Tarsh Thekaekara

But not in the way ecologists usually think of plant invasions! This is not about live plants spreading, but more about inert forms of these species that are increasingly being taken into cities — as material, as art, and as a way of telling a larger ecological story. For close to twenty years now, we have been working on creating value and livelihoods from Lantana. One of the most visible outcomes of this work has been the Lantana elephant sculptures through the high-profile exhibitions...

It has been one year since I have been closely involved with the lantana furniture project of The Shola Trust. This past year TST continued to engage with the lantana furniture unit in Moyar and also helped the community set up a lantana furniture unit in thepakaadu village. Looking back at the year gone by, these were the key patterns that emerged from our engagement with this project. 1) Good response to the products – The positive that emerged was that there was a really robust demand for...

Tarsh Thekaekara is a biodiversity conservation researcher working with The Shola Trust on human-elephant conflict.