Jayshree Vencatesan, co-founder and managing trustee, Care Earth Trust
As a child, my understanding of Chennai was influenced by my mother, who spoke of her college days at Stella Maris, the AIR, and the New Year Eve performances at The Music Academy by celebrity musicians.Holiday visits always included day trips to the aquarium on Marina, Moore Market, GPO, and Children’s Park along with my brother and grandfather. A striking feature about these trips was that there was always something new, unusual, and charismatic that the city revealed, making the experience memorable.Interestingly, Chennai continues to offer the same sense of awe and bewilderment. But I feel the city’s biological wealth has not received the importance it deserves. I state with a conviction based on the fact that the city was carved out of water; and rests on an edifice of hydraulic structures of every kind, but also the many recent discoveries of species across faunal groups and flora my colleagues have been reporting from multiple sites in Chennai.The city continues to inspire and challenge, and I am convinced that there is much more to reveal about its biological diversity.(As told to K. Lakshmi) Published - August 11, 2026 08:01 am IST
