OMCAR signed MoU with government institutions (Wild Life Institute of India and Sacon) to work with other stakeholders efficiently and quickly respond to the dugong rescue and release in Palk Bay. With the partnership of Tamil Nadu Forest Department and Wild Life Institute of India, OMCAR established “Friends of Dugongs” in every fisher village in northern Palk Bay. The volunteers were trained to respond to a dugong strandings, and how to organise rescue and release with forest department. The volunteers have been actively supporting to share the information about dugong sightings, rescued and released dugongs in the past six years. As a result, several dugongs have been rescued and released in Palk Bay, and fishers received rewards and honoured by government. OMCAR published its stranded marine mammals record in a scientific journal, which helped as evidence for the need for the establishment of conservation reserve. 

The moderated picture book format was intended to facilitate a community-led conversation about reducing risk from contact with animals. Careful consideration was given in the text to ensure that bats were never characterized as carriers of disease, with attributions being made instead to infectious fluids of infected bats. These considerations are aimed at balancing the bat conservation message alongside harm reduction messaging, and avoiding fear-based rhetoric in conveying risk communication.

While managed by a central technical and design team, the picture book, entitled Living Safely with Bats, is a product of a multi-country, multi-disciplinary collaboration. From inception to distribution, every effort was made to incorporate the cultural contexts, local knowledge, and technical expertise from within the consortium, which included social scientists, veterinarians, clinicians, ecologists and epidemiologists from all of the countries in which the book was intended for the first round of implementation.

The content was developed to be broadly applicable and accessible to communities living near natural bat habitats. While concepts were broadly applicable, the images and text were also adapted to specific local cultural contexts so as to be locally relevant. The picture book’s content was divided into 6 key modules that addressed the topics identified as most relevant by local stakeholders and subject matter experts. A modular format was integral for the various teams to be able to adapt to differing presentation contexts (e.g. short meetings, multi-day workshops) as well as differing risk compositions (e.g. hunting communities, communities with or without bat tourism). Trusted community leaders, such as village elders or community health agents, were identified as individuals who could best fulfill the moderator role as they serve as powerful local actors in combatting rumors and disinformation.

Restoration of seagrass beds is different from the restoration of terrestrial plants, as it needs to work underwater ecosystem. Seagrasses reproduce through sexual reproduction and vegetative reproduction. In seagrass restoration, the seagrass sprigs were removed from the donor site and transplanted to degraded sites. There were already established methods obtained from scientific publications using 1m2 PVC frames for transplanting seagrasses. Although this method is successful, we determined not to use the PVC plastics that need to be permanently fixed on the seafloor for seagrass restoration. So, OMCAR discussed with local fishers to develop an eco-friendly, low-cost method for seagrass restoration. For the first time in India, we used bamboo frames and coconut rope frames as an eco-friendly frames for fixing the transplanted seagrass sprigs from healthy sites to degraded sites. Local fishers were trained and involved in the seagrass restoration work. As both bamboo and coir ropes are available locally, they are cost-effective, and they can be presently fixed on the seafloor until they get degraded naturally. This method is now being adapted and replicated by the government for seagrass restoration in other areas of Palk Bay and the Gulf of Mannar. 

With the partnership of Wild Life Institute of India, OMCAR has been providing technical support to the Forest department in Pudukkottai and Thanjavur district for creating the boundary of dugong conservation reserve based on our published acoustic survey results from NRDMS, Department of Science and Technology project. OMCAR experts had been working with frontline staff, district forest office, and Conservator office for developing the plan, GIS mapping of the dugong conservation reserve, and by sharing the data of its 12 years of marine mammal stranding observations in northern Palk Bay. 

After a decade of technical and in-situ conservation experience in dugongs and seagrasses, OMCAR received recognition from Tamil Nadu Government to organize technical orientation sessions for the newly recruited trainees of Range Officers, Foresters, and Guards at our center. Since 2017, our organization received about 2500 trainees of Tamil Nadu Forest Academy cadres for organizing training sessions. Our team shares explain of the seagrass acoustic mapping methodology, seagrass restoration methods using eco-friendly cost-effective materials, how to rescue and release the dugongs, and how the networking and capacity building of fisher volunteers is effective in the conservation of dugongs, and restoration of seagrass beds. OMCAR has been providing this service on a nonprofit basis.