'FIELD GUIDE: FLORA & FAUNA OF LADKH - COLD DESERT In June 2015 I came across this page (on Facebook) and was intrigued as I knew nothing about it. Strangely below the title it says Non-governmental Organisation (NGO) - but a guide is not an NGO! Anyhow, there are 9 quite good images (mostly of flowers) and more or less correctly identified - which makes a pleasant change. I wished to learn more but the link provided failed! Who posted the images and identified the plants? What struck me the most was the IGNORANT & INSULTING text-speak accompanying the photos: "D field guide is an effort 2 provide brief information d local youth, environmentalists, plant explorers, resarchers & visitors of Ladakh abt different key species of plants, animals & birds distributed in d fragile ecosystems of Ladakh itz hoped dat if Guide'll b'cum a companion 4 every nature lover visiting Ladakh. itz also hoped dat d guide Guide'll fill d gap providing information 2 d local youth in their own language." IS THIS MEANT TO BE SOME SORT OF JOKE? I despair at what the modern world is coming to... I have shown this to a number of 'educated youth' in the UK who find this 'text-speak' horrible. I state firmly that this will not work. The first submission to the page was August 2011, the most recent June 2015 - so they are only averaging 2-3 entries per year! Just how are the deciding which are the KEY species? What do they mean by this? It would take me some time to come up with a representative list but would require guide-lines to make any selection. Since few visitors to Ladakh stray far from the vehicles they travel in, perhaps the species illustrated so far are actually 'road-side weeds'?..... Plants illustrated: DRACOCEPHALUM HETEROPHYLLUM; VERBASCUM THAPSUS; THYMUS SERPHYLLUM (this is an OLD name - they mean THYMUS LINEARIS); INULA RHIZOCEPHALA VAR. RHIZOCEPHALOIDES; DELPHINIUM CASHMERIANUM; ROSA WEBBIANA |