Striving for Zero Extinction in the Chure

The 3rd Saturday of February marks ‘World Pangolin Day’ each year. This is the 1st time it felt appropriate to ‘celebrate’, as the ward chairman declared that we had achieved ZERO pangolin poaching in Yangshila in 2018. Moreover, through the leadership of young people like Deepak Magar, the community signed a pact to create an 835-acre pangolin sanctuary surrounding our bio-intensive farm which we can expand all the way to Madhumalla through awareness programs & declaration of new sanctuaries. We would like to thank Louise Fletcher, who two years back gave our program a boost by doing art workshops with the local youth & farmers and connected us to a broader network of conservationists trying to save these mammals from extinction. Braving freezing rain & high winds, we screened short films like ‘Pangolin Men’ about the Tikki Hywood Trust’s work in Zimbabwe, and inspirational pieces about the power of nature narrated by Harrison Ford and Julia Roberts from Conservation International. As usual, the biggest hit was Jackie Chan’s ‘Kung Fu Pangolin’ which we had to rewind and replay several times. When it started to rain, one elder said it is the Pangolin speaking saying ‘I have been here for 65 million years. You don’t need to protect me.’ The night culminated with an inspirational film narrated by Jane Goodall about the irony of the genius of human beings being applied to their own destruction. Organic broccoli and BELT lemongrass tea was served from our Vertical Farm in compostable plates made of Shorea Robusta leaves. Finally, we thank Bora Studio and Meena Gurung for the ‘Pangolin Protector’ symbol of our movement to save the Indian and Chinese Pangolin.