Here's a great sustainable initiative which brings the life of forests to our homes via our screens. The Nature Conservation Foundation (NCF) has launched a collection of 360-degree immersive stories about the flora and fauna from across the country, using Google Art and Culture.
The collection consists of enthralling stories ranging from exploring the resilience of a forest-fringe village near Malai Mahadeshwara Wildlife Sanctuary in Karnataka to undercovering the secrets of rainforests of Anamalai Hills and the breathtaking views of coral reels from the Indian Ocean. The idea behind this initiative is to inspect, comprehend, and prevent the natural world through study and social participation.
The conversation around living in harmony with nature is the need of the hour and NCF is trying to bring this awareness into our homes with a series of incentives - such as nature education programmes, citizen science and research collaborators to build capacity.
You can let these immersive stories be your conversation starter, even if it starts by just taking out five minutes of your screen time to unravel the ecological marvel of India.
You can check the collection out here.
NCF is a non-governmental wildlife conservation and research organisation based in Mysore who promote the use of science for wildlife conservation in India. You can check them out here. It was founded in 1996 with the mission to use cutting edge research and creative solutions to contribute to the understanding of the rich wildlife heritage of India. From coral reefs and tropical rainforests to the Himalayan highlands, they work to better understand the needs of endangered species and create an environment that could make people conscious of their ecological surroundings. The organisation has set up long term projects in Eastern Himalayas for hornbill conservation, rainforest protection in the Western Ghats and waterbird monitoring near north-central India among others.
