Report of a Guest Lecture organized on 25/02/2020 by Department of Biosciences, Saurashtra University, Rajkot
Department of Biosciences has organized a Guest Lecture on “Wetland Ecology” on 25th February 2020 in the Department of Biosciences. The guest lecture was delivered by Dr. Taej Mundkur, Senior Technical Officer at the Wetland International, Global Office, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. The lecture was attended by the Ph.D. and M. Phil scholars and Faculty members of the Bioscience Department. It is noteworthy to mention here that Dr. Taej Mundkur is an alumnus of the Department of Biosciences and Saurashtra University. He joined the Department of Biosciences as a research scholar in 1984 and worked for his Ph.D. under Prof. R.M. Naik. He has received his Ph.D. degree from Saurashtra University in 1991.
Dr. Taej Mundkur, who is working for Wetlands Internationals, a very reputed International NGO, delivered an interesting lecture on wetland ecology with the main perspective of talk being conservation of migratory wetland birds in the Asia-Pacific, a focus on the Central Asian Flyway. He shared his huge knowledge on the significant effects of bird migration on their population and how it ultimately affects other factors of environment including human population. He also gave a prediction-based world mapping of many countries which are near to the coastal wetlands and therefore several areas of these countries are at higher risk of getting immersed/submerged under water.
Thus, the lecture was also a wakeup call for everyone, to stop destroying the natural habitat for our own benefit and how to focus on conservation. All in all, the lecture enlightened everyone with a great deal of information about bird migration and central Asian flyways as well as how to cope up with the problems of their population declining day by day which may have a global effect on the environment as a whole. The lecture concluded with an interactive session where many students and faculties asked queries about the lecture topic followed by vote of thanks by Professor Rahul Kundu expressing his heartfelt gratitude to Dr. Taej Mundkur and the audience.