This oral history interview with Bhavya George took place on August 8, 2023, and was conducted by Peg Spitzer and Ayuska Motha. It lasted 55 minutes.
Did you observe the impacts of climate change in your community, and what kind of changes did you see? Also, what do you think the future impacts might be?
I should be talking just for the 5 years I’ve been working with the Keystone Foundation. Mainly the changes that we notice are through their community members’ interactions relating to natural resources. Water is one component that they all speak about, and the forest farms. These are some things that come up very naturally when we interact with the community.
Mainly what gets highlighted is how forests in one of the regions where we work, where the barefoot ecology work was initiated and ran for at least a decade—one of the changes that people noticed there is how the forest is getting darker. “Iruttu” in Tamil means “dark.” They always mention how their forest is becoming dark, which was not the case earlier. Because it’s a deciduous forest, which should be more of a mix of grassland and some tall trees in between, it’s a tiger landscape.
And that’s what they say now, the density of the trees has become more like the undergrowth. It’s covered with invasives. That’s one of the main changes that they have noticed in their forests. And that’s also one of the reasons we wanted to talk about how they perceive this change affecting their livelihoods or interactions. It’s very interlinked. Because, with the increased undergrowth, the forest has become too dark and very closed, and they cannot see animal movements properly. Which they used to see in their earlier years.
Even women were okay to go on their own as a couple, I mean, I’m saying, like husband, wife, or two women going together, or three to four women going together to collect the firewood, or any of the non-timber forest products. But now, because the view in the forest has become challenging, women are very afraid to go into the forest on their own. They always think they need someone else or it should be a very big group, if an elephant or anything else comes, then they’ll be able to have some mechanisms to deal with it.
This is one change that we noticed.
In other places they also talk about how the fruiting and flowering has changed. I mean, tree phenology. That’s the scientific word that we use. They say how the seasons have changed with respect to fruiting and flowering of native tree species like mango. They have wild mango—big, huge wild mango trees near the riverfront. They say the tree phenology has changed, and the ecological flow of the water has changed. This is one perception that the community links with climate change, how all these changes in the forest are creating issues related to the scarcity of food and fodder and water for the wildlife there, which is pushing the wildlife to come into the village spaces and raid more crops.
One thing that we hear from the elderly is that they all have practiced agriculture in that same space for a long time and the forest has been the same. I mean, there’s not much encroachment or there is not much cutting of the forest, because it’s a tiger reserve. It’s a protected area. One thing they are all saying is that wildlife used to be there, but it never used to come out of the forest. The frequency has increased, and the way they depend on these crops has also increased. They link that with this fact that there is a drought, in scientific terms we call it a forest drought where the richness of the forest decreases with respect to the provision of services, especially food for the wildlife. These are some of the observations that we hear with respect to the climatic factor, other than mainly increases in erratic weather patterns relating to rainfall. This is more from the State of Kerala, which is down south in India, which is also covered on both sides by the ocean. See, it is a tip, right? The frequency of weather events has changed.
They had consecutive floods in 2019, 2020, and then again. It kind of links women’s spaces, right? Because they all will be taken to camps, and then the safety issues come in. Even during Covid they had this issue, where we were talking about the social distancing, they had the flood, and they were moved to camps where they couldn’t follow the norms that were actually advised. During Covid, one thing we noticed was how climate [change] became an additional stressor and made the issues worse.
One other thing is, in general terms, we observe that the tree line is going up in the mountains. The tree-line is the highest altitude in which a tree can grow. Usually when you have trees, especially in the hills and the mountains, it stops at a certain height, depending on the wind, temperature, and other environmental conditions. It’s also one of the biodiversity hotspots recognized by UNESCO. That the tree line is advancing is one example of the anecdotal information that we hear from the communities.
One of the reasons that people say, and also scientifically, there is some difference with the wind, or there is a difference in temperature that’s making the tree line move further and kind of capturing the space of the grassland, and that again has a repercussion on the wildlife, because it’s an elephant landscape. Fodder for elephants decreases because the grassland area is decreasing. It (the elephant) comes in search of food to the villages and other spaces. The migration pattern changes. It’s very interconnected, and that’s how they all see it.
I completely got lost when I was explaining about how flowering and fruiting changes actually impact honey production because bees depend on those flowers. We get to listen to the impact of change in tree phenology on honey production. Usually the water content of honey is tested using a refractometer. We use a farmer producer company to do that. Then, that affects the livelihoods of people, because legally, you have to pay them less. It’s all very interconnected in that way. And these are some of the highlights that I’ve seen in my five years.
How would you describe your own work and how you became involved in it personally?
The first work I did was in a protected area on conservation agreements. We worked with a community on agreements to some of the conservation actions, and for that they would be provided some benefits. And if they do not do those conservation actions, there would be some penalty. But all of this is decided by the community. There the monitoring was really embedded because the community people had to monitor how these conservation actions were impacting their own natural resources. Is there something positive? Is there neutrality or do they see anything wrong with respect to people’s actions? After covering that work, we were thinking about how to involve women in it.
That is where the whole work that was selected as a Gender Just Climate Solution came in. Because for me, I come from a home where three of us are women—my mother and we are two sisters. With a majority of women’s voices, our house was very democratic, including decisions from my father and mother. All this feminism comes from the house where we ask questions. We were not taught to be quiet and I think those kinds of elements made me have that lens, from my earlier days.
Then I started all this work. The conservation agreements especially required a lot of village consultations, and for women it was difficult to come into the spaces because we would enter the village at around 6:30/7 o’clock in the evening, as people would come back from wage jobs at that time. And during that time, women would want to be sitting there to hear us speaking, but they have their other gender roles. They will be in the kitchen cooking after work, and usually only men would be talking, and I still remember we were asking them the question about the firewood usage and would there be any intervention required there.
Do they think to reduce the usage of firewood they would want a smokeless chulha, and they just shooed it away, saying we all have LPG (liquid petroleum gas). We have gas stoves, so we don’t need the smokeless chulha. But then the next day, when I went to the same spot, some of the women were interacting very informally. And there they highlighted “actually what you were saying yesterday?” We are interested, you know. It’s very difficult for us to use those normal cookstoves with more firewood requirements and smoke. We would be interested in having smokeless chulha.” Some insights we gathered from the whole two years of extensive work with the community village consultations helped us to interact and understand the women’s issues more closely.
If you talk about gender roles, we should talk about the impacts in a very gendered way, and from there, we entered—why not have a group of women working as barefoot ecologists monitoring their natural spaces? We chose the farm because, as I previously said, one of the challenges was women not wanting to go into the forest on their own. For the purpose of monitoring, though, their interaction with forests is always to collect wild foods like mushrooms and greens and also firewood. And we did not want to force them to enter the forest with a lot of surveillance due to tiger reserve designation. That is how the idea of monitoring the farm spaces came in.
Usually the women work in pairs, and are much more comfortable working in their farm spaces, which is kind of like a boundary. You have the forest boundary and then there is a farm. We thought that it would be nice to see that element where they could talk about the biodiversity in their land spaces, but also when they all come as a group—they can talk about the social issues, their family issues. It was always very beautiful when they all came together, some singing, and stories enriched the space creating solidarity. It always had a different power when, as women, we came together. Sitting with the men becomes more political. Sometimes, they talk a lot, but nothing comes into action…at least here.
We are not aiming for very large things. We’re talking about kitchen gardens, some seed saving, you know it comes into action. I think that also created some hope for me. And that’s how I continued working with the women for a longer time.
Could you tell us about your background and education?
I have a bachelor’s in biology, as does Ayuska. We have 3 subjects that we have to study. So I had chemistry, botany and zoology, and also, I come from a mountainous region called Malenadu in Kannada language.
My aunt’s space was adjoining the protected area then, and most of my childhood I spent there on the farm very close to the forest, hearing the songs of birds and other things through my summer holidays. When I completed my graduation, it was clear that I wanted to enter natural spaces but then I did not want to be a pure researcher. I was not a lab-based or desk-based person. I always loved working with the community and being in the field. It was very easy for me to gel with them that naturally comes in. There was never a kind of shyness or a hindrance. It’s always been very easy to just be there.
I can carry that energy both ways, providing my energy and taking their energy. I think that is how I entered the Keystone space, because when I completed my masters, which was in environment management with a focus on forest ecology—I was searching for a space where I could learn in more integrated ways. And Keystone Foundation seemed more apt at matching my needs because we have a conservation element; we work on livelihoods; and then we work on enterprises. Then I thought, that’s the right job for me, because I can juggle between all these three.
Keystone works in 3 states: Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala, with Nilgiris Biosphere Reserve as the focused landscape. When we say community, for Keystone, the work began with indigenous communities and now it is wide spread to other marginalized communities, too. I don’t come from an indigenous community, I was raised in Karnataka. For me the language was very different when I started my work here in the field. Even the common language spoken in the office is Tamil which I learnt after I joined Keystone. The culture was very new. As I already knew some of the south Indian languages, it was easy to be with them and kind of understand their language. Sometimes I feel when you get connected, language doesn’t act as a barrier. It’s just very easy to talk.
Sometimes they’ll be speaking to me in their own language. So I respond in Tamil. Tamil is the dominant language. I mean, for the work that we are doing. We also have Malayalam in the field center based out of the state of Kerala. That’s a very different language.
Did you finish your Masters’ degree and formal education and then start working directly with the Keystone Foundation?
I completed my masters from the Forest Research Institute, based out of Dehradun. It has a very heavy German influence, because we had a lot of German foresters working there during British governance in India, and it’s one of the premier institutes known for forestry, even today.
I did my master’s there, and afterwards I did some small internships, like of two months, three months, with different organizations based out of Karnataka. And then I worked with fishing communities actually, for six months. I was based near Goa at the western coast of India. That was my first entry into natural resource management, but the scenario was entirely different. It was a seascape and it was very different from what I got to see here. We were looking into the importance of beach spaces in that project, how these beach spaces are important, especially how these spaces make a difference in the lives of men and women.
We had 4 categories; 1) For what do they use the beach spaces in social terms? 2) In cultural terms? Why is it important? 3) Economically? 4) Environmentally? We looked into these 4 aspects. The reason was that many of the policies that deal with the fishing community consider that they only need water. But they never consider that they need beach spaces, too. To handle all the other work that comes with it, like parking their boats, sorting fish, mending their nets and many times to understand the sea with respect to tides they have to be on the beach observing the sea. But the encroachment is really high with respect to resorts and other developmental works because they take over the beach spaces and don’t allow the local fishermen to work there. That became a big challenge. And that is where this whole, very small project came about—looking, talking, again with women and men separately, and understanding how they use those beach spaces.
I spent some time there, and then I moved to Keystone.
I was shocked and surprised to know that culturally women are not allowed to enter into the seascape to fish. One or two women might be different. But otherwise seafaring is always a men’s job. But the market is the women’s place. They’re very good with it. They take the fish. The market space is kind of held by women. Mending of nets is done by women. So usually men go into the field, but they also back it up, saying, when we ask this question, I don’t mean the general rule of taking care of the kids comes to women. When men go into the sea each day, when they enter they do not know whether they’ll come back. They always think if something happens, at least there’s a mother, who will take care of the kids. But if it’s vice versa, they see that it would be more difficult and challenging for a man to take care of the kids back home. That’s how they relate to it. That’s why men always fare into the sea. This is more a personal insight I got to learn from my interactions. But there might be cases that do not fall in this kind of thought process.
Do women have more decision-making power than men because they are working in the market space and doing the “on-the-ground” work?
Definitely compared to the forest [land]scapes where I see the women, in the seascapes, women are much bolder. If they’re more open, they can deal with all kinds of people each day. But when it comes to decisions, certain decisions, yes, they all make at least a few of the women with whom we met. They were quite safe. They had stood for some of the local elections, in that way they seemed much more powerful. But again, I’m saying it was just a very small project right? And we could meet only a few women. So my thoughts could be biased.
Again, those who attend meetings are the ones who are open to all these things. It takes time sometimes to go into those spaces, [to find those] who do not come to the meeting, but yet have a lot of things to share. But definitely, they are a bit more financially independent than the other women I have met, where they depend mostly financially on men.
Did you notice a difference in women’s decision making in the two states of Kerala and Karnataka?
Kerala has the highest literacy in India, almost 100%. It’s also culturally meant to be a matrilineal society. But I feel that the patriarchy is much higher there sometimes than Tamil Nadu. This is what I am talking about in general. When it comes to the indigenous community, I have not so much of a clue. Kind of looks the same. But when it comes to the tribal groups, the indigenous communities, women have more information compared to those in Tamil Nadu. Government-wise, their local institutions are very strong. They are very pro. They take all the schemes to their homes, which is very different than in any other state. Kerala is known for its local institutions. Even as an NGO, implementation goes via local institutions. The government is active. But whereas in Tamil Nadu, it’s not the same scenario. But again, Peg, I have to mention another intersectionality comes here with respect to indigenous communities. In the Nilgiri’s, where I am based in Tamil Nadu, the main communities that we work with are four communities: Irulas, Kurumbas, Todas and Kotas.
We see differences in all these communities. There is one community which we call Kurumba. With respect to education and mainstreaming, they are on the lower end. Compared to a pastoral community we work with , which is called Toda—they are in mainstream jobs and are pursuing higher education. They run their own ecotourism, the skill set is good, and there is another community called Kotas. They hold a countable number of government positions. There’s a lot of intersectionality between indigenous communities. Either it can be Kerala or the Tamil Nadu province. Still, we have one community which we call Cholanaikkans. Their life is around the rivers with their homes in caves. There has not been much change.
Nobody has access to the Cholanaikkans in Kerala and we have to work with a different approach with them. The point that I want to convey is that there is not one way of working for all the communities as there is so much diversity and difference socially, culturally, economically.
In our work we interact with communities on a day-to-day basis. And we also have them as our own staff. Some of them are also involved at the decision making spaces. There’s quite a good diversity in our organization.
Of course, thirty years ago when Keystone started things, scenarios were different. People from tribal communities were not very ready to speak, so it took a lot of time to build rapport. But now most of them go to mainstream school and there has been change in their interactions as they have to interact with the outside world to run their home. But interacting with women was easier for me. I never felt that they didn’t want to talk. Sometimes it takes time. At least for me, my first three months were not easy. Once they got used to me and started to see me often and frequently, it eased my interactions and now, because I’ve been working in this landscape for a longer time—that is, six years—it is not difficult to engage. I also stayed in the field for two years. It was quite common for me to see them. That made a difference, that my start was in the field. And now I moved to my office headquarters, which is also a kind of field and not city based place.
Could you tell us about your mentors and supporters—who and how they helped you along the way? What specific challenges did you encounter and how did you overcome them?
Trained in forestry in my formal education space, it is very different and difficult to understand what we see on the ground. During my masters, I had a course on environmental sociology. But I think we only talked about global environmental social movements like the Club of Rome. It taught me more about the Earth Summit, and the examples that we had learned there was something which happened in a very conspicuous way. If I say, Chipko movement , I think most of the people who work on climate change know it because it was that famous.
But what we see, hear and observe and engage in the field is way different than the taught subjects. That was my first roadblock so to speak, and that’s where the role of the mentor comes in. When I was living in the field, I was the only woman. I had two colleagues and both of them were from the indigenous community. They come from a different perspective about conservation, communities etc. I’m coming from a very different perspective. So when we used to work together a lot of issues used to come [up]. And that time my mentor, who was my reporting officer, helped me a lot.
Forestry and conservation on the ground does not match the descriptions and narratives learnt in the book. Field experience at the beginning was a bit difficult especially as a new person in that landscape. It was hard for me to see things the same way as my colleagues who were from that landscape. Also the gender lens was very ingrained in me. Whereas for them, socially and culturally gender is seen differently and it was important for both of us to learn from each other.
With those aspects, my mentor helped me and she used to visit the field once a month in the beginning. I used to live in the field center with my own small room. During her visit, she used to stay with me, and before we fell asleep, we used to share a lot of stories. And she helped me to understand the landscape and people better and made me understand my colleagues’ perspectives, who were coming from an indigenous background.
I think that it helped because each month, she would stay with me and we would discuss all these challenges. It was also a very cozy space between two women. She is in her fifties, so she has worked with Keystone for more than twenty-five years, and they all have been in that landscape. Everybody knows her; my colleague had worked with Keystone for 13 years. She used to make me understand where he comes from, which many a time, for him, was difficult to share. I think, after a few months, we really became a good team. We led that project together towards success, and we could see things from both perspectives. So that’s how I see mentorship.
Otherwise also in Keystone, mentorship is taken in a very important way. We get to choose our mentors, they can even be external. Internally, I have not just one mentor but a set of mentors. As each one is specialized in a different thing. Some I depend on to understand the subject and some about managing the team. Dr. Anita is an ecologist by training. She is the Chair of IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) and is part of the Western Ghats plant specialist group. As a strong woman she always helped me understand, and gave space for women, and she made me understand the importance of respect while we work with communities. She made me learn the importance of a bottom up approach. For instance, sometimes when we held community meetings, we had to change the timings. The first thing she would always ask us is “Did you inform the people that you have changed the meeting times? Don’t take them for granted. They are the ones who run it, we are only facilitating.”
Some of the things I’ll never forget in my whole life are things I’ve learned from her. And once I moved to Kotagiri, my work kind of evolved. I got involved with the GAGGA (Global Alliance for Green and Gender Action) work. We have been partnered with for 10 years to work on gender and climate where Keystone used to regrant the small grants under the People and Nature Fund to CBOs. They are action oriented individuals especially women from tribal and marginalized communities. and that is how we got involved into the alliance with GAGGA. This network is led by Ms. Snehlata Nath- one of the co-founders of Keystone Foundation. As I mentioned before, once I moved to Kotagiri to our main office I was provided an opportunity and choice to be part of GAGGA work and continue my efforts with the women in agro ecology.
Through GAGGA work, I got more involved with gender and green action not just in our areas of work but with our partner organizations spread across India. Working with Sneh I received more mentorship on gender based work, and much more on livelihoods and empowerment of women as she herself is awardee of one of the prestigious Nari Shakti Puraskar Award. With two strong women mentors, I really got to know the interlinkages importance of integration focusing on gender sometimes, even personally, we get stuck when a lot of questions come up, and I found that space and comfort with them, more like a mother and a older friend who would help me find my path when confused. My family stays a bit farther away, they are in another province. So I go there only once in three months. For me, my workspace becomes more like an extended family where we interact with each other, and they help us navigate things when challenges come and also find emotional balance.
My work has been focused on protected areas. Through the experience and interaction, I got to see how this declaration of protected areas impacts both genders. No offense to the conservation efforts in protected areas and I do think there is a necessity for protected areas. But the communities cannot be kept out of conservation and there is a need to include them in management and decision making.
Also, when it comes to gender, our focus has been only binaries, because that’s how the communities approach it. But we are interested to know more about the idea of gender in the indigenous communities we work with. But as it is a delicate matter, it has to be dealt with care and caution. So, in the protected areas, one of my work aspects is to understand how men and women are differently impacted by the protected areas. For that, I did a rapid scoping study in different parts of India. I visited the protected areas, talked to the women and men, came back, and sat with my Sneh to discuss more. It was quite good discussions and I understood the matters , with her experience of working for so long in these networks. And when I usually share that as a woman it becomes hard to be assertive, she used to share her experience on leading some networks where the majority would be men in the decision making level and there are times where she would be only one. Though it’s hard at those times, if you don’t engage, it will not help change the system.
One other element, which we always discuss, is how we want women not to be just present there and do the work, but steer the work with decision making power. In many of the community-based organizations, this is lacking because it will be men who will take the decision. And then all the work would be done by women. So these are some of the discussions that make me evolve each day.
And it is nice. I could just run to these women’s spaces and talk to them. It’s more like I’m just hanging out with my mother. Mentoring always does not mean rosy talks, at times it does involve being critical and those critical comments have helped me grow. So it is a good mix. My mother is very happy. She says you have people to fill in my space there.
Are you married and/or do you have any children?
Bhavya answered that she is not married, nor does she have any children.
We wondered what support you received from outside of your community. How can people in the global north support the work that you are doing in your community? How do you visualize that solidarity and support that you would like others to know?
I think one thread that connects most of our work, in Keystone, is the importance and inclusion of traditional knowledge in our work. It can be our work or on livelihoods, building enterprises or using the approaches of community-based conservation.
In a world where we see a dichotomy in knowledge systems and practices, getting the best of both worlds is something we focus on and that is one thing Global North and Global South can put effort in. the space where I live now, it’s a hill station. The British lived here for a longer time, and thanks to them that there is a lot of systematic documentation about people and nature. Here the discussion comes up on how to engage with voices from the field if the value is more for the voices from the formally educated people with experience of theories. That is one thing which is perhaps needed, breaking the dichotomy and bridging different knowledge systems and different kinds of practices. I would know my home better than anyone. Though a third person lens might help in seeing something which I had not given importance to, yet the ownership of the home is mine. This analogy applies to any natural ecosystem where communities have lived for a longer time and know about it so much and see change on a day to day basis. This is where work like Barefoot Ecologists play an important role and there is need to scale up such kind of work with support from Global North as they have more funds, technology etc. the other is the process of connection with field voices are also very extractive, and that’s what I think has to change. The support that we need is more in building inclusive spaces in this world, and to engage with the policies.
And it is not that easy as we say. there are a lot of hindrances, and one being language. Here one is in the literal sense, where global discourses happen majorly in English and it is nice to see efforts for translations happening. Yet it is a challenge not just at the global level but also at the regional level. With some change in place there is a hope for more inclusivity. And the other aspect of language is technicality. For example, the realm of climate change has so much jargon and with each year, comes new ones. There is a need to simplify that if the inclusivity has to come in.
And for women to understand what are nature-based solutions, how can they deal with it as a woman, what is her role in it, and how can she be empowered? There should be a way to know what is nature-based solutions and what are false solutions. And I feel that’s where the global north’s role could be one in building and providing these spaces for them to interact.
Another area of work is capacity building and training. This is something which we highlight in most of our work because unless there is capacity building and leadership training, we will have women working without a focus on their growth and confidence in seeing them as leaders.
So here I feel that a lot of work could be done converging both the worlds. A lot of training can come from the Global North. In terms of knowledge, technology, systems, resources etc. we can use virtual platforms too, where all that know-how gets transferred. The Global North will be able to enable it better with all the resources and access they have. Also, as most of the global institutions and policy hubs are based in the Global North, help in policy discourses is easier. During the GAGGA Midterm Review we were discussing the advocacy spaces and for an organization like Both Ends based in the Netherlands, the pulse of global discussions is easy to access. For example on climate finance, their networks are way stronger in reaching to these informations than a network in the Global South. That is where coming together helps. These aspects are, other than funding, which I don’t want to mention here because that’s the usual thing that we all talk about.
Another thing that I see is technology, though we have our own indigenous technology. There is a lot happening scientifically, new innovations in the field of climate. How do we make these innovations more gender-just climate solutions? How do we build a bridge, where these things are shared, and make spaces where it is more tailor-made than talking about as one solution fits all. These are some things that I feel we could have.
Could you provide an example of a tailor-made innovation that helped your community?
One example would be the smokeless chuhla. This we used as an alternative to reduce the usage of firewood and release of smoke. There are many models across the world, especially in the global south but we got support from a Bangalore based organization to fit these in our field areas. Though this technology was indigenous, it did not work that great as the tribal communities could not cook one of their traditional foods which is made of Finger Millet powder, it is called locally as ragi ball as it is ball shaped. It is one of the main staple foods of the tribal community where we set up this cookstove.
Preparation of this requires a lot of stirring and the cookstove that we provided did not help to make their vessel sit tight. This was one issue and another issue was heating in the room. The old model that they traditionally use keeps their house warm during the winters as there is smoke. Also they use this smoke to store their corn seeds as they make a string of corn, garlic and tie it above the stove in a safe distance not to get it burnt. Now with the new smokeless cook stove, these benefits were missing.
Perhaps there is some technology that could help us navigate these. And that is where I felt there can be some integration of the technologies from two worlds.
Do you have to figure out how the technology works in each community and learn from the people in the community?
Yes, we need to introduce technology that is more culturally and ecologically appropriate. Solaris another technology area where I think there can be integration and sharing of know-how. Our country is really chasing to become number one in renewable energy, especially solar. But we know for large solar projects we need land. And for India with its population size and diversity, it is hard to find open waste or unused lands.
Many a time even grasslands, fallow lands, pastor lands get marked as waste lands and are diverted to these large solar projects. These lands can be common and then the solution does not look like just climate solutions. But now those spaces are being taken away to put up these solar panels. This kind of solution might work in some regions but not in all. Also the need could be way different. Let’s talk about the need of solar for small projects for a small land holder. Like in our field areas, to install solar water pumps. Availability of such a technology is only with few in India who tweak it to need but cost will also be high. Otherwise it is for large projects and for large farms.
We are waiting for visuals from Bhavya.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION