KOCHI: There must be a holistic approach towards the attempts to rejuvenate rivers instead of looking at them as a mere environmental issue, engineer-turned-river conservationist Vinod Nambiar has said.
Such conservation efforts should have a cultural focus with which the songs, stories and other cultural assets relating to a river could be regained, said Nambiar, who is the general secretary of ‘Friends of Bharathapuzha’, a collective chaired by Metroman E Sreedharan.
He was speaking at the 25th edition of ‘Beyond Square Feet’ (BSF), a lecture series on the occasion of World Environment Day.
Stressing on the need for a holistic approach and highlighting an ironic situation, Nambiar said: “There are at least 36 research articles made on Bharathapuzha so far. At the same time, the river was robbed off its sand, pebbles and mud. All that remains is some rocks.”