The ‘outback’ and the ‘bush’ have an iconic status in Australian life. A recent report for the Pew Environment Group and Nature Conservancy said that Australia had the highest number of endemic mammal and reptile species in the world.
“Three million square kilometres (1.1 million sq miles) — an area 12 times the size of mainland Britain — have been left pristine. We were pleasantly surprised that there were still so many areas which came up in such good condition after 200 years of European settlement. The other two great remaining wilderness areas in the world are the Sahara and the northern Boreal forest in Canada.
“Australia has a total land mass of 2,988,902 sq miles (7.7 million sq km) and a population of about 21 million, most of whom live in the capital cities around the coast.
“The areas of the Outback highlighted in the report were in central Australia and at the top of Queensland, regions that are predominantly unsettled or under the control of Aboriginal communities. Nearly a quarter of Australia is indigenous freehold land.
“The Wild Australia programme, a collaborative project between the Pew Environment Group, which is based in Washington DC in the US, and the Nature Conservancy, would invest $A12 million (£6 million) — raised over three years from private, conservation-minded donors in the US — in maintaining the wilderness areas. ”
Swaraaj Chauhan describes his two-decade-long stint as a full-time journalist as eventful, purposeful, and full of joy and excitement. In 1993 he could foresee a different work culture appearing on the horizon, and decided to devote full time to teaching journalism (also, partly, with a desire to give back to the community from where he had enriched himself so much.)
Alongside, he worked for about a year in 1993 for the US State Department’s SPAN magazine, a nearly five-decade-old art and culture monthly magazine promoting US-India relations. It gave him an excellent opportunity to learn about things American, plus the pleasure of playing tennis in the lavish American embassy compound in the heart of New Delhi.
In !995 he joined WWF-India as a full-time media and environment education consultant and worked there for five years travelling a great deal, including to Husum in Germany as a part of the international team to formulate WWF’s Eco-tourism policy.
He taught journalism to honors students in a college affiliated to the University of Delhi, as also at the prestigious Indian Institute of Mass Communication where he lectured on “Development Journalism” to mid-career journalists/Information officers from the SAARC, African, East European and Latin American countries, for eight years.
In 2004 the BBC World Service Trust (BBC WST) selected him as a Trainer/Mentor for India under a European Union project. In 2008/09 He completed another European Union-funded project for the BBC WST related to Disaster Management and media coverage in two eastern States in India — West Bengal and Orissa.
Last year, he spent a couple of months in Australia and enjoyed trekking, and also taught for a while at the University of South Australia.
Recently, he was appointed as a Member of the Board of Studies at Chitkara University in Chandigarh, a beautiful city in North India designed by the famous Swiss/French architect Le Corbusier. He also teaches undergraduate and postgraduate students there.
He loves trekking, especially in the hills, and never misses an opportunity to play a game of tennis. The Western and Indian classical music are always within his reach for instant relaxation.
And last, but not least, is his firm belief in the power of the positive thought to heal oneself and others.