Second round of seed ball scattering is taking place this week. All the details are given in the table below.

A gala event of seed ball scattering was held at Chintamani on 15th July. The event was flagged off by his holiness Sri Sri Sri Balagangadharanath Swamiji, who was the Chief Guest for the event. A huge number of people including villagers, students turned up for this event. After the flag off, the kits containing seed balls were handed over to the participants. The seed balls were then scattered around the hillocks of Ambajidurga. A total of around three lakh seed balls were scattered.

The first batch of about 132 bags equal to 1.2 lacs of seed balls, have been handed over to FES. Bags were handed to Mr. Thomas Abraham of FES by Mr. A Ramasamy, BCIL-Alt. Tech Foundation at the BCIL office, in the presence of Mr. Srinivas Raju of Navachetna Trust, Mr. Hariharan of BCIL-Alt. Tech Foundation & all others who made the campaign a success. FES has planned to scatter these seeds at two places in the first phase. They will be carried out at Srinivaspur and Chintamani on 15th July.








A meeting to discuss the scattering of seed balls was held at chintamani under the chairmanship of FES.

Imagine a clay ball the size of a large marble. Now, imagine that it contain seeds for a complete habitat. The seed ball: it can contain the whole plant having the potential for an entire ecosystem.

It can be made by anyone, anywhere in the world where there is clay, compost, seed and water.

It doesn’t cost the earth…

A small but powerful gesture: of greening whole barren lands and having great fun while doing it!

Make it with friends, at home, at your workplace…. BCIL-Alt.Tech Foundation, a not-for-profit organization, brings you this fun-filled activity—that’s also a great conscience salver—before the rains begin this year.

It was an eventful & joyful 13th June for Tata BP Solar with active participation in making Seed Balls. Full appreciation to BCIL-Alt.Tech Foundation for this innovative and unique drive to make our environs greener.

On behalf of Target Services India, Bangalore, I would like to thank BCIL-Alt.Tech Foundation for providing us the opportunity to be a part of the “Million Seed Balls” revolution in the effort to make a Greener Bangalore City.

Through this activity, we were able to contribute to the environment and give back a little from what we have obtained from it.

The activity was loaded with the fun of playing with mud (which we did) and brought out our Team building skills and the most prominent sense of responsibility of restoring eco balance in the city.

Regards,
Madhumitha
Executive - Human Resources

‘MILLION SEED BALLS’ CAMPAIGN
Seed balls to roll out this Environment Day

DH News Service Bangalore:

For more information, contact Sunil at 99455 46470 or Divya on 99860 76971 or log onto www.millionseedballs.org

This World Environment Day, on June 5, the buzzword in the City is likely to be ‘A million seed balls’.

Designed by Biodiversity Conservation India Limited and Alt Tech Foundation, the ‘Million Seed balls’ campaign aims to scatter a million seed balls this year in and around parts of Bangalore where there is scant greenery like Whitefield, Yelahanka, Nandi Hills, Kolar and Kengeri.

Thanks, Vinay. For taking the time to come to Mantri Pride. It was good for our children. Let us know about the scattering ...

Thanks, Suresh. For making it happen at Mantri. Lets try and do more of these!

Regards - Ramesh

Ramesh Santhanam
Paadhai Trust
www.paadhai.org

---------------
Dear Residents,

We at Mantri Pride are celebrating the WORLD ENVIRONMENT DAY, by creating SEED-BALLS. Each and everyone one of you have an opportunity to show your concern about the environment and also DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!!!

On Sunday, June 4th 2006, a team dedicated to GREEN BANGALORE, will be at Mantri Pride at 10am to explain their plan of action and to give out the SEED KITS. Following their brief presentation, all of us will take the kits and start creating Seed-Balls.

Dear [Million Seed Balls Team]:

It was great feeling to make seed balls at our work today!!, I would like to know if there are any weeknend programmes conducted by the organisation so that I could volunter for a good cause :-)

Regards,
Lalitha P.B., Research Associate, Personal Products
Hindustan Lever Research Centre

[Reply from Million Seed Balls Team:]
Dear Lalithaji,

It is awesome of you to write in, and tell us about your experience at your organization’s seed ball making event.

Radio City has planned, in partnership with BCIL Alt. Tech, a public seed ball making event at Bal Bhavan, Cubbon Park on 10-June-06, from 4:00 pm onwards.

Dear Million Seed Balls Team,

We completed the seed ball exercise with the sheet you had sent with Mr. Chalapathy. The guests, school children and the staff enjoyed much.

After the exercise, we also brought the children to Shreyas and gave them one of the best lunches.

Thanks for giving us an opportunity to participate in this noble cause.

Regards
Krishna Prakash
[Shreyas]

Radio City 91 FM is organizing a mega event as part of the MillionSeedBalls Campaign inspired by BCIL Alt.Tech. Foundation on Saturday 4 PM, June 10th, 2006 at Bala Bhavan, Cubbon Park.

Bring your family, friends & most importantly your KIDS.

Have fun. Inspire yourself. Plant a better Bangalore for your children, today.

Call Sunil @ 93427 73337 (that is, 93427 SEEDS). Send email to vtsunil@millionseedballs.org or divya@millionseedballs.org

Fun @ HDFC Bank.















We thank the management of HDFC Bank for keeping the 'million seed balls programme' in their minds this month.
Our sincere appreciation for the employees of HDFC Bank for happily getting their hands 'dirty' in order to help us build a prosperous Bangalore. Goes to show they understand our world.
We thank the customers of HDFC Bank.

Kumaran School Children having fun















We thank the principal Ms.Deepa Sridhar for sponsoring this event.
We thank the parents of the school children for supporting the cause.
We thank the children for planting a future for all of us, Bangaloreans.

Imagine then, a clay ball the size of a large marble. Imagine also that it contains seeds for a complete habitat.

The seed ball: it could contain plant potential for an entire ecosystem. It can be made by anyone, anywhere in the world where there is clay, compost, seed and water.

Seeds that we select are indigenious varieties such as:
1. neem
2. honge
3. sampige
etc.

We and our partners who have worked several years in the ecological protection field have carefully identified first quality seeds from mother plants.

These seeds would undergo

While making the seeds balls please do take care of the following things.
1. Do not select the hard seed coat containing seeds (Zizyphys, Soapnut, terminalia species).
2. Do not select high oil containing seeds as they do not have long shelf life (Neem, jamun, Hong, Jatropa, Sandalwood, Shoria-Jalari, Hippe-Madhuca)these seeds can be directly sown and germinated easily.
3. Instead of making the seed balls spherical the discoid shape can be promoted which would increase the area of water/ moisture absorption, stable anchoring.
4. The proportion of the coarser mater can be increased so as to increase the water absorption capability, easy establishment of the seed sprouts.

The Foundation for Ecological Security was setup in February 2001 to address the critical task of restoring the degraded lands in the country through the collective and concerted efforts of the rural communities. Foundation for Ecological security evolved from the Tree grower’s project of National Tree Growers cooperatives Federation which was initiated by the National Dairy Development Board. In order to work with a variety of institutions and different landscapes and land categories Foundation for Ecological Security was formed.

The foremost concern of the project has been to ensure an improved status of tenure and ownership of village communities over their common resources. Our core work comprises the following:

A Note on Seed Ball Scattering

Foundation for Ecological security teams of Andhra Pradesh (Madanapalle) and Karnatka (Kolar) has planned to take-up the process of seed-ball scattering in the Sadhukonda, Eshwaramalla, basinakonda and Madana konda ranges of Chittor District, Kokkanti Ranges of Anantapur district and Yerrakonda, Itikaladurga Block-1 ranges of Bagepalli taluk, Mudimadugu forest range in Srinivaspur Taluk, Talakayala betta range in Siddlaghatta taluk and Mahadeshwara betta range in Chintamani Taluk in Kolar District in papagni river basin.

Who will be Involved in the process of Seed balll Scattering?