Society for Creative Opportunities and Participatory Ecosystems (SCOPE) was formed in 2010 with the idea of pursuing action research on ecosystem conservation, with an emphasis on wetland ecosystems. It makes efforts to work with communities on the margin.
In fact, those who came together dreamt of working on rural development, livelihood generation through creative interventions in agriculture, rural health issues, urban ecology, waste management, city and the environment, and generate a comprehensive database of information linked with specific ecosystems. Since those associated with the organisation have a strong backdrop of working in the East Kolkata Wetlands, our current ecosystem focus is on these wetlands.
All of us who are a part of SCOPE had the realisation that East Kolkata Wetlands is one of the foremost tutorial ecosystems in the world. These wetlands are the only ones in the world where co-recycling of waste takes place – that is both solid waste and domestic sewage is recycled, with the wetland community taking centre-stage. Fishermen, farmers (vegetable and paddy growers), waste pickers all participate to make living in Kolkata more affordable by providing cheap fish and vegetables and by segregating and recycling our waste free of cost. As city dwellers, we hardly recognize their service. At SCOPE, we have vowed to rise to this challenge of making the ordinary citizen more aware of the exemplary work done by this remarkable wetland community.