Date: 29 & 30 December, 2018

Venue: Serenity Library and Botanical Garden, Gandhinagar

Resource Persons: Mahesh Pandya, Manish Vaidya, Manisha Patel, Mahesh Parmar

No. of Green Catalysts: 40

About Venue:

• Serenity Library and Botanical garden is located on Bhat-Motera Road, Koteshwar and at a distance of 20kms from Ahmedabad. Developed over 40,000 square meters of land, it is an open piece of land, a botanical garden, and a nature library.
• There are around 800 species of indigenous & exotic plants which have been planted over the last 20 years.  There is also a butterfly garden and two excavated water bodies with natural surroundings attracting dabchicks, spot bills, common quails & black winged stilts.
• The library building has a reading room with 3,000 books and 350 documentaries on environment, wildlife & conservation.

Training agenda:

• Providing basics knowledge about Environment and Pollution to new Green Catalysts.
• To impart knowledge on role of democracy in relation environment and its protection.
• Imparting knowledge on “Environment laws and Environment Protection Act, 1986(Umbrella Act).
• Providing in-depth knowledge about Environmental Public Hearing and Environmental impact assessment.
• Enhancing communication skills for awareness.

Overview:

DAY 1:

• The training started with the introduction of Green Catalyst team members.
• First session was on “Environment, pollution and its protection” given by Mahesh Pandya, Paryavaran Mitra.
• Sharing of experiences by Green Catalyst members who took part in capacity building program.
• Second session by Mahesh Pandya, Paryavaran Mitra, on various Environment laws and EIA notifications.
• Manish Vaidya, Loris Associates, introduced with the Loris activities and the motive of Serenity Library and Botanical Garden, Gandhinagar.
• Foram Jhaveri, an intern at Paryavaran Mitra, shared her knowledge of basic functions and usefulness of social media.
• The first day activities were concluded with a great experience of night trek covering wide area of botanical garden led by Narendra, associated with Serenity Library and Botanical Garden, Gandhinagar.

DAY 2:

• The second day was started with bird watching activity guided by Prashant sir who is actively associated with Youth Hostel organization.
• A lecture covering the topic of Environmental Public Hearing (EPH) by Mahesh Parmar, Paryavaran Mitra.
• Manisha Patel Paryavaran Mitra, introduced with the EIA structure and its reviewing methodology.
• Mahesh Pandya covered the role of people after Environmental clearance in the next session.
• Open session with all the Green Catalyst members on formulating upcoming events and activities.

Conclusion:

• Each and every member gave his/her strategic plans and views on drafting base for succeeding events. Team members showed their dedication in expanding the productivity of their performance.