“We must teach our children to smell the earth, to taste the rain, to touch the wind, to see things grow, to hear the sun rise and night fall – to care”
~ John Cleal

Liz Jacob is an ecofriendly brand that values and respects nature and all its glory! 🌿

This World Wildlife day we want to emphasise on the importance of sensitising our children to the great forests and caring for its residents, as there is no such thing as being “too young” to start falling in love with nature! With every garment you order from our ‘Friends of the forest’ linen collection, we will send stamped jungle picture post cards for your children so that they can share their nature/wildlife encounters with someone they love.

On 3rd March, forest and wildlife enthusiasts celebrated World Wildlife. I have had the wonderful opportunity to work for a chain of ecotourism resorts across Karnataka, and this experience opened my eyes to the marvellous world of wildlife reserves.

Working for resorts hugging the borders of the Nagarhole National Park, I was sensitised to the surrounding forests and its habitats in ways no textbooks or videos could. Sitting on a safari jeep listening to jungle calls in the depths of the deep forests, learning to identify different sounds – from whistles of Wild dogs to the grunts and growls of other species, and being alerted by a ruffle of leaves, to spotting fresh pug marks on the jeep tracks, there are endless signals to pick up everywhere.

A keen naturalist accompanying you would easily comprehend them, connect the dots and take you on a chase that would, on a lucky day, end up in a spectacular predator sighting. I can still recall my best wildlife sighting of two tigers in one frame, each quenching their thirst on either side of the riverbank, and another one of a gorgeous leopard relaxing on a tree branch.

The Kabini forests, located at a 5 hour driving distance away from Bangalore, is home to about 100 tigers and leopards due to the high prey density of the region. Many lucky visitors have even spotted a black panther lovingly referred to as Kabini’s ’Bhageera’ or ’Saaya’ (meaning shadow). Kabini is a perennial river, and during summer it is a sanctuary for migrating birds and wildlife. The landscape plays host to the largest congregation of Asiatic elephants in the world. No storybook can capture what your senses can soak in within a jungle.

Our forests are the critical lungs of the Earth. Interestingly, humans account for just 0.01% of biomass on Earth, but in turn we create the highest imbalance on the planet. Our quest for survival poses constant threat to this ecosystem through global warming, melting of glaciers, depletion of green cover, climate change, forest fires and so on. Over the past 50 years, half the forest covers have been lost. The only hope Is in making our kids fall in love with nature, what are we waiting for?