Conservation Education Centre

The CEC was set up at the Asola Bhatti Wildlife Sanctuary. It was modeled on CEC Mumbai. This centre contains interactive educational displays, nature trails, educational resources for teachers, outreach programmes in Delhi schools, and interaction with non-government organisations and decision makers.[10] The funding agency is the Delhi Forest Department.

The CEC launched the Hornbill Nature Club in Goldcrest High School in Vashi in June 2011.[11] The activities in the club are based on nine themes: Biodiversity, Monsoon Diversity, Endangered Wildlife, Grassland Ecosystem, Water Conservation, Energy Conservation, Adaptation in Nature, Waste Management and Mangroves.[11]

This Nature Interpretation Centre aims at raising awareness about the environment and to address the need for nature conservation, besides highlighting the importance of the Eco-Sensitive zone in Matheran. Under the first phase of this project Conservation Education Centre will carry out a basic biodiversity survey of Matheran, identify nature trails, establish a butterfly and medicinal garden and train the locals as nature guides for the Matheran Municipal Corporation. The basic biodiversity survey will be conducted for the plants, insects, amphibians, reptiles and birds.[11] The list of flora and fauna developed during the survey will be used to develop exhibits in the second phase of the projects. The nature trail identification involves a survey of the existing paths to check the biodiversity, and the possibility of conducting a nature trail on these paths will be explored. These trails will be mapped on Google Maps and will be included in the Nature Trail Manual.[11]

The project involved a complete and comprehensive awareness-attitude survey of visitors, staff and locals at the Periyar Tiger Reserve in Kerala.[10] The objective was to study the awareness level and attitude of people towards forest resources, forest department and ecodevelopment activities. Based on the results of this survey, recommendations were made for new educational activities that could be carried out, new exhibits to be installed to raise the awareness level and outreach programmes to improve community relations.[10] The funding agency was Project Tiger.[10]

This encompassed the development of new educational material such as displays, signage and audiovisuals as well as training workshops for teachers. A Green Teacher Kit was then developed as a resource material for teachers on natural history and environment education. The project also initiated a series of environmental awareness programmes in schools across Mumbai.[10] The funding agency was the Tata Education Trust.[10]

A month-long course was designed to train and enhance awareness in school children about the relevance of bioresources, and the relationship between bioresources and biotechnology.[10] The course consisted of extensive field trips to different ecosystems within Mumbai. The funding was done by Department of Biotechnology, Govt. of India.[10]

The project was commenced in January 2006 and involved bringing groups of underprivileged children through NGOs for an all expenses paid visit to CEC. The CEC was visited by 2535 students form 16 NGOs and 10 schools.[10] This project also encompassed a wide variety of innovative installations like new displays for the display room, signage for the nature trails and even a wallpaper magazine, Dhanesh, that was distributed amongst BMC schools.[10] The funding was done by the Public Affairs Section of the U.S. Department of State, American Consulate.[10]

Named after the iconic mascot of the Bombay Natural History Society, Hornbill Clubs were designed to be conservation nature clubs. In 2007, Hornbill Nature Clubs were initiated and established in two schools for underprivileged students: Maharani Sai Bai Vidyalaya and Mangesh Vidyalaya. These nature clubs focused on imparting environment literacy through indoor and outdoor programmes. In 2008, Hornbill nature clubs were set up in two additional schools viz Harnai Vidyalaya and Gurukul Vidyalaya.[10] The funding of this project was done by Dr. Mrudula Thakkar.

The project aimed at creating awareness about Mumbai's environment amongst the citizens. Under this project the World Environment Day was celebrated in Mumbai and funded by Ministry of Environment and Forests and UNEP. Through this project, the Bombay Natural History Society developed 22 panel exhibition on Mumbai'seEnvironment.[10] This exhibition was installed at CST and Churchgate stations from 2–4 June 2011.[10]

On the eve of World Environment Day, the closing ceremony was organized at BNHS's Conservation Education Centre, wherein the book Green Guide for Teachers was launched by the hands of Smt. Usha Thorat, vice-president, BNHS. The bilingual book was funded by MMR Environment Improvement Society (MMREIS) and Sir Dorabaji Tata Trust.[10]