On the 24th  of April, 2021 Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment and Keystone Foundation presented a citizen group workshop hosted by The Nilgiri Natural History Society. This was a virtually conducted event on Zoom platform pertaining to the current covid 19 situations.

The topic in discussion was PARTICIPATORY ASSESMENT OF THE REGIONAL DISTRIBUTION OF EXOTIC SPECIES IN INDIA. This workshop concentrated on the training on how to identify invasive species and document them using the ODK application.

An introductory lecture was presented by Dr. Ankila Hiremath, Senior Fellow, Suri Sehgal centre for biodiversity and conservation, ATREE on the basics of invasive species mapping. This lecture was followed by a training session of two parts:

  1. Dr. Shiny Miriam Rehel, Program coordinator, keystone foundation presented a lecture on the know-how of species identification and invasive plant specie phenology.
  2. Mr. Reshnu Raj RS., JRF ATREE talked about the use and technical workflow of the ODK application that is used for the invasive species documentation.

There will be a follow up webinar conducted after the participants have tried out the ODK app in the field.
A recording of this session can be accessed on our YouTube link here