Dharti Rakshaks Of Melghat

Protecting wildlife and its habitats through GPS-based patrolling, tracking poachers with the help of sniffer dogs, conserving water in the forests till the summer months, catalysing the rebirth of grasslands – a forest guard wears many hats. Here are three extraordinary stories from the Melghat Tiger Reserve.

The Giving Tree

“There’s a lump in my throat. Seven years ago when I stood here it was a pristine, wild, enigmatic forest. I camped for three nights on the river, tree-drenched mountains fencing us in and the constant chatter of the water keeping us company.

The Quest For The Spirit Duck

Dew drops descending from the sky-high canopies of giant Hollong trees refreshed us as we moved deeper into the rainforests of Dehing-Patkai.

A Grazing Patch And A Cricket Pitch

Haven for Blackbuck and Harriers

Tribal Tigers

How a shamanic community has saved tigers in the Dibang Valley of Arunachal Pradesh

Martin Woodcock

(January 14, 1935 – February 24, 2019)

A Dove Tale

One day, eight years ago, a Spotted Dove got trapped in my house and was desperately trying to escape through a closed window. We finally managed to release it into the garden. The next day it came back with a partner for a look around. A day after that they came back again – this time to build a nest in the bathroom. They’ve lived with us ever since!

The Queen Mother's Heirs

It has been almost two years, but I still remember it like it was yesterday.

Purse Seines And Migrant Labour

Managing fisheries in Maharashtra’s Sindhudurg district.

Cashew Feni And Forest Tales

With support from the National Centre for Biological Sciences, Wildlife Conservation Society – India, Department of Science and Technology, Maharashtra Forest Department and the Tillari Biodiversity Research Trust, Anushka Rege undertook a vital research project to study mammals in the forest-cashew plantation landscape of the Tillari region in Maharashtra’s Western Ghats. Here, she met life-loving locals, and learnt how people’s lives are closely intertwined with the biodiversity the region supports.

Jallikattu and Jailbirds

The year has started with two reversals for conservation and animal welfare. In Rajasthan, the High Court has acquitted actor Salman Khan in the infamous blackbuck poaching case and in Tamil Nadu the state has promulgated an ordinance that overturns the Supreme Court ban on Jallikattu, the ancient sport of bull taming. Both are unrelated cases that are only linked overtly by the fact that they deal with animals, one wild and the other domesticated. But I have been fascinated by both for the fundamental lessons that they give those of us who wish to protect the natural world.

A Monkey That Wears A Cap

In the jungles of Northeast India lives a brilliantly coloured primate that wears a cap on its head. Meet the capped langur, also known as the capped monkey, capped leaf monkey or bonneted langur.

PUMAS, Close Up

Meets the secretive apex predator of Patagonia in South America. On foot!

Gabbar Battle-scarred Survivor

By 2010, the Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve (TATR) had become a tiger conservation success story. Good protection, management and local support combined to turn TATR into one of Maharashtra’s finest parks. An increase in tigers, also brought tourists and photographers flocking to the park. And scientists were not far behind. 

Bandhavgarh National Park 

A pack of four jackals on the left flank of the road seemed absorbed with something in the Rajbhera grassland in Bandhavgarh, and were so engaged that they paid little notice to our presence just less than seven or eight metres away.

Fighting The Good Fight!

India’s modern-day freedom movement.

What's That?

What’s That?

Parashuram Mahadev Lad (December 29, 1934 – January 17, 2018)

P. M. Lad was a legend in his lifetime. A member of the Indian Forest Service, he spent a lifetime defending wildlife and the forests he loved. Kishor Rithe writes about this passionate birder, who  visited every Indian state, save for Tripura, to study and enjoy the avians of the Indian subcontinent.

How Do You Dream Of Going To Sea?

Writer, conservation advocate and passionate wildlife lover, Neha Sinha has been using her impressive knowledge and penmanship to highlight threatened species and ecosystems. Winner of a Sanctuary Wildlife Service Award in 2017, she writes here about the important, but mostly ignored, problem of how human trash is impacting marine ecology.

Ulu Muda Kedah's Neglected Eden

Ulu Muda Kedah’s Neglected Eden

Roads To Nowhere

Roadkills – a citizen science inititiative.

An Avian Quest in the Eastern Ghats

Project Coordinator of the Care Earth Trust, Chennai, J. Patrick David travelled across some spectacular hills and sholas of the Eastern Ghats of Tamil Nadu (EGTN) to conduct a bird survey. The survey was part of a threeyear project to document the avian diversity of the region, supported by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC).

Run Rhino Run

The rhinos are an ancient lot. If you spend any time looking at the few that survive today you are struck by their antiquity. Let your eyes wander over a rhino’s anatomy; its thick leathery skin, beady eyes, lumbering bulk and that epitome of being a rhinoceros, a horned nose, and you could sympathise with Ogden Nash when he wrote: “The rhino is a homely beast, for human eyes he’s not a feast. Farewell, farewell, you old rhinoceros, I’ll stare at something less prepoceros.”

Real Estate Contemplations in God's Own Country

Thank you for the music; I can still hear it now. That sweet trumpet tone: rich, beautiful, sharp-edged with anger (an ex-girlfriend suddenly comes to mind). The rest is a jumble. A looming grey shape in the darkness, growing very large very quickly. A rapid swerve and acceleration. And briefly in the splash of our headlamps, an anxious little elephant.

Delta Dog

Eyes, luminous and watchful. Ears, alert. Tail, hanging low. An Indian wolf Canis lupus pallipes, momentarily fixes its lupine gaze on the camera before silently loping into the dense mangrove forests of the Sundarbans Tiger Reserve.

Nature's Business: Leadership Lessons

You can either see hope in the world, or you can see despair. You can either rise to the challenge and bring about change, or bundle yourself up in fear of the next mindless environmental clearance. You can either allow the leader within you to rise, or sink under the burden of the immense task ahead.

Arulagam

“Arulagam was founded on the occasion of World Environment Day in 2002 in memory of our beloved friend and mentor, Arul Mozhi Devan. We were clear from day one that the focus of our conservation activities would be on wild species that are less charismatic than the well-known ones,” says S. Bharathi Dasan, Secretary, Arulagam.

Stop Uranium Exploration in Telangana's Tiger Forests!

In 2014, when Telangana was awarded statehood with the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh, the NagarjunsagarSrisailam Tiger Reserve was divided into two. About 2,600 sq. km. was included within the boundaries of the new state of Telangana and was rechristened the Amrabad Tiger Reserve, which happens to be India’s largest. The dense, deciduous forests of Amrabad, and the livelihoods of the Chenchu tribals that depend on them, now lie threatened by a proposal to mine uranium within the reserve.

Sanctuary Scan

The Mud on Boots Project is designed to empower people working on wildlife protection on the ground across India. Over a two-year period, carefully selected Project Leaders receive a monetary grant and other strategic support from the Sanctuary team led by Cara Tejpal, assisted by Maitreyee Mujumdar. Designed to be flexible, Sanctuary’s support is curated and customised to each project. It is on the shoulders of such ‘invisible’ efforts that the entire wildlife conservation edifice stands.

On The Shore Of Life And Death

In the cool wet sand at my feet, an olive Ridley hatchling lies upturned, unmoving. The pale yellow of its underbelly is exposed to the harsh morning sun, to the ghost crabs plucking delicately at the eyes of its many dead conspecifics, to the murder of crows gorging on unhatched eggs nearby.