CHENNAI: Environmental activist and founder of Senaapathy Kangayam Cattle Research Foundation Karthikeya Senaapathy spoke about environmental crisis focussing on how future generations might not have water for existence at Rojah Muthaiah Research Library in Taramani on Saturday.
Highlighting the hypocrisy of people in the country, he said, “In our country, we worship rivers but we end up littering them. It is not enough if we say that they are gods. This doesn’t happen anywhere else.” He insisted on the need to do something for nature as much as there is a need to work on developing industries.
“Constructing borewells will not help. We will only be putting in a lot of money. What we need is to develop lakes and waterbodies in our countryside which can hold water,” he said. Karthikeya shared that companies like Toyota are working on creating waterbodies and maintaining ecosystems as a way to give back to nature, as their work involves setting up factories that cause some amount of tampering with nature.
The Senaapathy Kangayam Cattle Research Foundation is involved in research to create awareness on cattle and environmental issues. When the native livestock was dwindling, Karthikeya started awareness programmes primarily through cattle shows in 2009. School and university students, the general public, farmers, bureaucrats and several others visit his farms often in Tiruppur.
Recently, Karthikeya created an artificial lake as an experiment in his farm, which has recharged the wells in Tiruppur. With success in managing water in a semi-arid region, 70 km east of Coimbatore, people have started studying this closely. In addition to the lake, he also created small forests by the Miyawaki method on the farm which has attracted birds and butterflies.