Breaking News – Shared Interest Foundation Launch their first project in India!

Posted by Andrea Shared Interest Foundation

April 1, 2009

Shared Interest Foundation has teamed up with Raleigh International and WWF to launch 2 new projects in 6 areas throughout India.

Over the next few blogs I will give you a brief overview of these 2 projects and will continue to update you on the partnership and projects progress over the next few months.

If you would like to enable Shared Interest to support more projects like this then please visit our justgiving site http://www.justgiving.com/sif or send a cheque payable to Shared Interest Foundation to Shared Interest, No. 2 Catherdral Square, Groat Market, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 1EH. Thank you.

Ramaranai is a remote tribal settlement which is home to fourteen families belonging to the Kurumba indigenous tribe in the newly established Sathyamangalam Wildlife Sanctuary, Tamil Nadu. This area is an important habitat for the asian elephant and has the highest concentration of them in the world (a herd of around 6000 uses this area as a migratory corridor and there is a resident population of around 850).

The community has a short crop growing season (just three months of the year) and during this time elephants regularly raid their crops. This problem is exacerbated by prevalence of an invasive plant species – lantana camara, which is choking the elephants natural food sources in the forest, making crops in human settlements more attractive to them as a replacement for their dwindling natural food sources.

We will work with the community and our project partners to construct a new building in which the community can make high quality furniture from lantana collected from the forest. This project will reduce the incidence of crop raiding by elephants; provide the community with a sustainable source of income throughout the year and help to restore a natural balance in the forest eco system. The more lantana products which are produced and sold, the greater the income for the community and the lower the incidence of human elephant conflict and crop raiding will become.