to his many publications dr  headed or served on a number of scientific panels and governing boards in yashin law and international organizations his list of awards is extensive so we refer you to his website for that information however we'd like to mention that dr receive the canaris sustainability award the major international award for work on sustainability he said elected fellow of many prestigious associations including the american academy of arts and sciences the royal society of britain the american academy of arts and sciences and the national academy of sciences india tonight bob explains the need for inner disciplinary conservation strategies not only in the amalia's and the plains areas of india but also in other areas of the world his own work through a tree is regarded as a model for this sort of sustainability and we really appreciate this opportunity to learn about this organization and his work we're very pleased to welcome dr kamel baba welcome sir thank you and i'd like to ask to start with could we get a little background about the situation in terms of climate and the impact on the the him ol your region and then back is already being felt by people around the globe and one thing we have to remember about the environment to his but usually the impacts of the environment  poor people yet throughout the world suffer much more than other peoples and people who are well to do because of the limited options poor people have and because poor people often in many many parts of the world depend on natural resources for sustaining their livelihoods water milk and ecosystem services the most serious challenge we face today i've heard that the the warming the global warming is actually going faster in the really one might say tropical rain forests to very high  countries so we're talking about the whole region so when you're taking into account the whole region there is tremendous richness of life and much of that life is journey to that region and terms of a species is really adjusting are adapting to climate change certainly that is that is happening but certainly you know there are species especially species that are very that species that occurred in very large populations spread distribution k and very often you know we focus on species species of bardolph ecosystem you know is specie is interact with many other different species for example have competitors they have pollinators they have predators and do very little attention has been paid to these interactions to the interactions might be affected by climate change is for example it is very conceivable that  these interactions might be de decades and at if not centuries in of the case you're talking about ears are even but then a year you know you're going to have a couple of generations so they've been led to happen differently yes and they will respond differently to climate change and therefore these interactions are likely to be disrupted and that can have a game of very very severe consequences for the ecosystems if i may say so i think that that has been one of your key points over a number of years actually that you have to look at the ecological system you can't look at this x or y show separately and this is like a new thing that people are looking more comprehensive late at that they're asking what a development has done in this region what what is the situation in terms of effect on the foreign fauna on the ecosystems yes i think this the situation is very complex and of course a certain level of development is needed we need energy and energ also needed to for for use of use by the people in their daily life be hood's and so that to some extent you know you cannot get away from development but i think is the kind of development you know that has been underway for the last what one might see if she for decades but over the respect of the hydroelectric dams it is not only the hydroelectric dams you know that cause damage i think it's the all the infrastructure  needed to build these dams all the people you have to bring in to a particular site to to build these dams and again i'm not saying that these dams are not necessary one has to be very very careful and one has to be do appropriate planning one has to do studies on the impact on the environment are also geology can be very unstable and prone to it in the first quakes so i think the question people are asking  have been taken into account all the planning when many of these downs were planned and that is about twenty twenty five years ago the planning was initiated at that time people were not is water on the lot and it's the water and and secondly the water has according to many people become i think that is that is the that is probably the situation of i when i first heard about i found it very difficult to predict you know if god has all that water these communities that are living upstream and how would they be a shortage of water then i think what was pointed out to me was that many new york constructing these dams you have to build these tunnels to water system is affected i said and and that again comes to my initial comment about planning yeah right when we when we plan for these large dam projects we don't take those get get get area the plains area out here in so there you have the mountain area but this is a very rich agriculture i think very very few people realise that they're actually to  and now that's under assault also or it's just that relatively safe that area in terms of both climate change and the degradation from development on most but i think ultimately we can trace these pressures due to misguided policy and very poor governments and that is one of the problems think tank or the research center that i and some of my colleagues founded in india about twenty years ago and and and i think the foundations intended to pursue interdisciplinary work we wanted to bring science to gather policy and governance issues we wanted to  wanted to have a very interdisciplinary group and and primary reason for setting up a treaty we had back about twenty years ago it may seem that that started twenty years ago and people seem to be just getting around to this idea gee we have to plan the who little the better and it's very hard to do evidently could you tell us what you've been doing what a tree has been doing in terms of organizing this approach this our disciplinary approach to this sustainability and conservation stuff as as i mentioned we have  it twenty twenty two fellows they are they have a doctorate degree in either social sciences of natural sciences and these tw by working collaboratively bringing people from the social and natural sciences together to address issues and to examine the solutions that are necessary to resolve that problem and to address particularly on a sea questions related to those issues it's difficult thing to do i want to say that we have been you know very very successful i think we have made an impact ravi here are recognised me oh all over the world ye capacity to address very pressing and modern mental challenges and be do that by having two types of activities one is having a very innovative novel interdisciplinary doctoral program incomes of asian and sustainability studies and the program currently enrolled about fifty students and it has already which are directed towards non doctrove candidates not everybody needs that offer alone and we have other needs to do in terms of capacity building and many i should also say we are also very active very often that at the school level we have a network of schools ranging from primary schools to middle school levels in many many places in terms of environmental education do you i know that you also devised a kind of unique in a just disciplinary and protest to your own courses are you trying to project that the concept of a tree here to try to get people to get on board  i know a lot of people recognise that this is the way to go it's just yes surely i think university of mass just boston has made great strides in bringing and to discipline that  the study of the environment and as a matter of fog very early on in my care year here at the university of massachusetts boston with a colleague of mine professor michael rex and by s program a graduate program at the university of massachusetts boston and that has now been transformed i think two years ago into the school of times article hey we have to really hurry up we don't have a lot of time here and so that's the other thing is the really push and at least there are forces in this country that seem to be intractable you know you can't get people to believe or important people to believe in climate change yet but you need a global approach to this at this point obviously and you've been there for ages ar optimistic do you think that we can move a little faster and that we can handle this i'm very optimistic good matches that you have to be but i must say asked you if you would say something about a show a personal hero of a lie but unknown in this country and so i'm assuming that you used a  was he has consolidated actively many many small states of india into israel empire yes and later on in his life he became a but this the not in the sense of saying leaving the world and meditating gave no but in the sense of actually doing but one of the i think of him is for runner of gandhi i don't know if that said gandhi had an enormous impact in this culture as you know and has a course worldwide but mazing really wanted to ask you i thought i don't think that in that period of roughly four five hundred b there were many us amazing people in major countries and india being one of the major developments in this time and yet there was nobody like him where that started out as the empire builder and alexander the great i always think of that along those lines and then made this incredible change strictly nonviolent nonviolence against animals al what you do you think it is possible is and there's enough time left for us to accomplish this because you have these twin things the conservation reform of the ecologies but on the other hand being realistic about sustainability you do have to have development and so on and another thing i should add is respect and inclusion of people who are often pushed aside all over the world the poor are really taking the brunt of all of this do you think we can do it sure enough it is happening i think you're hearing more and more welfare of humanity or human better being and also the rubbing of the environment those are cheering words right but i think you put your finger on it that there is and it's quite sudden and it's accelerating the interest in green kind of economy and a kind of faith in that it's interesting to see people losing interest in even nuclear energy  we know everything is going to change very radically and it's amazing how fast people are getting on board so perhaps you're right please develop an eighth tree here to maybe train the public and how to participate in this it is wonderful to get a chance to talk with you thank you so much for sharing this wonderful story thank you very much thank you for having me you know