Tusk master

He grew up rescuing parakeets, snakes and monkeys. Started his first NGO at 19, to save the Delhi Ridge from being turned into a rose garden. To peers, he's 'the elephant guy', for the years he spent undercover, tracking illegal trade. Menon is now the first Asian to head IUCN's Species Survival Commission, which shapes the pivotal global Red List of Endangered Species. 'There should be a lot more species on that list. We need to move fast,' he says

- Natasha Rego

"Awareness is so 18th-century. Awareness alone won't change anything. How do you convert awareness to participation, and participation to involvement: that is the question," says Vivek Menon.

This approach — of movement, action, collaboration and more movement — is part of the reason Menon recently became the first person from outside Europe and North America to head the Species Survival Commission (SSC), a core body within the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

SSC consists of over 200 specialist groups and 11,000 volunteer scientists. It drives updates to the crucial Red List of Threatened Species, which determines which animals need greater protection. In this way, IUCN, largely through SSC, assesses the conservation status of about 1.7 lakh species.

Menon, who has worked with IUCN for 25 years, knows exactly what he wants to do, and is wasting no time getting started. On his second day in office, he began implementing a key set of changes: a shift towards greater diversity.

On October 16, he reformed the steering committee to include more women (the male-to-female ratio has gone from 60:40 to 55:45), and include more representation from sub-regions such as the Pacific Islands.

It’s when everyone works together that we learn, says Menon, 57.

“Countries in the Global South know how to integrate culture and heritage with modern scientific concepts,” he adds. “The Global South is closer to its roots and finds it easier to acknowledge that nature has a place in our world. This is now happening in the West too. But more people need to understand the traditional value of nature.”

A multi-award-winning conservationist, Menon first sent ripples through IUCN during his 10 years as head of the Asian Elephant Specialist Group.