A festival on the banks of Hemavathi for 'clean rivers'

River festivals are a new concept in eco-tourism. One of Karnataka’s first such festivals is just around the corner in Sakleshpur, (Hassan district) barely 200 km from Bengaluru. The two-day ‘NADi’ festival is all set to come alive on the banks of Hemavathi river on February 15 and 16.

In the news for all the wrong reasons – pollution, encroachment, sand-mining -, the state’s rivers are not exactly on a high. The festival organisers say they want to change this perception, dubbing the festival as a campaign for “clean rivers.”

Mixing nature, adventure and discovery, NADi would also be about promoting zero-waste and no-single-use plastic.

Lined up for the two-day event on the river bank with the Karle homestay as base are water-based competitions, land-based contests, camping by the river, music and folk art performances, workshops, a flea market and caravan tourism.

Here’s more on the water competitions: Boating, kayaking and paddle-boat races, raft-building with waste material and rope activities right on the river. The land-based contests are all about treasure hunts, slow-cycle races and rural games.

Nature photography, fishing, pottery and dance are part of the workshops lined up for the festival. Supported by the state department of Tourism, Hassan, the event should promote Karnataka tourism while ensuring that natural ecosystems are not impacted, as Hassan Deputy Commissioner R Girish put it.

Curated to resonate the “clean rivers” theme, the Nature, Adventure, Discovery and I (NADi) festival would eventually morph into an annual event. To sync with that thematic essence, the raft-building activity this time would be done exclusively from plastic waste, the organisers informed.

While V Ramprasad from the Friends of Lakes, Bengaluru will be there to ensure that the event is a zero-waste festival, a cross-country run in Karle has been designed to highlight the river Hemavathi’s importance.

This is critical, as recent Central Pollution Control Board data shows that nearly 63% of the urban untreated sewage currently flows into rivers (over 62 billion litres a day), adversely impacting lives and environment.

The festival organisers put the eco theme in perspective: “Unbridled and irresponsible tourism is adding to mess with tourists throwing plastic water bottles, wrappers and other waste without batting an eyelid. There is not only need to run sustained eco-toursism campaigns but events which reflect what we stand for.”