First Field Visit

We recently made our first visit to take initial data in Boyapalle, our study habitation. Villagers in Boyapalle are heavily forest dependent for fuel and for income via the sale of forest products. We'll be exploring their problems around declining forest biomass.

The photos above are of Boyapalle and us meeting with the villagers to begin discussions around problems with the forest.

Forest Fires

People in the rural areas surrounding Madanapalle are dependent upon local forests for their basic daily needs, including fuelwood for cooking and boiling water, grasses for grazing livestock, collection of various small products to sell for income, e.g. fruits, tendu leaves for making local cigarettes, and many others. Integration with forests for livelihoods has led to traditional forest management practices, including setting fires. One reason people set fire to parts of forests is to burn tall grasses so that as the grasses grow back, they are more palatable to livestock in the early stages of growth. In times past, when forest ecosystems were more healthy and vibrant, the impact on forests of setting fire was probably marginal. Now, after forest degradation has occured for a variety of reasons, setting fires can significantly damage fragile forest ecosystems. This is not only bad for the fauna and flora, but also for local farmers and peoples who rely on forests. This is one among many significant challenges faced in natural resource management and rural development in this area. Here are a few photos of a forest fire set on a hill nearby my home.

More Wildlife from the Back Porch

Here are some more photos of wildlife - really just birds - that I took from the back porch. As I get out into the field more, I hope to add more variety in the kinds of wildlife I shoot. Birds are most available from the porch.

In Madapanapalle

I am currently living in a small town (by Indian standards) in Andhra Pradesh called Madanapalle (MDP hereafter). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madanapalle It is famous in India for its cool climate, which is quite a luxury here. I was in Gujarat this time last year, and it was hotter than I could have imagined. In this regard, we have nice it here in MDP - evenings are quite cool actually.

The town is small, but it gets jammed-pack with autorickshaws, cars, bicycles, large delivery trucks, and bull carts, so it can seem hectic at times. Although there are new people passing in and out daily for many reasons, it is small enough to get to know the people you're living near by, and everyone has the niceness characteristic of small towns.

I'm sharing a very comfortable apartment with my roommate, Nishesh. Nishesh is also a student at Wash-U working on the same research project as myself. We've got a nice veranda that allows for watching beautiful sunsets, passers-by, and admiring the local fauna and flora. Above are a few photos I've snapped from our apartment.

Madanapalle is a fast growing small town. It was not long ago a village. So, it provides a really interesting opportunity to see rural India meet the fast- moving, faster-growing urban India.

Inaugural adderss

Welcome to my blog. This aim of this blog is to document my experience living and working in India - presently Andhra Pradesh. This concerns the personal, professional, political, and anything else I'm motivated to share.

For those who don't know me - although I'm sure most of you will - here is a short bio:
My name is Devin Peipert. I'm from Alton, IL - home of the Robert Wadlow, the world's tallest man, and the Piasa bird, a large flying monster that ate people until he was shot down into the Mississippi River with arrows. Generally, I'm excited about music, sustainable development, and personal relationships, not necessarily in that order. I'm currently a graduate student at Washington University studying international social and economic development. It is in this capacity that I'm now in India as a researcher. In a former life, I was a musician playing in indie rock bands around Illinois and St. Louis, MO. Between these lives, I studied philosophy - development ethics, political philosophy, and environmental philosophy, among other fun topics. I maintain an interest in the philosophy of well-being and development ethics, although I often still think philosophically about the environment and how it should or should not be managed by people.

I hope to keep this blog populated with writings and pictures about the projects I'm working on, the travels I undertake, current events of all stripes, and the more mundane parts of my everyday life. I'd further like to use this as a medium to keep up with old friends and family, but I'd also like to invite people I don't already know so that we can argue about things. Amartya Sen once said that he spends a lot of his free time arguing about things. Although I'll never do it as well as he does, I also like to argue.

Look forward to interacting with you.