It feels as though the world has turned upside down over the last month or so. From all of us at the Forest Healing Foundation, we send our love and best wishes to all those around the world who are facing these uncertain and anxious times. Here in Sri Lanka, the entire island is under curfew and in certain districts (such as ours around Kandy) the curfew is stricter due to the identification of cases of COVID-19. This means no one can leave their property for the time being but it should hopefully help manage the spread of the virus.
Our team has talked a lot about whether and how our work and campaigns should continue during such times and we feel that in an increasingly isolated and anxious world, nature and particularly the power of nature to support human wellbeing has in some ways never been more important. We will continue to do all we can to protect the forests here in Sri Lanka, however we will of course need to flex our approaches over the coming months.
We will primarily be focusing on the third pillar of our strategy: advocating for forests. This includes building our reach and engaging others in our mission to conserve Sri Lanka’s forests, but through digital means rather than in person. We are using the curfew time to develop interesting content for and grow our online presence. We also hope that this will help to bring a little bit of nature into the homes of those who are unable to experience it in their local environment right now – we are very conscious that we are incredibly lucky to be able to walk around some beautiful jungle and are keen to share this with others.
If you have more time on your hands and would like to get involved, here are a few ideas:
Follow us on Instagram and Facebook and share with your friends and family. We will continue to post photos and videos from the jungle.
Sign up to our blog – we will be writing about forest life and conservation over the coming weeks, as well as suggesting ways to keep connected with nature during isolation.
Talk to us! We love hearing from you. Comment on our posts or email us your thoughts, questions. We’d really like to know what you would like to see more of and any ideas for campaigns, projects or posts.
Get creative. It can be hard to keep motivation up during anxious times and a challenging task to keep children in particular entertained. One idea might be to draw/paint/craft some of the jungle wildlife we are trying to protect. Check out the photos on our Instagram for inspiration or ‘go wild’ with your own imagination. Be sure to send us a photo of your creations so we can share on our social media!
Thanks for your tips. I’ll suggest to Sarah that she tries getting her school kids to paint one of the animals (my favourite photo recently was the lizard). If it comes off, we’ll take photos!