It is available free on Android
It is available free on Android
For the first time in India, a virtual tour guide will take you through a national park through a mobile application. ‘e-forestrails, cellphone nature tours,’ an android-based application is developed to offer a digital experience of nature trails in Sanjay Gandhi National Park.
The application has focused on three major trails in SGNP, by giving a audiovisual option for the nature enthusiasts to know more about city’s only protected forest.
The app has been designed by environment conservationist Dr V. Shubhalaxmi, and sponsored by Mumbai Metropolitan Region Environmental Improvement Society, an environment conservation wing of MMRDA. Talking about the need of the application, Dr Shubhalaxmi said that she was inspired by a similar application that she came across on a visit to the Unites States. “Being the only protected natural area in Mumbai and limited resources to tackle issues like animal protection and encroachment, the forest officials used to find it difficult to engage with people. That’s when I decided to come up with the application to engage people and tell them more about trees and provide details of locations within SGNP,” said Dr Subhalaxmi.
Ladybird Environment Consulting, her company worked on the application for a year to geo-tag the trees and create a database of the three major trails, bamboo hut trail, upper Kanheri trail and avenue trees trail and 20 view points. The team also made sure that the application would work offline so that network issues would not play spoilsport while people use the application.
“The application is a way any layman or a family will be able to explore the different interesting corners of SGNP. Since our survey was done in all the three seasons, our interactive audio visual guide also tells a layman what to look out for in different seasons and keeps it small and engaging by adding activities to do,” said Dr Shubhalaxmi.
The application is made available for free for the android users.
