.png)
UPENDI CONSERVATION
Conservation is of paramount importance for maintaining the health of ecosystems, preserving biodiversity, and ensuring the long-term well-being of both humans and the planet.
Conservation efforts help protect and restore ecosystems, habitats, and species, thereby safeguarding biodiversity. Preserving biodiversity is crucial for ecosystem stability, resilience, and the provision of ecosystem services essential for human survival, such as clean air, water, and food.
Ecosystems provide a wide range of services that are vital for human well-being, including pollination, water purification, climate regulation, and soil fertility.
Conservation of forests, wetlands, and watersheds is essential for maintaining water quality and quantity. Healthy ecosystems regulate the flow of water, reduce erosion, and filter pollutants, which is critical for freshwater sources used for drinking, irrigation, and sanitation.
Many cultures have deep connections to the land and rely on traditional knowledge for conservation and sustainable resource management. Conservation efforts often involve collaboration with indigenous communities to preserve cultural heritage, protect sacred sites, and promote traditional practices.
“The single biggest threat to our planet is the destruction of habitat and along the way loss of precious wildlife. We need to reach a balance where people, habitat, and wildlife can co-exist, if we don’t everyone loses.” Steve Irwin
WILDLIFE CONSERVATION
Wildlife Conservation is the protection, preservation, management, or restoration of natural environments and the ecological communities that inhabit them.
Conservation is the careful maintenance and upkeep of a natural resource to prevent it from disappearing, by reducing threats to the diversity of live on earth, for all to live in harmony.
Wildlife is an essential component of various food chains, food webs, biogeochemical cycles and energy flowing through various trophic levels.
Wildlife preserves vitality and health of environment and provides stability to various ecosystems.
As far as possible we have to eliminate all possible threats to wildlife like habitat loss, indiscriminating hunting (poaching and illegal trade), introduction of exotic species and pollution just to name a few.
Staying close to nature improves physical, mental, and spiritual well-being.
It makes us feel alive from the inside, and we should not compromise it for recent developments like urbanization, technology, or social media.
Nature Impacts Health - Outdoor activities reduce the chances of developing numerous health problems.
Nature Improves Psychological Well-Being - Nature helps in emotional regulation and improves memory functions.
Spiritual Enhancement - Breathing in nature gives us wholesome sensory awareness. When we spend time outdoors, we are more mindful of what we see, what we hear, what we smell, and what we feel.
DON'T LET THEN BE HISTORY ... LET THEM BE THE FUTURE!
BIODYNAMIC FARMING
Biodynamic agriculture is a form of alternative agriculture very similar to organic farming. It was the first of the organic agriculture movements. It treats soil fertility, plant growth, and livestock care as ecologically interrelated tasks, emphasizing spiritual perspectives.
Biodynamics has much in common with other organic approaches – it emphasizes the importance of manures and composts and excludes the use of synthetic (artificial) fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides on soil and plants.
Methods unique to the biodynamic approach include its treatment of animals, crops, and soil as a single system, an emphasis from its beginnings on local production and distribution systems, its use of traditional and development of new local breeds and varieties. Some methods use an astrological sowing and planting calendar. Biodynamic agriculture uses various herbal and mineral additives for compost additives and field spays.
Biodynamics is a holistic, ecological, and ethical approach to farming, gardening, food, and nutrition. Biodynamics is a conscious and responsible way of farming and being in the world, which brings healing to soil, plants, animals, people, and planet.
In common with other forms of organic agriculture, biodynamic agriculture uses management practices that are intended to "restore, maintain and enhance ecological harmony".
Central features include crop diversification, the avoidance of chemical soil treatments and off-farm inputs generally, decentralized production and distribution, and the consideration of celestial and terrestrial influences on biological organisms.
Time in nature helps us tune our intuitions and instincts and recognize actions that harm and help the land. It also helps us identify the actions we need to take as individuals and as a society to heal and regenerate.
FREE RANGE FARMING
Free range denotes a method of farming husbandry where the animals, for at least part of the day, can roam freely outdoors, rather than being confined in an enclosure for 24 hours each day.
On many farms, the outdoors ranging area is fenced, thereby technically making this an enclosure, however, free range systems usually offer the opportunity for the extensive locomotion and sunlight that is otherwise prevented by indoor housing systems. Free range may apply to meat, eggs or dairy farming.
In ranching, free-range livestock are permitted to roam without being fenced in, as opposed to fenced-in pastures. In many agriculture-based economies, free-range livestock are quite common.
ORGANIC FARMING
Organic farming can be defined as a system of management and agricultural production that combines a high level of biodiversity with environmental practices that preserve natural resources and has rigorous standards for animal welfare.
Organic farmers utilize practices that: Maintain and improve fertility, soil structure and biodiversity, and reduce erosion. Reduce the risks of human, animal, and environmental exposure to toxic materials. Fine-tune farming practices to meet local production conditions and satisfy local markets.
The primary goal of organic agriculture is to optimize the health and productivity of interdependent communities of soil life, plants, animals and people.
Without any toxic materials we place into our systems, we can live a healthier.
HYDROPONICS
Hydroponics is the cultivation of plants without using soil. Hydroponic flowers, herbs, and vegetables are planted in inert growing media and supplied with nutrient-rich solutions, oxygen, and water. This system fosters rapid growth, stronger yields, and superior quality.
Plants grown in hydroponic systems grow 30% to 50% faster than those grown in soil. Crops grow faster in hydroponic systems because they receive an ideal amount of nutrients and, if grown indoors, have less environmentally induced stress (like weather and pests). Some species are faster than others.
Hydroponic systems use less water, as much as 10 times less water, than traditional field crop watering methods because water in a hydroponic system is captured and reused, rather than allowed to run off and drain to the environment.
Foods grown hydroponically have lower risk for foodborne human pathogens, less reliance on pesticides, and in some cases, can be grown using zero pesticides.
Arable land is not being used for food production, thus saving it for future generations to use sustainably.
Most hydroponic farms are in controlled environments.
AQUAPONICS
Aquaponics refers to a food production system that couples aquaculture (raising aquatic animals such as fish, crayfish, snails or prawns in tanks) with hydroponics (cultivating plants in water) in a symbiotic environment whereby the nutrient rich aquaculture water is fed to hydroponic grown plant, involving nitrifying bacteria for converting ammonia into nitrates.
Plants are grown as in hydroponics systems, with their roots immersed in the nutrient-rich effluent water. This enables them to filter out the ammonia that is toxic to the aquatic animals, or its metabolites. After the water has passed through the hydroponic subsystem, it is cleaned and oxygenated, and can return to the aquaculture vessels.
Aquaponic systems do not typically discharge or exchange water under normal operation, but instead, recirculate and reuse water very effectively.
The system relies on the relationship between the animals and the plants to maintain a stable aquatic environment that experience a minimum of fluctuation in ambient nutrient and oxygen levels. Plants are able to recover dissolved nutrients from the circulating water, meaning that less water is discharged, and the water exchange rate can be minimized. Water is added only to replace water loss from absorption and transpiration by plants, evaporation into the air from surface water, overflow from the system from rainfall, and removal of biomass such as settled solid wastes from the system.
