Ushakumari S

Thanal began in 1986 as a group of nature enthusiasts working on wildlife and forest conservation and on environmental education in schools and colleges, and grew into an environmental advocacy organisation as communities affected by pesticide use, deforestation and urban waste approached it for support.

When Leelakumari Amma asked Thanal to examine the effects of the aerial spraying of the pesticide endosulfan at Periya in Kasaragod district, Ushakumari led the studies the organisation carried out in Periya and neighbouring areas, which concluded that endosulfan caused irreversible damage to the living environment. A public campaign launched with the local community in 2000 led to a state ban and eventually contributed to a global one.

Thanal also runs a zero waste programme, which took shape in Thiruvananthapuram in 2002 and has since been taken up in other states, and an agroecology centre at Panavally in Wayanad, set up in 2010, which maintains a rice diversity block of around 300 indigenous paddy varieties and supplies seed to farmers. As national coordinator of the Save Our Rice campaign, launched with allied organisations to revive traditional paddy farming, Ushakumari has worked on linking seed conservators, farmers and consumers, and has argued that the loss of India's native paddy varieties is a serious problem in the context of climate change and food security.[2][3][4]