SOS-Save our Sholas – a Film on conservation of the Western Ghats in INDIA

Spec India has always endeavored for imparting environment awareness among the masses and the youth, in line with the SPEC AMA Chair for Youth Empowerment. Considering the importance of water conservation, our organization-Spec India, supported a film “SOS-Save our Sholas” by Mr. Shekar Dattari (Shekar Dattari is a leading environmentalist globally and the only Indian to have won the prestigious Rolex Award [equivalent to the Nobel Prize for environment conservation and wild life related efforts">). The film is about the shola forests of our Western Ghats with its amazing diversity and the pressing problems that beset this fragile landscape.

India's Western Ghats are home to rare species found nowhere else on the planet, but they have been ravaged and systematically destroyed over the decades. All that is left of once extensive forests and grasslands are scattered fragments. 'SOS-Save Our Sholas' provides a glimpse into the amazing diversity of life in the 'shola' forests of the southern Western Ghats. The film also illustrates some of the pressing problems that beset this fragile landscape and seeks to inspire viewers with examples of conservation successes that came about because of peoples' action. The film aspires to stimulate a renewed interest in the conservation of the Western Ghats, which are the birthplace of most south Indian rivers, and a lifeline for hundreds of millions of people in peninsular India.

The film has won the Technical Excellence Award for Best Story at the recently concluded 5th CMS Vatavaran Environment and Wildlife Film Festival held at India Habitat Centre, New Delhi. During the festival, the award Jury cited the film as: "A visually powerful and well scripted film that succeeds in creating the much needed awareness for the conservation of 'shola' forests of the Western Ghats".

This film is highly acclaimed by the Centre for Media Studies (An organization that conducts film festival) for its School Programme 'Greening Young Minds' and is planning to distribute the film in English and Hindi version to ten thousand schools across India.

Spec India has also requested for the Gujarati version of the film for distribution to schools & colleges across Gujarat through the SPEC AMA Chair for Youth Empowerment. This film will soon have its foot steps in other Indian regional languages and will also be included in You Tube video for free viewing across the world.