Heart of Conservation PodcastEp#31 Show Notes (Edited)
Introduction:
Hi, I am Lalitha Krishnan and you’re listening to Ep# 31 of Heart of Conservation. I bring you stories from the wild that keep us all connected to our natural world. You can listen to Heart of Conservation on several platforms and also read the transcript right here on my blog Earthy Matters.
Today’s episode is about the Sundarbans. I recently made a trip there and I have to tell I am so spell bound by the immensity and biodiversity of the world’s largest delta which we share with Bangladesh. To be honest, I didn’t know about these 2 facts earlier. Almost everything I saw was unique somehow, something I had never seen before. I knew I had to find an expert to learn more about the Sundarbans ecosystem. As luck would have it, I came across a social media account @onesundarban which belongs to Dr Radhika Bhargava, my guest here on episode # 31.
In her own words, Dr Radhika wears multiple hats as a coastal geographer, geospatial analyst, and a National Geographic Explorer. She is a Research Fellow at the NUS Centre for Nature-based Climate Solutions working with wetland conservation in Asia. She recently completed her PhD at the National University of Singapore. We will discuss her research some more but for now, Radhika, welcome and congratulations on your PhD. I feel so privileged to have you share your knowledge and experiences with us.
Radhika Bhargava: Hi Lalitha, thank you so much for having me on your podcast. I am so excited and I am so happy that you recently visited the Sundarbans. I am really looking forward to your questions and interacting with you on Sundarbans.
Lalitha Krishnan: Lovely. So, let us start. Radhika, what made you, first, focus on the mangroves for your research and why must we be watching the mangroves to check on the health of our planet?
Radhika Bhargava: I started working on mangroves during my Masters actually. I was part of a project where they were looking for someone to do coding or use coding /computer languages to identify mangroves of South East Asia. So, you use satellite images and you have to interpret where the mangroves are. There were many other forest classes that I was interested in studying but somebody had taken up those classes or somebody had taken up those forest areas to study using satellite imagery. They were only left with mangroves and then, I joined the lab. Nobody was willing to take up this project because there was a lot of computer coding required. And, coming from ecology, biology or management backgrounds, we were not trained in it. I saw this gap and evenI didn’t know any computer programming at that time. But then, looking at this desperate need that nobody is doing, I said, “Sure, why not? I will give it a try.” I started learning coding from scratch and then my focus was mangroves. So, that is how I learnt a lot about mangroves. I became so curious that through the two years of my Masters which was at University of San Francisco, the focus was Environmental Management. I ended up with all my class projects or side projects related to mangroves. That’s how I came across the Sundarbans.
3:56
You asked me, “why must we be watching the mangroves to check on the health of our planet?” There are many reasons. Especially that mangroves are coastal protectors. They protect the sea from storms and cyclones. Their roots help in purifying water but specially they store or remove carbon dioxide which causes global warming. They store it within themselves and keep it there for millions and millions of years. They have such characteristics that can tell about the health of the planet and actually help in improving the health.
4:30
Lalitha Krishnan: That’s quite amazing. I love the part about you learning coding from scratch. Look where it has taken you. Radhika, I’m curious about your social media handle. Why its called ‘One Sundarban? There must be something to it. There must be a good reason why you have called it so?
4:56
Radhika Bhargava: So glad you asked me this question because initially, people thought that maybe I did not get the handle “Sundarbans’ and that it why I went with ‘One Sundarbans’. Also, I think, I have had that account for maybe two years. I only joined social media because I felt the urge to share about the Sundarbans. When I realised that a storm can come, a cyclone can come in that area and nobody would even know that somethings happening… So, I felt that I am at a place that I can share so I should take that initiative. So, I only joined social media to share about Sundarbans.
And why ‘One Sundarban’?
Sundarbans is across India and Bangladesh. It is one ecosystem. As a researcher, it really annoyed me initially when I would come across studies or management plans or government records that focused on just one side-either India or Bangladesh. So, for me, ‘One Sundarban’ is one ecosystem so hence ‘One Sundarban’ but after I pondered about it a bit more, about the terminology, I realised that “sundar” is in Hindi, In Bangla and in many local Indian languages, “sundar” is beautiful and “ban” or “van” is forest. So, it is just one beautiful forest. If I branch out of onesundarban, this name still holds.
-Radhika Bhargava
6:37
Lalitha Krishnan: Right. That is a beautiful thought and it makes so much sense because you cannot save it in part. It is half the story then. Radhika, how much ground did you cover during your research and what techniques did you employ to cover this vast area?
6:59
Radhika Bhargava: Right. So, I worked across India and Bangladesh. So, Sundarbans, for those who are not familiar, is 10,000 sq. kilometres of just mangrove forests. It is made up of many small islands-I do not even know the exact count-but, adding both India and Bangladesh, it is going to be more than 200 islands. My initial idea was to capture the ecosystem. Since I use geo-spatial analysis, which means using satellite maps and satellite data to understand what is happening on the ground, I was able to understand that from one aspect, right? Since satellite images can help you cover that vast area but when I went into the field, I still intended to go from the easternmost to the westernmost and northernmost to the southernmost island. For that, I first recorded shorelines from on top of a boat. I installed a Go Pro camera on a boat and then we would go parallel across shorelines and then I would be doing a commentary on those videos. Later on, I converted those videos into multiple images, and so from the observations in those images and my commentary, I collected some data.
8:25
So, we covered around 240 kilometres just of observation. The travelling kilometres were much more. And then, I went to around 16 villages to conduct interviews with the communities to understand their part of the story of the work I was doing.
8:53
Lalitha Krishnan: That is very extensive. You must have learnt a lot. That is quite amazing Radhika.
9:01
Radhika Bhargava: Thank you so much. If not for COVID, I had another few methods I wanted to try out too which would have made me go into the forest to collect some forest bio-physical measurements within the forests but because of COVID, I had a shorter amount of time and PhD scholarship and all restricted me. So, there was still more that I wanted to do.
9:24
Lalitha Krishnan: But you must have amassed quite a lot of information.
9:29
Radhika Bhargava: It took a long time to process it. I think I would still go back to that data set although I have written my thesis on it, there is still so much more to get from it. I hope I get a chance to do that in the future.
9:41
Lalitha Krishnan: I am sure (you will). These things never go to waste – what you’ve observed, what you’ve learnt and what you have surveyed. You know, even though I have lived by the sea, I never bothered to familiarize myself with mangroves. It was in the Sundarbans, that too on a boat that I witnessed up close, the diversity of mangroves species. They are quite different from each other apart from the fact that they seem to be thriving in this cocktail of river and sea. Could you talk about some of these mangroves species and how unique they are? The snake roots, breathing roots for e.g. or the way some species propagate themselves with seed balls that float till they find a suitable location? It is all so fascinating.
10: 34
Radhika Bhargava: In just a few lines you actually explained how one comes across and becomes fixated with mangroves. Initially you lived by the sea, I come from a land-locked place. So, I had not even heard the word ‘mangroves’. So even today when I tell people I am doing research on mangroves, they assume I am researching mangoes. The word is so unfamiliar.
Lalitha Krishnan: There’s somebody worse than me that means.
11:13
Radhika Bhargava: I was worse than you. Despite visiting coastal areas with my parents, I never processed why there are trees on the beach or why there are trees on the water. Especially in Bombay. Goa, Gujarat side of India. So, I also learnt about it through books and through reading research papers until I went to the Caribbeans to do some project on coral reefs. So, we had a small project where we were snorkelling and looking at fish nurseries around mangrove roots. So, I thought that was cool. But I did not realise that there’s this amazing ecosystem like Sundarbans or Bhitarkanika in Odisha, where in sediment-rich mangroves you can’t even see what’s happening under water. So, I also came to mangroves in a similar way; I said “what are these crazy roots?” A lot of people whom I have talked to say mangroves for them are like some sci-fi movie, when they come to the Sundarbans.
12:14
It is mainly because of the roots like you said. Mangroves have this crazy kind of roots, especially to adapt to the extreme environment they grow in. By extreme environment, I mean they grow at the interface of land and water. So, they are often flooded with salt water although they receive some fresh water from rivers as well. They get flooded twice a day during high tide. They are exposed to extreme waves. When I am explaining this, I like people to imagine that these mangroves are humans. Or to become mangroves themselves. So, if you’re standing at such a place or if you are to stay there for so long, you would develop some kind of adaptation that would help you first, stand there steadily. That the hold of the roots… the snake roots or the prop roots as it is called. that helps them stay aground. There are four to five kinds of mangroves roots. Basically, the first role they play is help them stay in that silty, flooded land. The second thing specially in the Sundarbans or Bhitarkanika, where there is a lot of sediment that these mangroves are standing on, the second thing they need to do is to be able to breathe. But the soil and the water mix are so poor in oxygen content that they have to grow their roots up or their roots have to come from their branches and then go into the ground, unlike other plants which grow roots hidden in the ground. So the roots that are propping up from the ground-there’s a type of root called pencil roots- which look like if you’ve stuck pencils in the soil, they look like that. Or buttress roots… All of these roots apart from giving them stability, they also help them get oxygen from the air. So, many plants get oxygen from the atmosphere directly and through their leaves and through their stems but mangrove roots also get oxygen content from the air to support breathing for the plants. So, these are some adaptations that mangroves must bring in to stand tall in that extreme environment.
Source: Nature Picture Library
You also asked about propogation of species. How mangroves grow mangrove babies, right? So, if you are a mangrove and you’ve figured out how you are going to stand and how to breathe in this fragile, dynamic ecosystem then the next thing is to figure out how are we going to reproduce? Unlike many trees which produce seeds–those seeds get propagated by wind or by animals or by water–some of the mangrove trees do produce fruits. And then within these fruits, there are seeds which finally find a ground and grow. But, it’s also common in certain kinds of mangrove species to not produce seeds but produce a mangrove propagule. That propagule is just a mangrove baby that’s growing on top of its mom. You might have come across these green sticks hanging from the tree, they are mangrove propagules. They hang from the tree and until they are ready to go- the weather conditions, the time of year, the tidal conditions etc are good-the mom drops them in the water. Now they are floating in the water but these are not seeds ready to be germinated. These are germinated plants which function like any other plant and it keeps floating until it finds the right elevation, the right tidal conditions, the right slope, and the right area to settle in. So, that stick or propagule has that much sense to find the right place for its survival. It floats horizontally. Once it finds the right place, it becomes vertical, the centre of mass changes and it automatically goes into the soil. Which is just mind-blowing for me. In a way, they are like mammals. In mammals…humans, babies grown within the mum until they are ready to come out. I find equal similarities.
17:19
Lalitha Krishnan: It sounds like they have an intelligence of their own. There is so much we do not know.
17: 25
Radhika Bhargava: There are things people who study these processes are still finding out. Things we know have been published but there is so much more, so much unknown when it comes to mangroves.
17:41
Lalitha Krishnan: Thank you so much for explaining that. Talking of species, the animals that exist in the Sundarbans also seem to have adapted to this unique environment. We saw the rare Mangrove pitta, the Fishing cat we didn’t see but I know it’s there and the swimming Bengal tiger, which is the only tiger that lives in a mangrove system. How cool is that? What makes them so different or what can you tell us about them?
18:19
Radhika Bhargava: If we are talking about Sundarbans, how can not (talk) about the tiger? The Royal Bengal tiger is found in many places in India or in the South Asian subcontinent. However, the subspecies of the Royal Bengal tiger—I’m not sure if sub-species is the correct word—but the evolution of the Royal Bengal tiger that found in the Sundarbans is quite different from the other Royal Bengal tigers that are found, in say, Central India, where I come from.
18:59
The main difference in their adaptation to living in the Sundarban Delta. In those mangroves, in that flooded ecosystem. Just like I was explaining earlier how mangroves adapted to this soil, sediment, flooding conditions, the tigers of the Sundarbans also have to.
19:22
If you are a tiger, you would need sweet water or fresh water, as they say, to survive. But the tigers of the Sundarbans are living in a delta filled with salt water. Their houses or their land or their habitat, gets flooded twice a day which tigers of Central India do not experience.
They go to a fresh water pond within their forest to get water but then they can go back to their caves to chill. But there are no such structures that are dry all year around for the tigers of the Sundarbans. And if they want to go from one place to another, there are huge rivers and streams in between which they have to traverse. So, tigers and other kinds of cats can swim naturally but the tigers of the Sundarbans use swimming as their means of transportation. When their islands get completely flooded because of high tide they climb on to a tree and stay on the tree twice a day during high tide conditions. Hunting also, for for these animals is very different. Now you don’t have a grassland to run and catch deer but you have to very strategically traverse the silty, quick-sand type or quick-mud type of terrain where you cannot run a lot because of the roots–that I just explained about earlier—would stop you from running far distances.
21;10
So, it so amazing how the Royal Bengal tigers of the Sundarbans have adapted to live in these conditions. However, these extreme conditions- lack of habitat these days, lack of availability of sweet-water ponds and extreme environmental and anthropogenic pressures are affecting these tigers in a way that now, they are more exposed to the local villages. A lot of human and tiger negative interactions have started to take place. There are a lot of theories of why some of these tigers are also maneaters. These theories that make sense to me are related to the extreme environment and increasing environmental and anthropogenic pressures that are making them encounter humans in a negative aspect.
22:19
Lalitha Krishnan: Right. I imagine tigers or for that matter any other animal there having to climb a tree twice a day to escape drowning if they cannot swim. I never would have even thought that far. Thank you for explaining that. It is quite a hard life even for a tiger. I was thinking of the deer…
22:40
Radhika Bhargava: Did you see any tiger?
22:41
Lalitha Krishnan: No, we did not see any tiger and we did not expect toeither. They told us not to expect to see a tiger. But we did see paw prints. What is fascinating is that—I have seen scratch marks of tigers on trees but here, we actually saw scratch marks on the mud. We had such an excellent forest guide. Mud looks like mud; it was all wet but he manged to point that out to us. It was quite distinct. That was fascinating.
23:14
Coming back to the Sundarbans and the ravages of nature, Cyclone Bulbul in 2019, Cyclone Amphan in 2020, Cyclone Yaas and Jawad in 2021 have all struck and affected these low-lying islands. What makes them so defenceless? What were the losses incurred with every cyclone-hit?
23:50
Radhika Bhargava: The “defenceless” word here is something I should talk about. It’s Yes and No. Mangroves are known to protect inland areas from the impacts of storms and cyclones. So, in a way they are not defenceless. They have those defences. And, even the all the cyclones that you named just now; Kolkata was the least impacted if we are speaking from India’s perspective or Khulna or Dacca if we are speaking from Bangladesh’s perspective. They were impacted but the impact was so small compared to what it could have been if the Sundarbans was not there. So, Sundarbans is still holding ground, defending inland areas.
However, because of ongoing anthropogenic pressures; to name a few: the shipping channel that has been formed within the Sundarbans which is a protected area. It should not be converted into a water highway.
Or a coal plant coming into Sundarbans or other aspects, the extreme erosion of land; the loss of land which was the focus of my research, causing mangroves to degrade and get lost is causing them to reduce the amount of defence they could have provided.
25:28
When you are talking of defence I would also talk about the people. The people of the Sundarbans, I feel are resilient especially in terms of how they manage when these reoccurring cyclones, with the frequency of three to four times a year, impact them. However, with reduced options of livelihood, with reduced preparedness because they are managing a lot of land, and cyclones, lack of livelihoods, lack of protection altogether, their resiliency is also getting reduced.
So, although the people are not defenceless to start with, the conditions are making them such. So, if you hear, I just made a parallel between the resiliency of the mangroves and the resiliency of the people; yet both their resiliencies are getting reduced or impacted. Which on a side note is the conclusion of PhD thesis.
26:38
Lalitha Krishnan: Good. So, during my visit to the Sundarbans, I noticed that the embankment to my resort was half washed away. I was told it was the cyclone which is a recurring factor there. Is there more to it?
26:51
Radhika Bhargava: Great observation Lalitha. I am so glad that you didn’t buy into just the story that a cyclone comes and destroys the structure. So, to give a bit more context to our audience, the soil in the Sundarbans , the sub-sediment in the Sundarbans is silty; it’s clayish. So, if you want to understand this, clay that a potter uses to mold clay into, it is that kind of clay, on which if you put a step, just as a 55kg human, the soil is going to get compressed and you’re going to slip away.
Imagine putting concrete slab on this silty and soft soil? It’s like creating a hard line in a very dynamic system. That concrete is going to eventually collapse. I’ll explain very quickly how. So, there’s a concrete slab but underneath, is a soft silty soil. And underneath, there are waves that are coming in and out throughout the day, So the waves are going to take some of that soil with them. Or that soil which may be a bit harder during low tide is going to get mixed with water and become soft. So, the concrete slab on top is eventually and slowly and slowly going to collapse. And, then, it’s going to be like the embankment that you saw during your visit.
So, when a cyclone comes, all of this just gets exaggerated. But these processes are happening on a daily basis, causing these embankments to fall and collapse. Yet, when these embankments fall, another embankment of such poor design is built maybe 200 mts. away from the current shoreline. This keeps on repeating to the point where the place you stayed, you saw the 5th embankment collapse in the past 40 years or so. This is something I also worked on during my PhD to understand why this poorly designed embankments are still around and how are they impacting the local people. So, what I explained earlier about the reduced preparedness or resiliency of the people, that lack of preparedness, that lack of having other options make them rely on these quick yet poor solutions. So, the demand also increases for these. One thing collapses, yet the second time, they want the same thing to be built so that they can get some short-term benefits of prevention of flood or some people start living in tents- who have also lost houses because of all of this, start living around the embankment. So, it becomes like a vicious cycle of land loss, poorly designed embankments come in, poorly designed embankments cause more land loss yet more of these embankments come in and the cycle continues.
30:00
Lalitha Krishnan: Again, I never thought of it. I am learning so much from you Radhika. Finally, my last question for you. Could you share a word that was perhaps part of your research or significant to you in some way? Something new for all of us.
30:16
Radhika Bhargava: So, the word I want to use, building off of what I just explained about embankments, is a word called ‘maladaptation’. It is very relevant because in the last IPCC report, it was used to highlight a pressing issue in our fight against climate change. I will explain it in pieces. Adaptation means any form of project, idea or implementation that comes in to reduce impact or anything. But in climate change context, climate change adaptation is an adaptation such as building a sea wall, or other things that help you reduce the impact of climate change. So one impact could be flooding, sea-levels rising and so on. Maladaptation to climate change means when that adaptation which is built to reduce the impact of climate change fails but not only does it fail but it causes other negative impacts to the local community or the global community.
31:31
So, when an adaptation fails and causes more negative impact it turns into a maladaptation. This is a word that I realise through the work I have done in the Sundarbans, or through my research in the Sundarbans, and I am hoping that I can contribute more to the growing literature of maladaptation.
31:56
Lalitha Krishnan: You have increased our vocabulary. Thank you so much Radhika, we have covered a lot and learnt a lot from you. It’s been a real pleasure talking to you.
Radhika Bhargava: Thank you so much Lalitha. I love talking about the Sundarbans and sharing about it from a place where I did not know and then I had the privilege to go and learn about it. So, I feel that it’s my responsibility in a way to share about it in any medium and form I can. So, thank you so much for giving me this platform to talk more about Sundarbans and the issues people and the forests are facing over there.
32:35
Lalitha Krishnan: Thank you Radhika, I feel the same way. I feel there’s so much we don’t know and I want to share. I am luck I found you.
32:47
Radhika Bhargava: One quick thing to add for our listeners. So, you learnt a lot about Sundarbans, and mangroves. So, one takeaway you can do for me and Lalitha would be if you can go and tell more people in your social circles about how cool and awesome mangroves are and how amazing Sundarbans is. Thank you.
Lalitha Krishnan: I hope you enjoyed listening to episode #31 and Dr Radhika as much as I did. If you know somebody who is doing incredible work and his/her story needs to be shared do write to me at earthymatters013@gmail.com Watch out for my next episode. Till then, take care. Bye.
Birdsong by hillside resident, the collared owlet.
Cover photo: courtesy Dr Radhika Bhargava. Podcast cover artwork by Lalitha Krishnan
Disclaimer: Views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in the podcast and show notes belong solely to the guest featured in the episode, and not necessarily to the host of this podcast/blog or the guest’s employer, organization, committee or other group or individual.
Ep#30 Season 4 Heart of Conservation Transcript (Edited)
Read or Listen. All paintings-photos courtesy Sudarshan Shaw.
Sudarshan Shaw artwork on Cover art
0:05
Lalitha Krishnan: I’m Lalitha Krishnan and you’re listening to episode #30, season 4 of Heart of Conservation. I bring you stories from the wild that keep us all connected to the natural world.
For someone who has no sense of direction and couldn’t probably read a map to save her life, I have to say I practically drooled over one visually delightful map that I came across on Instagram. It conveyed a spectacular visually-rich story of a place, its people and art and biodiversity on a single sheet. This is one, I would easily put up on my wall permanently. I will be putting them up on my blog, Earthy Matters very soon, so do have a look.
My guest today is not a cartographer by profession but a young, extremely talented visual artist from NIFT, whose keen sense of perception and belonging, passion for depicting, and preserving local art, and love for natural history is tangible in his stunning artworks which go way beyond creating maps. I am speaking to one of India’s rising young, inspiring artists and authors, Sudarshan Shaw. Welcome to Heart of Conservation Sudarshan. Thank you for joining me.
1:19
Sudarshan Shaw: Thank you so much for having me on Heart of Conservation Lalitha. It’s an absolute honour to be here.
Lalitha Krishnan: My pleasure. Sudarshan why don’t we start by you telling us a little bit about yourself and what influences your work?
Sudarshan Shaw: I was born and brought up in the culturally rich cities of Bhubaneshwar and Kolkata. And I grew up feeding on art forms and colours of all types. And, I have always been a history buff so… all of which came together after I discovered my calling towards wildlife while I pursuing my final year of college. That’s when I visited Ranthambore National Park which was my first ever formal introduction to the wild world. It was also for my graduation project and while the forest look all great and beautiful, I always felt that connection was missing; some sort of connection. Thus, I started to explore more and more regions to understand myself and the situation better and have a better understanding of the wider world.
2:25
Lalitha Krishnan: Nice. Let’s talk briefly about all the maps you created. You created more than one for Orissa, biodiversity maps for Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Rajasthan and West Bengal, a special Elephant corridor one for Kerala and other clients like the one for the Shiv Nadar University etc. The first one which is the wildlife map of Orissa- your home state was self-funded. Am I right? What I love about that map is how you incorporated the local tribes and hotspots in the traditional pattachitra style of Orissa. It almost feels like a tribute. So, what made you create this one?
3:13
Sudarshan Shaw: Yes, it is a tribute indeed. It’s a tribute to the land, the wild and the cultural heritage of my state. It’s also a tribute to the strong relationship among them that enhances their meaning of each other. I always felt a huge disjoint in the natural and cultural heritage of India and the kind of graphic language the young communicators use in the country. I feel it is heavily influenced by the west and does not have that connection with the native land and hence it’s not acceptable to the masses in a certain way. So, the vibrance and diversity that folk arts have in store have disappeared from the contemporary visual language that we used to in recent time used to communicate our stories. This was my humble attempt to bring it back with all dignity and pride. Another reason would be Odisha itself. Odisha has an abundance of wildlife. We almost know all the stories regarding Odisha but it never found a place, I mean materially in our surroundings.
What I saw is the pattachitra paintings which are quite prevalent in Odisha -which is the folk-art form in Odisha – and it has a place in our homes over here. There are depictions of gods and goddesses and many other folklores on the walls. I thought this could give me an important platform if I drew it in that style and I depicted wildlife in that style. Eventually, it worked out well and the wildlife map found a place in people’s homes. So, they put it up where they used to put pattachitra paintings.
5:00
Lalitha Krishnan: That’s such an honour. That’s fantastic. What is your creative process? How do you create a map-I don’t mean technically- but I want to know how you think you know, and how long it takes, who commissions these maps. How does it work?
5:23
Sudarshan Shaw: The process usually starts with intense research, which is both online and in the field. It’s quite impossible to do justice to ….(lost in translation) with short timelines or deadlines. So, I try my best to gather as much as I can; so more of essence than information. I must say, the internet has negligent information on this so most of the interaction and interpretations have travelled orally with tradition or in folk art forms. So, the idea is to go through and explore as many of these. The next step is where Is it down to innovate a graphic style which is more often inspired but local art and traditions. Then, I design a layout and then spend about one to two months to complete/render it depending on the amount of details. Most of these maps have been funded by the forest departments of various states or other wildlife NGOs if not other private institutions.
Lalitha Krishnan: Great. Being from Odisha, does practising the traditional art of Odisha come naturally to you? Is it something you learnt as a child or is it something that you learnt in art school?
6:45
Sudarshan Shaw: Naturally it was in my subconscious because we’d always be looking at these art forms on stone sculptures, wall paintings of different buildings in Odisha and also in homes, as I said earlier. But, consciously I started practising and grasping it after I visited Ranthambore wherein I first had that interaction with Phad paintings of Rajasthan. There are these common folk paintings of Rajasthan, wherein they had drawn stories from the wild in their artworks. For example, in the story of ‘Machhli’ the Tiger, wherein they had depicted the tiger in a very beautiful style in stories from its birth to its death and everything. This was the main reason why I started grasping art forms more and this is how I implemented it. I get a story from one place and try to incorporate the folk-art of that place into it (the art).
Lalitha Krishnan: O.K. That’s very sensitive and thoughtful of you to do that. You have depicted wildlife, for example, the striped hyena, otters etc that are also listed as endangered or vulnerable by the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) Tell us something about these. I love the little camera trap you have put along with the ‘Black tiger’, the pseudo-melanistic black tiger painting of yours. I don’t know if the Fishing cat’ (see podcast cover) is part of this series but that too just caught my eye.
8:27 Sudarshan Shaw: The Fishing cat was the first painting that I did for this series but that was also a self-funded one. The main idea always starts with a self-funded one and the Fishing cat was one of those. The idea behind drawing the Fishing cat was–which is also a mud painting by the way—during that time, I heard a lot about fishing cats. You know they are found on the outskirts of my hometown. It was very interesting to know that these kinds of creatures live nearby. So, I started looking at images of fishing cats in Odisha and West Bengal and other regions of India. I found images of fishing cats which are mostly nocturnal. The images were quite similar. Once I got a glimpse of a fishing cat drawn in the Kalighat form of painting in Bengal, and I saw a very distinct flavour to it. That cat was depicted holding a fish, it had a stance of its own and it almost looked like that fishing cat is Bengal and it was very different from that of Odisha or any other region of the world. So, a depiction of that species in that art form you know helped in sensitising the people of that particular region regarding that species. That was my whole idea. To incorporate that style and show the world that all these creatures have their distinct characters from the places that they belong to. That was my main idea behind that. The other artworks: the Smooth-coated (otters), the (striped) hyena, you know, they tagged along, people understood my reasoning behind the Fishing cat and they wanted similar species to be shown in their own characters so that they would help in spreading awareness and in sensitising people about the species.
10:30 Lalitha Krishnan: It’s true when you say, (species) have their own stance, their own character of the place. That’s an interesting take. You know, tigers have been part of the Indian psyche forever and they feature a lot in your paintings. I saw one of The 9 Tigers depicted in different folk styles which tells us so much in one go. I also want to talk about the ‘Tiger Boundary’ piece which is nothing short of mesmerising. I like that you said somewhere that the boundary in the frame instead of blocking in gives you the artist and the subject, in this case, the tiger, free reign. Did I get that right? What do you mean by that? And what draws to the tiger?
11:17
Sudarshan Shaw: Absolutely. Apart from being as popular as ‘T’ for Tiger, and one of the epic predators of the forest systems in India, I feel tigers are truly beautiful beings in all senses. They are as gentle as they are fierce, the air of pride and mystery around the creature makes them much larger than their actual size -which is both inside the forest and outside. So, what draws me and the whole forest and nation to the tiger are that it’s like another mystery. I never met a tiger in the wild. But fortunately, I met so many in folk art and in my imagination and they are all different from each other. So, yes, as an artist I always felt conflicted about having boundaries around my artworks. On the face, the borders look like confinements, a kind of limitation but they are very common, if you observe, in all the folk-art forms of India. So, one fine day, during an interaction with a pattachitra folk artist, he was explaining to me why they drew borders on the canvas before they started the painting inside. That was the instance when I thought that is how tigers also mark the territories for themselves in the forest and both the artist and tiger would then paint their minds and live inside it. I could then understand how boundaries set by self, bring a sense of safety, depth of connection and commitment to our responsibility. All of which actually sets us free.
12:56 Lalitha Krishnan: Wow. That’s all I can say. You authored your first children’s book called “When a Forest Wakes up”. Congratulations. The name itself evokes a visual flood but the book is also very magical. Your interpretation of nature… where trees are antlers sending messages and elephants block out the sun and birds fly to flowers in gratitude for the colours and where hills are sleeping rhinos…it’s so wonderous and I can just imagine the wonder and oneness that any child will love. I believe you said, “The basic idea of the book is ‘breaking definitions”. Yes?
13:41
Sudarshan Shaw: yes, one of the ideas behind the book was to see beyond rigid definitions that we have set for ourselves. To dive into a world of imagination and the endless possibilities that it has for us. So, another idea behind the book was actually inspired by animism. A belief system by the various ancient indigenous communities in India, according to which everything from the stones to the mountains to the trees and rivers are living forces and beings bigger than us or just like us. All of these live in relation to each other.
I remember how we were taught in our school days that nature is full of resources and had multiple uses for us humans. And the distinction between biotic and abiotic, the living and non-living things. We have been told to see a river or soil as a non-living resource it would be very difficult to respect and have a relationship with them. This book is an attempt to change that perception from a very young age.
14:47
If I give you another example, of it, when we ask a child to see towards the sky and the clouds, they would always say the clouds look like different animals or objects and everything. Suddenly, with time, you’d see how the animals and the various objects turn towards being a single cloud. When you ask an adult, what is that they would say, “That’s a cloud. Either it’s going to rain or not going to rain. But when you ask the child, “That is a tiger”. “That’s a leopard…that’s a dinosaur” and whatnot. All those imaginations with time are suppressed and you know, along with the coming of rigid definitions, that ends it for us. So, I wanted to break that stereotype fear out of understanding and definitions.
15:38
Lalitha Krishnan: You’re freeing my mind as you speak. So, I believe you have travelled to Uttarakhand–that’s where I live mostly–and walking in the forests there impacted you. How was it different and is that where you got your studio name. ‘Kyari’ from?
15:56
Sudarshan Shaw: Yes. Uttarakhand has been like a second home. I have travelled to Uttarakhand quite frequently as much as I could. You know, I was in college in Delhi so Uttarakhand wasn’t so far from there. Living there, you can totally understand how special the land is. It is almost beaming with life and beauty, to say the least, and ‘Kyari’ is a very small village near Ram Nagar in Uttarakhand and my studio name lends its name from it and the meaning of it; you know how kyari is a small nursery kind of thing where in they put up small plants and flowers. Then they grow wild from it. That’s the main philosophy of starting my studio wherein I’d be experimenting with different forms and art styles, and stories and those would be going into the wide world.
16:52
Lalitha Krishnan: A nursery of ideas. Lovely
16:54
Sudarshan Shaw: A nursery I would say is one of my best teachers of all the ways I see the world and understand the world the studio is a lifelong tribute to that.
17:05
Lalitha Krishnan: I’d like to know briefly about the ‘My Pictures of Divinity’ series your visual stories about the turtle and sea, and the vulture and the dead e.g. though steeped in lore and also educating us about the animals’ role in the world and their vulnerability today.
17:26
Sudarshan Shaw: Yes, I strongly believe that existence has its meaning in relation and not in isolation. So, my picture of divinity is the search for that godliness that lies in the relationship between the humble life forms that we see and the magnificent ecosystems of sustenance that surround them. So, it is an attempt to override conventional portraits of God that centralised humans while all the legendary powers that they invented were inspired by the ways of the wild. So, it’s a tribute to our true ancestors, the teachers, the deities of the art of thriving and surviving. So, e.g.
I’d say, Uttarakhand and Odisha have been my main source for drawing this series. One story would be the Olive Ridley Turtles of the Odisha coast. If people talk about the species, they talk about the species in isolation but if you actually get to experience that place, you would see how the species is actually a connection between the land and the sea. It’s tying both of them together. That’s the beauty of seeing things in relation and not in isolation. –Sudarshan Shaw
18:40
Lalitha Krishnan: Beautifully put. Coming to my last question, could you share a word, concept or something you believe is important—you’ve mentioned a lot of things—something for all of us to know or imbibe.
18:59
Sudarshan Shaw: Sure. So, being an artist, I’ll say a few lines on how we understand art and nature. For me, art and nature are two sisters of the same fate. Nature has been an inseparable part of native peoples’ being. Folk art has also been practised routinely by all in different ways and forms. So once, the colonial influences came, they alienated our art as a speciality which was quite pristine, exclusive and polished and very far away from us. They did the same to nature and wilderness which became (lost in translation). Art is the nature of all living beings; we must understand this. And, separating them in our words and worlds may have separated us from our true selves and denied us access to the strongest relations which are nature and art. So, I believe we can turn folk art for the reunion and reassurance for everybody, which is free too, we must draw, sing and dance to ourselves and our surroundings better.
20:14 So true, Sudarshan, thank you so much. You’re going to go a long way and all the best for your journey ahead. I am so touched by everything you’ve said and everything you do. Thank you
20:29
Sudarshan Shaw: Thank you so much Lalitha.
Lalitha Krishnan: I hope you enjoyed this episode of Heart of Conservation. Do check out Sudarshan’s artworks. You might want to buy, commission it or gift it to somebody else or yourself. The transcript for this show will be out very soon on Earthy Matters (my blog). You can listen to Heart of Conservation on several platforms so check it out and spread the word, guys. Thanks.
Birdsong by hillside resident, the collared owlet.
All photos courtesy Sudarshan Shaw including Fishing Cat. Podcast cover artwork by Lalitha Krishnan
Disclaimer: Views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in the podcast and show notes belong solely to the guest featured in the episode, and not necessarily to the host of this podcast/blog or the guest’s employer, organization, committee or other group or individual.
A conversation with Jayanthi Kallam, Executive Director of ARRC and the team.
Podcast Episode #27 Part 1. Show notes (Edited).
Introduction:
Lalitha Krishnan:Hi there, I’m Lalitha Krishnan and you’re listening to Season 4, part 1, Episode 27 of Heart of Conservation. I bring you stories from the wild that keep us all connected to the natural world.
O:16
We may all have at some point in our lives called an animal rescue centre. But how many of us know you know what goes after the animals is picked up? How many people does it take to look after an injured animal? What treatments are given? What is it fed? Or not fed? How long does it take to heal? What precautions are taken to speed up its recovery and how and where is it released? I’m speaking with the Executive Director of Avian and Reptile Rehabilitation centre ARRC, Jayanthi Kalam and the ARRC team in Bangalore to find out makes a wildlife rescue centre a professionally run enterprise
Jayanthi has served as a board member of the International Wildlife Rehabilitation Council (IWRC). She holds a Master’s in Business Administration from NYU. She worked in various MNCs in the U.S. and quit after 12 years to pursue her interests in wildlife conservation.
Jayanthi, thank you so much for joining me on Heart of Conservation. Before we start with your relationship with the wild, I’d like to ask you about human behaviour? We, animal lovers, are a very enthusiastic bunch. The first thing we do, when we pick up an injured animal is to try to feed it food and water. Is that an OK thing to do? What is the right way to handle an animal before we even contact you?
1:50
Jayanthi Kallam: That’s a really great question because this happens quite often. Like, people want to help animals but the very first they want to do is feed the animal. To give you an analogy, if you have a human that was in a road accident you’re not going to try and feed him something right? You’ll take him to a hospital first or you’ll call an ambulance. The same thing applies to wild animals also, particularly in places where there are wildlife centres and wildlife rehabilitation centres. The best way to deal with a wild animal when you find one is to call the rehabilitation centre and take their guidance. Because there are many nuances in this. Sometimes, an animal does not need rescue at all. Sometimes it has to be kept in a certain way before the rescue team arrives. Or, maybe the most important thing to do in certain cases would be just doing crowd control so no one disturbs the animal. So, it varies based upon the situation, that’s why it’s important to call the rescue centre for guidance first before acting. Because, feeding an animal or giving water, like in the case of birds… if you just pour water down the throat, it can enter the lungs directly. Because their airway system is different from mammal airway system. Or if you try and feed an animal without knowing what species it is or what is the right diet and how much to feed and is it even in a condition to eat at that point? You can do more harm than good. So, while wanting to help is a great thing and we do find a lot of people in Bangalore who want to help the animals, we always tell people to learn the right way or call us first and take our guidance and then approach the animal accordingly.
3:52
Lalitha Krishnan: That’s great. There are several animal rescue centres in Bangalore but it is so remarkable that, and correct me if I am wrong, you’re one of only two Certified Wildlife Rehabilitators (CWR) in India. And you were the first. So, congratulations on this CWR certification from the International Rehabilitation Council. So, how did this come to be? Tell us this story.
Jayanthi there are over several rescue centres in Bangalore but it’s so remarkable that you are one of only two Certified Wildlife Rehabilitators (CWR) in India. And you’re the first. Congratulations on the CWR Certification from the International Wildlife Rehabilitation Council. How did this come to be? Tell us this story.
4:23
Jayanthi Kallam: My journey into wildlife rehabilitation started in the U.S. Until 2012, I was just working my cooperate job. I didn’t know much about wildlife rehabilitation but when I started looking into something to do with conservation, something to do with social causes, wildlife rehabilitation happened to be one of the things I was interested in. And, when I wanted to get into it, there are not many formal courses one can take to become a good wildlife rehabilitator. There may be related coursed one can take but Wildlife Rehabilitation as a course is not offered, was not offered at that time. So the way I learnt wildlife rehabilitation is to actually get hands-on experience by volunteering at different places. And, taking these conferences and courses on wildlife rehabilitation offered by different universities. And I wanted to make sure that I have the right information with me and the IWRC, the International Wildlife Rehabilitation Council offers this test called Certified Wildlife rehabilitator ensuring that any person who passes this test has an understanding of all different aspects of wildlife rehabilitation. Because it’s not just the veterinary field, it has ecology as part of it, nutrition and many other aspects for someone to become a successful wildlife rehabilitator. So, to make sure I have my concepts right, I was looking for some certification and that is how I found this certification and took it sometime in 2014, I think. I’m happy to be qualified as a Certified Wildlife Rehabilitator. Having done that, not only am I a Certified Wildlife rehabilitator now, I am also one of the instructors for the International Wildlife Rehabilitation Council (IWRC) who offer these training courses into wildlife rehabilitation.
6:34
Lalitha Krishnan: I am glad for all the people you work with and all the animals you rescue. They’re in good hands. You studied veterinary technology. It’s not a familiar term. Could you explain that line of study?
6:50
Jayanthi Kallam: In India, again we don’t have this specific field of veterinary technology. In the US there’s this defined role as a veterinary technician. Veterinary technicians can do a lot of things except for performing surgery or prognosis in medical outcomes but they receive knowledge and training and skills like animal anatomy, animal handling, pharmacology, anaesthesia, radiology, surgical nursing you know, many different skills that go along with handling an animal and taking care of an animal even including giving medications. Since, that was not the path I wanted to fast track my career into wildlife rehabilitation because even when I started this, my goal was ultimately to start a wildlife rehabilitation centre of my own. I wanted to make sure that I am familiar enough–since I don’t come from a vet background—familiar enough with the concepts and things like that. That’s why I took this Veterinary Technology course. It’s a two-year course to basically get familiarized, to understand how to take care of an animal medically.
8:13
Lalitha Krishnan: That’s amazing. It’s so interesting to know that there are so many options to study. It’s been7 years since you established Avian and Reptile Rehabilitation Centre (ARRC) with Saleem Hameed, who is a noted environmentalist, illustrator and photographer, also the winner of the David Shepherd Award from Wildlife Trust of India (WTI) and Nature Forever Society’s Sparrow award. I would love to hear how you began … there are so many stories to tell.
8:43
Jayanthi Kallam: Again, going back into my journey, in 2012, I quit my corporate career. I wanted to do something that mattered to me. In 2012-2014, I was in the US, trying to get into fields like conservation, land restoration, organic farming, wildlife rehabilitation etc. Suddenly I felt like, you know, why not do this in my home country? And, I wanted to explore possibilities if it would be feasible for me to come back here and do something. So, I took a trip to India and I went to different cities here trying to find like-minded people, figuring out what possibilities exist. One such person I met is Saleem Hameed. At that time, what he said to me definitely inspired me a lot and that’s how I ended up starting up ARRC in Bangalore along with him. He is one of the pioneers in wildlife rehabilitation in Bangalore. He has dedicated his life for a very long time. That was when wildlife rehabilitation did not exist as a field at the time. When I spoke to him it became very clear that many people here care about wildlife, the formal way of taking care of them or the science part of it, the finances part of it makes it a little bit difficult to give the highest standards of rehabilitation. So, that looked like an opportunity for me because I was exposed in the US to different wildlife rehabilitation centres that existed for years which run with a scientific approach and all that. So, I wanted to get some of that back to India and thanks to the support of a few other friends who are also trustees of ARRC now, we can financially start this as a philanthropic initiative from all of us. So, our passion also was in wildlife rehabilitation, the finances were there and the guidance of Saleem is also there. With all this, we thought we could make a difference by starting a wildlife rehabilitation centre here in India and thankfully, it did work out for us today. In 2016 we started and in 2021 about 6600 animals have been rehabilitated through our centre. I feel it’s been a good journey so far.
11:28
Lalitha Krishnan: Truly. In fact, I was very impressed with how the professional way your staff rescued a bird from a park in front of my house. He was quiet, he was quick and he was efficient. What according to you makes a good rescue centre excellent? Tell us about the training your staff undergo at ARRC?
11:52
Jayanthi Kallam: All our people who work, particularly the rescuers, don’t have any formal background in wildlife rescues as such. Some of them have probably passed their higher secondary school, you know. It’s not like they studied wildlife and then come and become wildlife rescuers. But, even when we hire someone, we look for that passion in them, like wanting to do right… It’s not just a job for them, they also want to do something good. So, we hire people like that and once they start working with us, we take a lot of time in fact, to culturally get them inducted into our own philosophy at ARRC as such where the animal matters first. Whenever you do a rescue it’s important to ensure the animal is safe, the rescuer is safe and the public at large is safe. Initially, when someone joins us, he will shadow a senior rescuer and they will learn from them on the job. And, all of that will be reinforced back through the training sessions and one on one coaching that we give. That’s how a Wildlife Rescuer becomes so efficient but it stems from a larger philosophy that we have which if you’re okay with, I will go into…
13:22
Lalitha Krishnan: Go ahead
13:23
One of the things that drive us to be efficient is the understanding that most non-profits including ours are limited by resources whether it is financial resources or technical resources etc. So we have to use these minimal resources to do the maximum impact. -Jayanthi Kallam, Executive Director (ARRC)
And, in doing so being efficient, being quick and being to the point helps a lot. So that is why we train our rescuers also to get information about the rescue ahead of time, discuss with the team, go with the plan, finish the rescue with minimal stress to the animal and carry the animal back because after the animal is rescued, it has to come back to the rehabilitation centre to get treatment. That’s how they are trained to make sure that it (a rescue) is done efficiently so that they can rescue more animals and they can get those animals back to the hospital in time so that their treatment can start.
14:30
Lalitha Krishnan: Alright. There are so many people at ARRC who play so many different roles. Starting with the vet, you have the Outreach Coordinator, the Rescue Coordinator, the Wildlife rehabilitator, the Animal Care Manager, the Animal Rescuer, the Animal caretaker and of course the Maintenance Staff. I was wondering if you could briefly tell us about one of these roles, perhaps the Rescue Coordinator?
15:00
Jayanthi Kallam: Generally, I think Rescue Coordinator is one of the most important—a key role—for a rescue centre because the first interface that the public have when they find an animal is they call the rescue helpline and it reaches the rescue centre. So, it is important for this person to calm the person, assess the situation, try to get the key information from the caller and then accurately access the situation and figure out how the animal needs help. And, if it does, how to go about it, and assign the right rescue team which can handle that rescue safely.
They will have to deal with different types of personalities. Some people who call are very nervous when they find an animal. Some people who call, they get very aggressive you know.” How long are you going to take? Can you not come in the next five minutes?” Some people will not be sure. They want to help but they don’t want to. They’re scared of the animal…all kinds of people call the Rescue Coordinator. Through all this, they have to keep their objective in mind which is helping the animal which cannot speak for itself. There is no caretaker for that animal who can accurately give a history of all that had happened. So to keep the person calm, to keep themselves calm and to be able to help the animal is the role that a rescue Coordinator has to play. Day in, day out, someday there could be 50 calls on the phone. It doesn’t matter. They have to keep going through one rescue call after another and ensure that every call gets the same kind of proper care, proper instructions: Animal is safe, the person is safe, our rescue team is safe. That’s why I think the Rescue Coordinator role is a key role and thankfully we do have some good people handling these rescue calls at our centre.
17:07
Lalitha Krishnan: It’s an important role but I think each of you’ll in your way have very important roles. Thank you.
I also spoke with some members of the team who work behind the scenes including the vet, Dr Ashwata.
17:20
Dr Ashwatha: Hi, I’m Dr Ashwatha and I’ve been working with ARRC for a little over three years now. Wildlife is not exactly, entirely deeply taught in veterinary studies in India. So, it was quite a new field for me and I have been learning ever since I joined here and I am still learning. It’s very rewarding to work here I feel.
Lalitha Krishnan: What’s a normal day for you?
Dr Ashwatha: I come around 10 am and my main aim when I come is to recap on what has happened from the time, I left in the previous evening till the morning that I reach there so I recap with all that has happened overnight and then I move on to what we have to do that day. What birds and animals need more attention? Like, the whole course for the day. And, who’s going to handle what feeds? Basically, a whole overview, a take-up on that and also, this is peak season…
Lalitha Krishnan: I didn’t know that.
Dr Ashwatha: Yes, we have to excessively stress on how to manage the large number of birds that we are getting so that is one main thing we are busy with right now. So, all the cages are full and we have to release the birds that are good and everything has to be monitored. There’s always one work or the other.
Lalitha Krishnan: When one rescues an animal, apart from what you physically see, one doesn’t know its history. How do you figure that out and resolve issues?
Dr Ashwatha: OK. Obviously, we all know animals can’t speak; that is one of the biggest problems that we face. But otherwise also, whenever something is wrong…like even for us, if we are having a cold, it is manifested by some or other symptoms. We’ll cough or see dullness at least. The same things are correlated in animals also. So, if an individual is not feeling well, they are going to be dull. That in itself is a major symptom. So, to treat dullness, the first thing (that needs to be done) is to get them back to health. Once that is taken care of, you can find out what other issues are there. And there will be a lot of information in the history of the animal. We get many cases of animal attacks. Then we would search for injuries; accordingly, we treat them. If a person is reporting a bird that would have fallen from the nest, then we know it’s a young one. We check it for fractures and accordingly we treat it after that.
So, one main thing about wildlife is that they get stressed very easily. In wildlife, it’s a very common thing that stress kills. Sometimes even if a bird is dull and we don’t find any physical abnormalities or any injuries or anything like that, it so happens that just the presence of a human can cause a bird’s death. We have to be very careful about how much human interaction, these birds and animals are facing. We try to keep it minimal. We always handle them with a cloth.- Dr Ashwathi, Vet (ARRC)
Sometimes, we can’t quite ascertain the causes of why they have come to us. In case we administer palliative treatment based on our assumptions and what we see. It’s dull, we give it fluids. It’s not able to eat, we keep it on fluids. We go ahead with such treatment till we are certain about what may have caused it to be dull. Usually, that resolves it. Invasive treatments in wildlife lead to stress; that would anyway cause its death.
21:47
Recently, I have been dealing with a lot of collision cases in kites. Usually, we see a lot of collision cases in small birds like koels (cuckoos)
Lalitha Krishnan: Collision meaning glass?
Dr Ashwatha: Mostly it’s glass. They won’t be able to see it and they just crash. Koels are fruit-eating birds. They would be foraging in the garden and all of a sudden they’d fly up and not see a window and crash into them. Those are common cases with koels. But Kites, as such fly high. But once in a while, they do crash into a skyscraper. We’ve been getting those cases—not a lot but a little more in number—and I’ve been wanting to figure out how to deal with those. The kited head-on crash into something and their face gets affected. We have been seeing that their eyes get affected. As such, dealing with an affected eye is very difficult. They need to see to catch their prey or scavenge or whatever. So yes, we have been dealing with those and have been finding them very challenging. Even, to find out which antibiotics are more preferable for eye infections and all that. Recently we did surgery for a male kite who had an eye deformity. We are still waiting on how his recovery will be but usually, these birds actually, can live with one eye. They manage to adjust to their surroundings and learn how to fly around them. As long as their claws are fine, they can actually live in the wild also.
23:39
Jayanthi Kallam: First aid for animals particularly for wildlife? There are certain rules and laws. You don’t want people to end up keeping them at home. Or keep them for too long. What would be more appropriate for citizens would be how to coexist with wildlife.
All photos of a recuperating owl and other animals at ARRC were taken with permission.
We get a lot of calls from apartment complexes or Resident Welfare Associations: “We have a problem with bats around us”, “We have a problem with owls.” Right now, in the current season, I just heard from my Rescue Coordinator that we’re getting a lot of calls about Kite conflicts. We are living in an urban environment which we share with this wildlife. They use this space; we use this space. We are all using these common spaces so encounters are inevitable. Depends on our perspective whether we see it as a conflict or an encounter with an animal.
So how to coexist with wild animals or wild neighbours is important. We can all do something to promote wildlife in our neighbourhoods. Those kinds of talks or presentations would be more appropriate for general citizens I feel.
25:16
Lalitha Krishnan: That sounds more practical. You made a career in wildlife rescue. What would you tell somebody who is contemplating the same?
25:30
Jayanthi Kallam: Wildlife rescue or rehabilitation is now a way of life I would say for me. When you empathise with urban wildlife or wildlife in general, you will understand that they are suffering a lot because of how our goals are not in alignment with what is good for them. Our own developmental goals are directly putting us in conflict with animals. We are taking away their habitat, we are constructing things that are obstructing their pathways and things like that. So, if somebody wants to get into wildlife, I would say, first, one should understand the ecology behind it. The importance of the eco-services that wildlife provides for us. And, once you understand why it’s important still you have to be prepared for this career because it’s not an easy career. That I would say. There’s not great pay in it. That’s unfortunate but still, people are working in it because they’re passionate about it. It (lost in translation) a social engineering causes for all of us. If we are aware of the things we are causing knowingly and unknowingly to the wildlife we share the space with, this person who makes a career or wildlife rescues would be a conduit. Or be this person who will make the society around him aware of the disconnect between wildlife and humans. And, how we can be compassionate and can live in a way in which we can co-exist with wildlife. So, the career needs a lot of dedication, a lot of understanding of the wild animals in general because these animals will not be able to tell us what they need. You have to try and figure it out. You have to understand animal behaviour. It’s quite an interesting field I would say because it combines a lot of different aspects. Like I keep repeating, it’s about animal behaviour, it’s about ecology, it’s about urban development and the confluence of all these things and figure out a response to this conflict that we are facing today and turn it into coexistence. That is the role of this wildlife rescuer or rehabilitator. So, career-wise, it is extremely interesting. A person would grow by working in this but it has to come from the passion because it’s not one of those high paid careers out there.
28:17
Lalitha Krishnan: Like most outdoor careers. Well said. Thank you. I also spoke to Veerababu, Wildlife Rescuer at ARRC who has been working there since 2016.
When you get a rescue request what do you feel?
(Since English is not Veerababu’s first language, I have translated the gist of his conversation)
VeeraBabu: Actually, the animal does not express its pain to me but I feel its pain. We have a voice. Animals are voiceless. I don’t understand what it’s expressing but, in my heart, I feel its pain 100%. When I get a rescue call, we go and evaluate the situation, plan and discuss with the team also on how to proceed with the rescue. Then taking precautions we safely rescue the bird and bring it here to the rehabilitation team at the centre and after it has healed, I release it in the same location. I release and rescue both. Rescue first. Before taking the bird to the centre I inform them of the bird’s condition so they prepare for it in advance. When it has healed and can fly, I help to release it back where it was picked up.
Lalitha Krishnan: You must feel very good then?
Veerbabu. Actually, I can proudly say, we have job satisfaction which is most important. I never had that in my previous places of employment. I am happy to do good work.
Lalitha Krishnan: What does your wife think about your job?
Veerababu: My wife is very supportive. She also works in a hospital, also in service. Her mindset and mine are aligned about doing service. My family is not rich. My father is a carpenter. I do this work without thinking of what financial profits will come my way.
Lalitha Krishnan: So, both of you are in the caring line of work.
Veerababu: Yes. Always.
Conclusion:
Lalitha Krishnan: Guys, hold on, this is not the end. Do listen to part 2 to find out how Jayanthi Kallam and her team at ARRC are raising the standards of wildlife rescue and rehabilitation in India.
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Show notes (Edited)
0:05 Lalitha Krishnan: Hi there, thanks for listening in to Season 4 episode 26 of Heart of Conservation. I’m Lalitha Krishnan, `bringing you stories from the wild that keep us connected with the natural world. You can read the show notes for this podcast episode on my blog Earthy Matters. Today I’m to speaking to Shaunak Modi. Shaunak is the co-founder and director of Coastal Conservation Foundation and a key member of Marine Life of Mumbai. He speaks of being a nature photographer in the past tense but I keep seeing his splendid photographs on social media. Do check them out.
Shaunak has worked in the wilderness travel space where he founded his startup, Naturenama.
I’ve been wanting to have you on Heart of Conservation for so long. Finally, it’s happened. So, thank you sincerely for making the time. And a very warm welcome to you.
Shaunak Modi: Thank you Lalitha for having me.
0:15 Lalitha Krishnan: Shaunak, you studied amphibians but your work and passion now have taken you to the source – the ocean. Tell us how that happened.
0:24 Shaunak Modi: OK. I didn’t study amphibians, I studied herpetology at Bombay Natural History Society (BHNS). That was another lifetime it feels like now. I have been going to forests for more than a decade now. And, there was a little hesitation whenever I came across a snake. What I realised was I would need to know them better I would need to not have that discomfort and I wanted to learn more about them. That is why I studied herpetology. So, that’s how that happened.
Then for a very long time, I was associated one way or the other with the wildlife community. I have been doing photography for a very long time. I also had a news website called ‘Project (lost in translation)? where I used to share wildlife news. That went on for almost 6 years before I shut it down. After Project Bhiwan, I was also working. I was in the wildlife travel space, that was where my work was; along with which there was a whale stranding that had happened in Mumbai and that was my introduction to the sea.
A lot has happened since and I’m sure we will have that conversation later in the podcast but that is how I am where I am today.
1: 40 Lalitha Krishnan: Alright, thanks. It’s very interesting to me to see that you’ve plotted a map of whale strandings. I’m not sure if this is the first of its kind in India of stranded/beached marine life. Why don’t you tell us more about this map?
1:58 Shaunak Modi: Yes. So, in fact, that was what I was talking about earlier. In 2016, there was a Bryde whale that had beached on Juhu beach. I was there. I had spent a considerable amount of time on the beach that night because 1) out of the fascination of seeing a whale for the first time in my life and 2) because there was some crowd control that needed to be done and I was just helping with that. And, you know, when a creature of this size washes ashore, you would expect it to cause, you know, to be a topic ofdiscussion. Especially in a community of wildlife enthusiasts and conservationists. But what I realised back then was that beyond the news that is 24 hours or 48 hours after that beaching, there was not a blip. I did not hear anything about it in the conservation community, largely the terrestrial conservation community. That’s when I realised that if something like this can happen and go without being noticed, I just wanted to see how often it happens. I started following news articles and news stories about whale and dolphin strandings happening across the country and I started mapping them. I did that for a year and realised that there was a considerable amount of activity that was happening. What I did not know is that the marine biologists and the marine scientific researcher community were already mapping this. So, clearly, I was not the first one to do it. There’s a wonderful website that has been documenting sightings and strandings for a very, very long time. It’s called the Marine Mammal Research and Conservation Network of India. And, the website is marinemammals.in. It’s been there since 2008. And, there is a database of strandings that is happening there. But, like I’m saying, you know, there’s sometimes a sort of echo chamber when it comes to conservation because there is so much to be done, so much happening that within the terrestrial conservation community, talk of anything beyond forests and big cats rarely makes a blip. That was exactly what I was going through. I was in an echo chamber of my own at that time and I had no idea these things existed. So that’s how I started mapping it but eventually, I realised that it wasn’t really a useful thing because this website already had all that data. But what that did was also sort of, inculcate this interest in me to know more about this ecosystem and this habitat that I had no idea existed.
But, like I’m saying, you know, there’s sometimes a sort of echo chamber when it comes to conservation because there is so much to be done, so much happening that within the terrestrial conservation community, talk of anything beyond forests and big cats rarely makes a blip.
–Shaunak Modi
Indian ocean humpback dolphin in Mumbai
4:54: Lalitha Krishnan: It’s amazing what’s out there and how little we know. There are apps where citizens can report road kills of all wildlife. We have, correct me if I’m wrong, around 6000km of coastline. Do you think a similar app can be created for marine life? Especially for marine life?
5:21 Shaunak Modi: See, again, the equivalent to a road-kill for marine life would be strandings and since this website already exists, I think it’s a great national database. There are a lot of researchers who are a part of it, there are a lot of people who contribute data to it. Rather than having another app, it would be great if people would contribute to this website. No one really owns this data so to speak. But it does help to keep everything in one place. There is no point having different silos-so to speak- for something like this because it’s always very helpful if everything is being co-related in one place. This website is a great place instead of an app. Hopefully someday if something happens an app can be made for this website perhaps–I don’t know—that would depend on the people who are in charge.
6:20 Lalitha Krishnan: Yes, I feel there are too many (apps) for birds but you’re right. If it’s all in one place then it would make absolute sense and accessibility also would be easier for everyone involved.
6:33 Shaunak Modi: For sure. eBird is a great example of that. I mean there is so much data that one gets by just by visiting ebird. You can search by species; you can search by national park or you can search by your own neighbourhood and see which birds are found there or documented from there. And, it’s not like eBird is saying, “We own this data.” You know, the data is still contributed by people, by citizens, by enthusiasts and wild lifers. It’s great that something like this already exists. It makes sense not to add more to it.
7:07 Lalitha Krishnan: Yes. So, CCF’s flagship project Marine life of Mumbai has become very popular. What exactly is the focus here and what citizen science activities do you’ll undertake?
7:23 Shaunak Modi: I’d like to say something here CCF, that’s Coastal Conservation Foundation came much after MLOM was there. Marine Life of Mumbai, for the first three years of its existence, was a collective. We were a bunch of people who came together from various backgrounds and we started working in different capacities doing different things with the single aim of basically sending out a message to … Our aim was to do outreach and familiarise the people to a very lesser-known side of Mumbai. So, outreach, again, was the main objective of the project.
So, it was started by Pradip Patade, Abhisek Jamalabad and Siddharth Chakravarthy in 2017. They started conducting shore walks. It’s basically like a nature trail but 2on a beach, during low tide so you can see the animals that live there. Along with shore walks, they also started uploading photographs to social media and that’s how a lot of people came to know that animals like this live in the city, with whom they share their natural spaces. That’s been one of the main aims of MLOM. It continues to be one of the main aims but what started happening was that we were collecting so much data. Because there were a lot of wildlife photographers even in the group. We were constantly taking photos.
8:50 What we started realising is that the things we were photographing were not documented before. So, we decided to have an open-access database. That is the second side of Marine Life of Mumbai, the first being outreach. The second is data gathering. So, we have a project on our website called iNatularist.org It’s a global database of enthusiasts, researchers, scientists…I mean it’s a mixed bag of people who are on the website. What we decided is, again, like I told you earlier, is instead of having our own database hosted on our own website, we started contributing all of our data to that website. So, we created a project there called Marine Life of Mumbai and started uploading everything to that and started getting help from across the world trying to ID things. If not help we started getting pointers as to how we should click a photograph, what we should look for in an animal to ID it… we got a lot of help from the scientific and non-scientific community from across the world. That was again, 2018; the start of 2018 was when we started uploading our data there and today, we have more than 41/2 thousand observations of about 500 odd species., just from the Mumbai metropolitan region. That’s where we are.
10:21 Again you asked what the aim of Marine Life of Mumbai was? One is to familiarise the people with the marine life of the city and the second was to document it in a structured way and also have all of this data that we have accumulated open access so that anybody could make use of it.
10:40 Lalitha Krishnan: So, this outreach programme and data gathering, the documentation… Do you think all this is the secret of MLOM’s success? What do you think? Also, you mentioned around 500 odd species, right? Tell us some of this.
Cuttlefish at Juhu beach – photographed on the shores of Mumbai
11:00 Shaunak Modi: If you’re going to ask me what the secret of MLOM or what its success is, I would flat out say the people. After the three of them started MLOM, people started gathering. Some stayed, some didn’t. But there was a very strong group of about 13 people. We were all just enamoured by our shoreline. We come from various backgrounds. There are editors, there are scientists, there are artists, there are water sports instructors; I come from a travel background… All of us are from various backgrounds but we were just united by our love for marine life and curiosity. We were just curious about the shoreline. That’s what brought us all together. For me, that would be the main reason why we succeeded. Because everybody was giving it everything they had and that’s how you end up with something so nice.
12:03 And if you were to ask me about species, I would like to be clear here that these are not species that are washed ashore dead or stranded like the dolphins or the whales we spoke of earlier. Our work is mainly in the intertidal zone. That is basically the part of the shoreline which is underwater during high tide and exposed to air during low tide. And, this is a highly dynamic ecosystem where you have a lot of animals that live right here.
So, you have, from the smallest ones being snails and clams that people are familiar with, you have octopuses, you have cnidarians(??) like zoanthids. Cnidarians are the same group of animals in which jellyfish are. So, you have zoanthids, you have coral—you have a lot of coral in Mumbai. This is something that no one really thought of you know, earlier? You have all sorts of things—the smallest animal being a few millimetres to the largest one being a couple of feet large. You find a lot of stuff here.
13:14 Lalitha Krishnan: It’s amazing that there was no record in the public domain of the marine life of Mumbai before MLOM started documenting it. What is the most amazing thing you have photographed on Mumbai’s shores? Or what has been the most fascinating thing you’ve seen?
13:33: Shaunak Modi: OK. There has been some research done from the city. One of the oldest and seniormost marine biologists in India, Dr Chappgar was based out of Mumbai and there has been some work done but all of that exists in scientific journals. What I meant when I said there is no work in the public domain is that there was nothing accessible to the people. People did not know. So, if you were to ask anybody about the wildlife of the city, the first thing people would talk about was Sanjay Gandhi National Park which is great because here you have a city which is filled to the brim with people and then you have a park right in the middle of it where leopards roam. You don’t see this everywhere in the world you know? That’s great and you have a lot of wetland spots where you have wetland birds which come every winter. You have some spots where you can see a lot of wildlife in the city but there is something that has been completely ignored all this while and that was the marine life. Again, it’s because this is so unfamiliar. Not a lot of people thought that they should go out looking for marine life.
So, ever since I was a kid, I’ve lived in Juhu OK? It’s a suburb. An area very close to the Juhu beach—that’s a very famous beach in the city—and I had never thought that there would be marine life here. In fact, the first time I saw, came across the Marine life of Mumbai’s Instagram account, and then shared some photographs taken in Juhu, there was disbelief. “No this can’t here”. Because, you know, in Mumbai, in the last 20 odd years, there has been such a strong narrative around the pollution and the sewage and the dirt and the beaches being dirty….the beaches need cleanups. While all of that is true, despite all the stress that the ecosystem is under, there is a thriving ecosystem right there. And that is the fascinating thing for me. These are not ideal conditions. And this is not a beautiful island on the Pacific where you walk on a very clean white beach and you happen to come across a coral reef or a coral.
You know, in Mumbai, in the last 20 odd years, there has been such a strong narrative around the pollution and the sewage and the dirt and the beaches being dirty….the beaches need cleanups. While all of that is true, but despite all the stress that the ecosystem is under, there is a thriving ecosystem right there.
-Shaunak Modi
False pillow coral at Haji Ali
15:57 Here there are areas, I don’t know if you are familiar with it, we have a very old dargah in the city called the Haji Ali dargah. It’s a little bit into the sea and there’s a pathway which leads to the dargah but on either side of the pathway is a rocky shore. And on some days when the tide is low enough and you go there—in fact, I have taken a video because I find it extremely fascinating—that you look down and you see corals; and you look up and you see the dargah. And you look in another direction you’ll probably see 1000 people walking to and from the dargah. Where else would you find something like this? And all this while, it’s sort of being hidden in plain sight. So that is the mind-blowing part for me.
Arabian carpet shark from Napean Sea Road
16:53 Again you asked me what I find fascinating or what is something I have photographed that has been fascinating? If you had asked me this last year, or before last year, I would have said that I happened to be walking on one of the shores and I happened to walk by a shark which was in a tide pool.
Lalitha Krishnan: Did you say tidepool?
Shaunak Modi: A tidepool, yes. OK, it’s not a large shark, it’s called the Arabian Carpet Shark. It’s a smaller species of shark that are found in the shore waters. But even then, to walk and reach a place where there is a shark in the water, it’s not something you say every day. It’s not a sentence you would say every day. But that was before last year.
Last year, between the lockdowns in the city we happened to go to Juhu beach which again, is a very crowded beach and just by the tideline, there was this bunch of black grapelike things. This is something that is seasonally found around this time in the city – a lot of cuttlefish which are similar to octopuses and squids. It’s an animal; they come and they lay their eggs on the beach. So, if you happen to walk on the beach when the tide is low enough, you can actually just walk up to those eggs. So last year a group of us happened to walk and we saw these eggs and we waited there. And there was this moment when I was taking pictures of the eggs and I am looking down at it, shining a light on it and this tiny baby which has not even hatched yet looked back at me.
Lalitha Krishnan: What a thing to happen. Fantastic.
Unhatched cuttlefish looking through its egg membrane at the photographer, Shaunak Modi.
So last year a group of us happened to walk and we saw these eggs and we waited there. And there was this moment when I was taking pictures of the eggs and I am looking down at it, shining a light on it and this tiny baby which has not even hatched yet looked back at me.-Shaunak Modi
Shaunak Modi: Yes, from within the egg. I have a photograph of it. I am not doing the sighting justice just by talking about it but something in me sort of changed at that time. And then, a few minutes after that, we saw some of them hatch. And when the tide came in, they just went into the sea. So again, not a lot of ecosystems…there aren’t too many times when you get to witness something like this. And when you do, it sort of changes you in some ways, you know? It’s a very personal thing, it may not mean the same to someone else but to me, that is the most fascinating thing and the most amazing thing I have photographed and seen in the city.
19:32: Lalitha Krishnan: That’s the most amazing thing I’ve heard happen to somebody on the shores of Mumbai. That’s your reward I think for being persistent, doing what you do to conserve the shoreline. It’s truly amazing. It’s also amazing that all of this marine life exists and survives when we can barely handle bad air quality. So Shaunak, is there a good time or better season for spotting marine life?
20:11 Shaunak Modi: I think other than the monsoon months, once it starts raining there’s not much point in going tide pooling, because you won’t see too much. But other than that, I think the shores are open throughout the year.
There are a lot of changes that happen seasonally. There are some things that you will only see in winter for example, the cuttlefish eggs that I spoke about. Similarly, there are squid eggs that happen during the winter months. So, those are seasonal. Other than that, I think, pretty much throughout the year, you can easily go tide pooling and see a bunch of animals. But along with that, you need to remember that a large part of the shore will open up only for a few days a month.
There is something called Spring tides and Neap tides. Neap tides are essentially the time of the month when the difference in the high tide and low tide is very less. So, a large part of the shore will probably be underwater. And during spring tides, the difference between the high tide and the low tide is much greater. So, the days of spring tide is when we go for tide pooling. So, I think other than that, seasons don’t really matter but you need to have a good tide. Any tide which is below, maybe 0.07 mts. on your tide chart or the tide app that you may check is a good tide for Mumbai.
20:30: Lalitha Krishnan: So, one should actually check the tide chart to have a better idea.
Shaunak Modi: Yes.
21:26 Lalitha Krishnan: OK great. What photographic equipment does one need for intertidal photography?
21:42 Shaunak Modi: I am so happy that you asked me this. Nothing. Your phone is enough. Again, it depends on the kind of photographs you want to take but we regularly have participants on your shore walks who have brought just their phones and taken beautiful photographs. I am also, increasingly taking more and more photos with my phone…unless you want a really macro photograph of a really tiny animal, you will need an SLR with a microlens but other than that, a point and shoot camera or your mobile phone are good enough. These days you even get macro lenses just for your mobile phone, you know, the clip one ones. So, with that, you can come out with really, really great photos and videos. So yeah, I don’t think you need much.
22:27 Lalitha Krishnan: That’s heartening to hear. Who wants to lug around stuff when you can do so much with so little? Perfect.
Shaunak Modi:
22:38 Lalitha Krishnan: I liked exploring the interactive map on your CCF website with all the popup photos and information. What is the CCF team busy with these days?
22:52 Shaunak Modi: Yes. So, that was part of the Confluence exhibit we did with Mumbai Water Narratives. The whole idea was to do a virtual shore walk for people. This happened during the lockdown so anyway, we could not go out, nor see the shore. So, Abhishek and Sarang, who were part of this project decided to do, a virtual shore where all three types of ecosystems that you find near the intertidal were close to each other and you would find an illustrated map – done by Gaurav. And, you click on an animal and you get more information about it and also the photograph. Again, the idea here was to familiarise people who are one, either not in Mumbai or at that time, could not go to the shore to see and probably learn more about what this intertidal zone is or what type of marine life Mumbai has, and things like that.
And what we are busy with now?
22:54 So CCF essentially was started by a few members of the MLOM collective. It was started to scale up MLOM’s work and have a more sustained impact. That is what we are working on right now. The main focus areas, for us, is outreach, research, education and citizen science.And within that, we are taking the work that we have done as a collective—that’s MLOM—and we are trying to scale it up to different cities, scaling it up to different audiences. We are constantly trying to find newer ways to get more people, to appreciate, and become ambassadors for marine life. That’s pretty much what we are doing.
24:38 Lalitha Krishnan: I enjoyed reading the water narratives project e about the old water fountains of Mumbai. We’ve always seen it but one never thinks of it. And, also the bhistees as the water carriers were called in a time before pipes. We so take tap water for granted. Tell us about your other two projects the Coastwise Marine Festival and Inhabited Sea.
25:11 Shaunak Modi: Sure. Yes, I’ll start with Inhabited Sea. It’s a wonderful project. I had an opportunity to work with a great group of people. What we were doing is essentially documenting Mumbai’s waters, basically the coastal areas and the sea in different ways, different aspects. There were architecture students, architecture professors who were doing it from their perspective. There’s Nikhil Anand whose project it was- he’s a professor at the University of Pennslyvania- who was looking at the artisanal fishing that happens in Mumbai. Sejal and I were representing Marine Life of Mumbai and of course, we were documenting the biodiversity bit of it. All of our projects are on a website called Inhabited Sea.org That was that project.
26:03 Coastwise is something we came up with. We’ve done 3 editions of this festival so far in three years. It’s a festival that is co-organised by CCF, the Mangrove Foundation which is a foundation of the mangrove cell of the Forest department of Maharashtra, and WWF India. So, the idea here was to again, create a festival that sort of familiarises people with different marine ecosystems. While our work at MLOM has mostly to do with the intertidal zone, as an extension, of course, there is marine life-but here, the idea was to do it at scale. So, we have a month-long festival in February. We do it every year when we host different events. Like there’s an art workshop, a photography workshop… Of course, the theme of all of this is to do with marine life in some way. We also host an annual photo competition which is a marine photo competition for photographers from across the country. We also do flamingo boat rides, mangrove walks… we also do walks at the fish….. centres in different cities. We started this a couple of years ago and started just in Mumbai and it has sort of grown. We’ve had more states, we’ve had our partners in different states come and be partners in the festival. And we’ve had ………………..(lost in translation) walks in Chennai. We’ve had shore walks in Goa as part of the festival. This year unfortunately we’ve had to delay the festival because of the current third wave that’s happening but hopefully, at the end of the year, we’ll have the festival with even more states. That’s what Coastwise is.
27:56 Lalitha Krishnan: There’s so much one can do with people from so many different fields coming together. Really interesting. I hope you get more people joining you next time.
Your website has a lot of resources as well for those who are interested. Would you like to talk about that?
28:13 Shaunak Modi: Sure. On the MLOM website, we have a Tide Chart. Of course, it needs to be updated for 2022—I’ll do it soon—but that has the low tides and the high tides for each month of the year so that people can plan their shore walks around it. We’ve also created small guides for different shores in Mumbai where it has illustrations and information about the most common animals you ought to see on the shore. So, anyone who wants to explore can download them, make use of them. We also have a lot of photographs that we’ve taken and under those photographs, there’s information about it. About what the animal is, where it is found, what its habitat is. This is also something that we do on our Instagram and Facebook accounts. We have a post every week about a different animal. We talk about what makes it interesting, where it is found, again, what its habitat is, how big is it? Things like that. All that can be found on our website, it can also be found on our social media accounts and that’s part of the digital outreach
30:11 Lalitha Krishnan: Fantastic. Do you have any advice for young or old citizens (because I think we are never too old to learn) who have never seen the marine life of Mumbai?
30:24 Shaunak Modi: Just pick a day with a good low tide. There are a lot of apps today which tell you what time the low tide is. An hour before that time, just go out on the shore. Whether it’s Juhu beach, Girgaon Chowpatty, whether it’s Carter Road in Bandra, it’s Bandstand in Bandra, it’s Haji Ali, just go out and look down. And, all of this marine life is right there.
30:49 We do walks every month. You can come and join us. We will show you around, we’ll explain what you’re looking at. Again, my personal goal is to make tide pooling a—and this is also what other people in the group want to do—our goal is to make tide -pooling like birding. People wake up on the weekend, pick up their cameras, binoculars and go birding. We would like to make tide pooling that. It’s an activity that you can do on your own, it does not cost money, you don’t have to travel for it. There are no tickets to be bought. You literally have to put on your shoes, go out on a shore, look down and you will see much marine life. It’s not limited. We have a 71/2 1000 km coastline in the country. And, there’s marine life everywhere. So, it’s one of those ecosystems where you don’t really need guides.
Of course, there will be times when you don’t really understand what you’re looking at because here you have plants that look like animals, animals that look like plants…it’s a mixed bag of things. I think it’s a great activity to do on your own. I would request people to go out and if they’ve seen something they don’t know what they see, they can send it to us, they can send it to me personally. I will help them ID, explain what they are looking out for. Yeah, just go out and go to the shore.
32:19 Lalitha Krishnan: It’s a whole different world from what we’re used to. Most of us are not used to it.
32:26 Shaunak Modi: You know Lalitha, there’s actually a reason why it’s gone like this for so long. Because there is no familiarity. This is why, as part of MLOM’s education pillar and now CCF’s education pillar, what we’re doing is also constantly going to schools and colleges, and giving presentations to very young students. If you look at other countries, for example, Australia. There’s a very strong beach culture in many of the cities there, right? Even in parts of the US, it’s like that. Even in parts of the United Kingdom, it’s like that. And, you’ll find this on a lot of pacific islands also. It’s not limited to these developed countries. Here we don’t have that.
For a very long time, even for me, I would associate Juhu beach with food. It’s not the kind of association that you’d make with an ecosystem. So, we really want kids to have a different mindset about it while they’re doing it/growing up. So, we take them on the shore, we show them all of this. We do presentations with a lot of photographs, with a lot of videos. We want to sort of pass on the message to them that there is something that is beyond our forests. I love my trips to the forests but you don’t always get a chance to do that. You probably take one or two holidays a year. Most of us do at least. But here you have an opportunity to –even if you have an hour or even half an hour before class—and you’re close to a beach just walk down. You’ll definitely see something. That’s the idea we want to familiarise people with. That this really exists and exists everywhere. And we want people from other cities to have their own MLOs. By MLOs, I mean Marine Life Of… and their own city. It’s not that we want to go there and create, we want them to have that. We’ll of course help them. We made some mistakes in the last few years and we’ve learnt a lot. We’re ready to share all of that information with them but it would be nice if groups or individuals or organisations came forward and sort of want to create their own collectives in their own city.
34:45 Lalitha Krishnan: And take ownership for what’s theirs. It’s their land, their backyard.
Shaunak Modi: That’s exactly why we don’t want to do it. It’s not our backyard. So, while we may be able to do it, we really need a partner who is local, because that is how these things should be.
35:07 Lalitha Krishnan: That’s really great. Shaunak, we are almost at the end of our conversation but before I let you go could you share a word or two that’s relevant for you that will improve our seaworthiness.
35:23 Shaunak Modi: I think we should start respecting the sea. There’s a lot that’s going wrong right now with our seas. We always hear about the sea in a negative way. We hear about it more in a negative way than a positive way whether it’s climate change or rising sea levels. There’s a lot that’s happening. Not a lot of it is easy to change or alter or reverse. But I think a good first step would be to respect the sea. Because we are if the sea lets us be. That’s all I would say.
36:00 Lalitha Krishnan: Thanks, Shaunak. That was poignant and relevant, and so interesting. Thank you so much.
Shaunak Modi: Thank you. This was a lovely chat. So much fun.
Shaunak at the shoreline in Mumbai. Photo courtesy Shaunak Modi
36:17 Lalitha Krishnan: I hope you enjoyed listening to Shaunak Modi as much as I have. Do check out CCF links and the whole transcript for this podcast right here on Earthy Matters. You can listen to Heart of Conservation on many platforms. You can also write to me at earthymatters013@gmail.com. I’m Lalitha Krishnan signing off. Till next time stay as safe as possible please and do subscribe for more episodes.
Birdsong by hillside resident, the collared owlet.
All photos including podcast cover photo courtesy of Shaunak Modi. Artwork: Lalitha Krishnan
Disclaimer: Views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in the podcast and show notes belong solely to the guest featured in the episode, and not necessarily to the host of this podcast/blog or the guest’s employer, organization, committee or other group or individual.
Lalitha Krishnan: Hi there, thanks for listening in to Season 4 episode 25 of Heart of Conservation. I’m Lalitha Krishnan, bringing you stories from the wild that keep us connected with the natural world. You can read the show notes for this podcast episode right here on my blog Earthy Matters. Today I’m talking to Rajani Mani, a documentary filmmaker with Elephant Corridor Films, a Bengaluru based creative agency. Currently, she is working on “Colonies in Conflict” a film that examines the state of wild bees in a fast-developing Indian landscape. Rajini, thank you so much for joining me on Heart of Conservation.
Rajani Mani: Thank you so much for inviting me. I am happy to have this conversation with you since you were quite interested in my work when we chatted. So, I’m quite excited to speak with you as well.
0:56
Lalitha Krishnan: Thanks. Of all the creatures and critters in the world what got you interested in bees?
Rajani Mani: It’s not like I’m an insect lover from my childhood or anything like that. What got me interested was something that was recurrent which I was observing around me and which was bothering me. Essentially it was these big bee hives that you see in the cities and in Bangalore, we have plenty of those on balconies. The management is called for removing these honey bee hives and the way it was being done bothered me. You know, by spraying pesticides and there are so many beehives in these high-rise apartments that I was observing all the time. That disturbed me a lot and I was trying out ways to protect it and I got interested in the story…in the bees. And I started researching them and that’s how I got interested. I love bees, I love insects. But I was like everybody else you know. If you think of insects, we humans are generally not very fond of insects. I was one of those.
Lalitha Krishnan: So not only did you get over the fear you started loving them.
Rajani Mani: There was no fear per se but there was some disgust to be very honest. Insects…for me it would be cockroaches. We are generally disgusted by cockroaches. We try to get rid of them. Bees are there. We understand pollination we studied it in school but come to think of it after all the research I’ve done—we’ve not even touched the tip of the iceberg in schools and colleges when we are taught about pollination. There’s a lot that an average person does not understand. I was one among those. I am actually thrilled to see my own transformation after the process of filming started.
3:25
Lalitha Krishnan: That’s great. So how many species of bees do you find in India? And, apart from the obvious hives, where else do they reside? On the ground, I’ve read. I was surprised.
Rajani Mani: There are over 700 species of bees in India. Here I have to make a distinction between solitary bees and social bees. The bee that we generally see in advertisements or on cute emojis or cartoons is the honey bee. And of the honey bee itself, we have five different kinds in India. The rest of it is all solitary bees. Solitary bees nest in a variety of places. It could be old deadwood, it could be soil, it could be any of the wild spaces you know? You name it, some of them construct little nests with leaves and twigs and things like that. Some of them burrow in deadwood and make little nooks for themselves. The social bees nest in beehives which is what we are familiar with. We see these beehives on balconies, on water tanks, on trees. So, these are social bees and they nest in large numbers. There are tens of thousands of them in one hive. So, this is the first distinction which is that one set is social bees and the other set are solitary bees that nest in a variety of spaces but basically, they all live alone. Social bees live in societies just like us.
As I was saying five kinds of honey bees live in India. We have the apis which is the honey bee. You have the apis dorsata which is the rock bee that most people in the cities are familiar with; they are quite frightened of them because they are quite temperamental. You see these gigantic, two feet by three feet hives. Then you have the apis laboriosa which is found in the Himalayan region and that is kind of a cousin of dorsata. Then you have apis andreniformis in the North East area. Then apis florea which you can find in Bangalore and all cities. Most people don’t notice them that much because they hide in bushes, in trees. They have more round and smaller hives. Then there is the Apis cerana. Apis cerana is in India, traditionally kept for beekeeping. They are the only cavity-nesting bees found in India.
In 1983, apis mellifera which is a European honey bee was introduced by the (Indian) government to promote honey bee farming. So, these are the varieties that are generally found here. The distinction between hive ??? nesting and cavity-nesting is that cavity-nesting can also be used for beekeeping.
Lalitha Krishnan: That’s so interesting. You know we hear of animal corridors and migratory flight paths for birds and more commonly for the monarch butterflies. What about bees? Where do they come from and where do they go from here?
Rajani Mani: Again, if you’re a ground-nesting or a tree cavity, tree hollow cavity-nesting solitary bee species then you don’t really go anywhere. You just stay in that little area and you survive there. They’re not migratory, not as far as I know. Whereas in the case of other honey bees like the apis florea there is no migratory behaviour as such. Cerana is a cavity-nesting bee. I have not heard of them migrating. The only migratory honey bee in this lot is the apis dorsata. Also, the study of bees is at very early stages right now. We haven’t found out how far they migrate, where they go.These are also a): slightly difficult considering the size of these insects. But there is one study if you look online. A scientist in Sri Lanka says that these bees can travel up to 200 km. So, no concrete evidence has happened but there is an understanding that there are two kinds of migrations that the dorsata do. One is short term migrations which are in search of forage. Eucalyptus trees or other flowering trees are in plenty in one season. Once the forage of that season is over, then the bees would migrate to a shorter distance to find more food for their huge colonies. Because there are tens of thousands of them in one colony. They need a lot of food to take care of their progeny and you know, their whole hive. So, they need to constantly find good food sources as well as good water sources. So, they keep moving. They do a long-range migration which is generally just before the onset of the monsoons. And anecdotally, I can tell you that, because there are no research papers on it—there is some work in progress—so anecdotally speaking, we do know that the honey bee colonies in the city…they disappeared just before the monsoon and returned in October. So, from October to about March-end, you would see bee colonies in Bangalore. I talk about Bangalore because it is my city. I understand what’s happening here and I’m sure similar patterns perhaps may be observed in, let’s say, Gurgaon or Bombay or wherever. People from all of these cities do reach out to me and say, “What should we do?” we do know that dorsata colonies are there in urban centres all over India.
You talked about a corridor. So, there is a nectar corridor which—since I’m not a scientist, I cannot speak about in a very informative way—but from my understanding, there is a corridor which is between October to March in Bangalore in the western ghats when all the endemic trees are blooming. There’s a rich source of food available to these bees then. That’s also when they do the colony multiplication and so forth.
11:36
Lalitha Krishnan: It will be interesting to have an ‘ebee’ just like we have ebird.
Rajani Mani: There is some talk about that somewhat and it has been developed as well but not so extensively and it has not been launched as yet by the NCBS but we are planning to do it. There is some delay on their part. I don’t know if it’s really an ebee thing because, you know, scientists find it difficult to track colonies, to actually monitor and spot the beehive,—when they leave, when they come back—this data would be very important and helpful to the scientist. Some people do put up bee sightings on the India Biodiversity Portal. What kind of bee they have spotted, where they have spotted.
Lalitha Krishnan: That’s the place to go then.
Rajani Mani: Yes, but it’s not as widespread. You are right. I was telling my friend as well. We go bird watching. If we go bee watching, I’m sure we’ll spot so many different kinds of bees and then read up about them. It will be interesting for us as well, you know?
12:52
Lalitha Krishnan: Yes, the thing is it’s about 12 degrees over here, it’s really cold and I’m still seeing bees. Sometimes they’re just trapped in the house. Interestingly, you spoke about them being around from October so I was thinking they’re here in such a cold environment but I guess they’re Himalayan bees.
Rajani Mani: Where are you right now?
Lalitha Krishnan: Ranikhet, Uttarakhand.
Rajani Mani: You must be seeing the local bees of that place whichever they are.
Lalitha Krishnan: Yes.
13:21
Lalitha Krishnan: So, even elephants are wary of beehive activity. In Africa, they actually use bee pheromones to drive away elephants? Tell us why ordinary humans shouldn’t be afraid of bees?
Rajani Mani: I get asked this question because people think I am out to tell people not to be or be scared of bees that’s your choice. But I just want people to understand and respect them. Because, they are also at heart, wild creatures.
The only way to avoid fear is to try and understand where they are coming from. What is their nature like? What is their inherent behaviour? Right? Once we understand their behaviour and pattern and what they are all about, then we wouldn’t feel this sense of fear like…even a tiger in the jungle. We are fearful but we are also respectful. So, these insects also deserve that degree of reverence is what I feel.
-Rajani Mani
Lalitha Krishnan: Right.
Rajani Mani: They do a lot and just by saying,” Oh I’m scared of bees and they’re going to sting…” Yes. Even a dog will sting if you trouble it right? Every creature which is wild at heart is going to come from a place where it has an inherent response to distress. And bees, are no different in that sense.
Lalitha Krishnan: So ‘respect’ is the word.
Rajani Mani: Yes. Exactly.
15:05
Lalitha Krishnan: Rajani, could you briefly tell us about life in a beehive? I mean, we have all read about it you know? The queen, drones, worker bees which are all female by the way—why am I not surprised? —and their roles, seasonality etc.
Rajani Mani: Yes, it’s a female-centric matriarchal system followed in a beehive. You have the queen bee who is the whole heart and soul of the hive. And everything—all the bees and all the activities taking place in the beehive is taking into consideration her protection. And, her conservation. So, she’s at the very heart. And then you have the worker bees who in their lifetime play a variety of roles. They have roles like nurse bees or roles like guard bees and they have foragers who go out and forage for food and water. Then you have the drones whose only job is to mate with the queen when she is ready for mating. Their life cycle is also very interesting because the queen lives for 3-4 years and the worker bees live for several months, maybe 3-4 months not more. And, the drone dies, the moment mating happens. So, as I said, the queen is at the heart of the whole colony.And that’s why it’s also important that when you have a beehive on your balcony, or on a tree or you are scared—irrationally scared—you have to use methods where the queen bee isn’t affected and she survives. Because if she survives, she can move on and make another hive in a very short time.
17:30
Lalitha Krishnan: OK
Rajani Mani: If the queen dies it’s the end of that entire colony as it stands.
Lalitha Krishnan: Wow.You know according to the WWF website, about 90% of all wildlife plants and 75% of all leading global crops depend on animal pollinators. One out of every three mouthfuls of our food depends on pollinators. I don’t know the latest figures but in Bangalore itself, I know several beehives are removed every day. That’s just one city. It makes you wonder how endangered bees are in India. Whether they are listed by the IUCN? Also, what happens if all the bees were to disappear one day. Is there a cascading effect like how wolves save/change rivers?
Rajani Mani: (Talking about urban beehives). At one time you will have at least 10 hives. One of the things about dorsata bees which are in the wild also together, they build nest aggregates. You won’t see just one beehive on a tree. You’ll see several.
So, in some sense, in the cities, when the dorsata bees make their nests, the city apartments are like nest aggregates for them. It’s like a large tree on which all these cousins are building their nests. So, the one time a bee-hive remover is called, he would maximize his time you know? He would at one stretch remove six of them. So, let’s say there are 20,000 high rise apartments in Bangalore. And, there are 6-8 beehives in the given season. You can just guess how many beehives are being removed during this period. It’s a scary shocking number in any case…the number of beehives that are removed routinely.
19:25:
That’s one part of it. Is it listed in the IUCN? No. It is not listed in the IUCN. There is no data that says that these bees are under threat. In India, in fact, there is no data at all. There is no data about the number of bees we have. Like, the kinds of bees, the species that we have….it’s incomplete data. Whatever we have, is old, British times data. Now, there are some amazing people like Dr Belavadi –he’s a taxonomist—who are generating data and are collecting all the records. There is a lot of bee species yet waiting to be discovered. I can tell you that from 2015-2021, every year, the number of beehives, I am getting in my society have reduced. I was filming in Coorg and the farmers tell at one time, around February, after Shivratri, the bees start coming. All the forests are blooming at that time. And, at one time you have literally 100s of dorsata bees on a single tree. That’s how they are. They always come back to the same location, year after year after year. Because they have something that’s called site fidelity. That’s the unique thing about dorsata bees.
21:08
And if this farmer says 30 years ago we had 100 hives now we barely see 30 or some years the bees skip altogether like 2020, when I went there, they had skipped altogether. There is anecdotal data that perhaps there is a decline but I cannot say that there is a decline. I don’t think that while the forest and crops are all dependent on various kinds of animal pollination including our bee pollination, how would it have a cascading effect? It would have a cascading effect. In fact, there are a couple of things that are interconnected in this.
Bees are a keystone species. The minute I say they are a keystone species and if I remove-and you would know that if you remove a keystone species and there is a disturbance in the species, the whole arc will fall. This is the same case with bees. Not only honey bees-it’s not only dorsata I am partial to, it’s all kinds of bees.
22:25
Lalitha Krishnan: OK. What do you hope to achieve with your documentary, ‘Colonies in Conflict’?
Rajani Mani: I think, I want people to see bees in a way they haven’t seen bees before. I want them to really notice them. Because people understand what honey is, they consume honey, they consume food, that’s why they survive. All of that is a result of pollination. All kinds of specialist bees pollinate special crops that we are used to eating now. But we don’t understand the input or the value of bee pollination whether it’s our food or our forests. So, I hope that for a moment that this film will make you stop, think, pause and just observe the beauty of the bees and what they do as in what we do to them.
23:20
Lalitha Krishnan: Right.
Rajani Mani: You know there are a lot of films that are made from the human angle of how dangerous it is to hunt for honey. Honey hunters who climb on all kinds of cliffs to harvest honey…
Lalitha Krishnan: I’ve seen those.
Rajani Mani: But this (film) is still is not about honey, it’s about the bees and it’s about the very precious service that the bees give and provide to us.
Lalitha Krishnan: Excellent. And you’ve been filming for quite a few years, right?
Rajani Mani: I’ve been filming since Oct. 2019 but we had a brief pause because of the pandemic and also the shoot is seasonal. I can only film when the bees are around. Like I said, the flow is October to March or April is the period that I can film. During the monsoon, you don’t see bees. There’s nothing I can film at that time.
24:20
Lalitha Krishnan: OK. So could you share a conservation-related word that’s significant to you? It could be bee-related or not be?
Rajani Mani: At the moment, it would be ‘pollination’, you know? Because, I think pollination of our wild spaces, our forests are dependent on insects like bees, whether they are social bees or solitary bees. And, we need to recognise that we have to continue to have forests space, have safe spaces for our animals, for our biodiversity as such. So ‘pollination’ it is.
Lalitha Krishnan: I was hoping it would be. We keep hearing of putting out sugar water for bees in summer. I don’t know if this is a weird question but how can we not kill with kindness? Could you share some guidelines on what not to do?
Rajani Mani:You don’t really need to put out sugar water but what you can do… They will figure it out. The bees are there because they have found food sources close by. If there is no food source, they will not be bees there. So don’t worry about their food source or their forage and feed them sugar water and all that but they do need water. Especially social bees because they build these large hives and they have such a huge population and it gets hot in the summers. They need a lot of water to keep cooling off. So, what you can do is have a shallow bowl and fill it with pebbles and a little water and keep it just like you do for birds, you know, you place it for the bees.
The bees are in your balcony they are there for a very short time; three months, not more than that. So, try and not to use that balcony especially if they are dorsata bees. They are the only ones that build hives on balconies. And, close your window meshes and close your curtains by 4:30 pm because these bees are phototactic. They get attracted to light and they come inside the home. Actually, the ones that come inside the home are foragers. They are out foraging. That’s when they get attracted by the light and they come inside, and then can’t break away. They won’t sting you. They are you know, in distress themselves. There’s a lot about these dorsata bees which is interesting and crazy…I don’t know if you have the time for all that.
Lalitha Krishnan: Yes, especially in urban spaces it’s good to know what you should do and what you shouldn’t do.
Rajani Mani: So, let’s say, when the bees want to build a hive, a bunch of them will come earlier and they do a recce and they will see if your balcony or your space is suitable for them. And at that space you see let’s say, 50 or 100 bees hanging or festooning on your balcony, you can light a herbal agarbatti and the smoke will distress them and they will think that this is an unsuitable place and they will leave by themselves.
27:50
The other thing you can do is…let’s say you were out on a holiday, you came back and you find this hive and one of you is allergic and you can’t afford to have this thing…what you can do is again light a herbal agarbatti –not a doop—below the hive for a couple of days, like 2-3 days. So, what happens is when the smoke comes it disturbs the bees. So, they decide this is no longer a viable place. And the queen will stop laying eggs. But they will not fly away immediately. They will take about 15 days which is the period they need for all the food and the resources –the entire brood to emerge. Once the entire brood emerges, then the bees fly away to another place. But the queen will stop laying lays once the hive decides this place is no longer viable. Then, it’s a two-week waiting period. Then they leave. So, you can try these things you know? The more conservative ways rather than pest management spraying or taking matters into your own hands because that’s quite cruel.
Lalitha Krishnan: That’s fantastic. Thanks for enlightening us about the bees. It’s been really nice talking to you Rajani.
Rajani Mani: My pleasure. Thank you so much.
I hope you enjoyed listening to Rajani Mani and all about bees as much as I have. Do check out some links about her work and the whole transcript for the show on my blog Earthy Matters. You can listen to Heart of Conservation on many platforms. You can also write to me at earthymatters013@gmail.com I’m Lalitha Krishnan signing off. Till next time stay safe, be kind to bees and do subscribe for more episodes.
Birdsong by hillside resident, the collared owlet.
Podcast cover photo courtesy of Rajani Mani. Artwork: Lalitha Krishnan
Disclaimer: Views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in the podcast and show notes belong solely to the guest featured in the episode, and not necessarily to the host of this podcast/blog or the guest’s employer, organization, committee or other group or individual.
Heart of Conservation Podcast Ep# 24 Show Notes (Edited)
O:06
Introduction: Hi there, Thanks for listening in to season three, episode #24 of Heart of Conservation. I’m Lalitha Krishnan bringing you more stories from the wild that keep us connected with the natural world. You can read the show notes of this episode right here and check out the extra links provided by my guest below. I am speaking to Yuvan, a naturalist, educator, activist, musician and author. One of India’s young influencers Yuvan is currently documenting coastal stories, helping create tree laws, saving the biodiversity of sand dunes and water bodies apart from a host of other ecologically relevant issues.
0:46
Lalitha Krishnan: Thank you Yuvan for joining me and my listeners on Heart of Conservation. I’m truly excited to be speaking to you. There are so many things we can talk about but I’d like to start with something more recent if you don’t mind. In collaboration with the Madras Naturalist’s Society, you recently launched the Urban Wilderness Walk Internship which in your words is a dream come true as a naturalist and educator. Tell us the why, what and how did you realize this dream?
1:20
Yuvan Aves: Yes, sure. Firstly, I am very, very delighted to be on your podcast. A lot of people you have spoken with, some of the questions you have asked, their work, their voice, their writing has been very formative for me and so I’m very happy to be here in conversation with you.
So, see, Urban Wilderness Walks emerged from this idea and thinking about what creates cultures. And is it possible to have a city-wide culture which is eco-centric where people are excited about, are knowledgeable about, are engaging with the biodiversity found around them in an urban space…that’s the challenge…and active about environmental issues, and exercising agency. And not slinking away into life which urban spaces often presses on us. Of being passive, of going to work, coming back, you know, sleeping and eating and all the rest of it. so, the dream of the Urban Wilderness Walks Internship is to try to create a city-wide network of young naturalists, resource people who can facilitate activities around ecology, nature, environment. That they then periodically take people on walks and kind of evoke urban spaces in an entirely different light. That was the dream and it kind of grew slowly. First, it was a few friends…I did it in my apartment…I do it once every few months. Then I asked some friends, who are also naturalists to do it at theirs but that wasn’t kind of meeting what I was visioning in my head. Then, through Madras Naturalists Society, we actually offered it as an internship for colleges. For life science students. One of the things about Chennai is that it does not have an ecology course…Chennai or its outskirts. In fact, there are only one of two places that offer young people a course in ecology or conservation biology or environmental sciences. People often diffuse away to Bangalore, to Dehradun and other places. You know, the aspiring naturalists who want to pursue a career here.
So, the idea was to train young people with the experience, the knowledge, the skills the tools, to be fantastic facilitators…you know, who get people excited about living things and nature in urban spaces.
-Yuvan Aves
4:15
Lalitha Krishnan: Interesting that a state like Tamil Nadu doesn’t offer ecology courses or enough of it as you say. You encouraged some of your students to draft this petition to push for a law for Urban trees and they succeeded. In fact, you shared an (Instagram) story where I think they’ve convinced 600 schools and colleges. That’s amazing. That must have felt very empowering (for them). Could you briefly tell us about this?
4:48
Yuvan Aves: That campaign is part of a Nature Education cum Citizenship Programme I conduct for a school where I’m working for the past three years called Abacus Montessori School. Very fortunately, it’s grounded in the Montessori philosophy. And Montessori is one of those educational philosophers who went through the worst of human history. You know, the world wars and said, “Oh, we need to reimagine education. Children need to be able to think for themselves. They need a variety of experiences. Their experience of learning needs to be uncoupled from the larger market forces.” And these were questions she pondered upon deeply and wrote about them. So, in our school we have this programme for Nature Education right from Primary, you know, the little toddlers to up to Class 12. So, when we come to Class 10, 11 and 12, it’s about citizenship. Citizenship in the way we’ve crafted it for our school means a few things. One is, that children’s learning is in direct participation in matters of society, environment and politics, and governance. In direct engagement with the real world. Not just intellectually or not just in kind of insulated silos. It also means being active and practising action as a grounding and philosophy. Which means a whole range of things you know. Children decide, OK, this is my question, this is my concern, I am going to pursue it. Agency coming from within rather than coming from instruction outside. This is kind of what the Citizen Science Programme holds for children.
Lalitha Krishnan: Alright.
6:47
Yuvan Aves: So, Class 10 children learn RTI (Right To Information). You know, how to file RTIs for the State, for the Centre. And there’s also a reflection into what ‘Freedom of expression’ means. What ‘Active citizenship’ means. What are the different things they want to pursue based on their life experiences and backgrounds? And they use RTI as a medium to explore this whole thing and different modules like that. So, in Class 11, we have something called A Class Campaign. So, children come up with a cause that is local, which pertains to Chennai or Tamil Nadu, and find ways of amplifying it or giving voice to it. Engaging with it in real-time. So, last year, the Class 11 children took up the Save Pullicat campaign. You know, right now, a beautiful lagoon is under grave threat because of a port proposed by the Adani Group. So last year they took that up and they made some beautiful art and they also ran a petition. They had other ways of spreading the message. And, they conducted a press conference in Chennai. And through that, what happened is the message reached a whole lot of people and a public hearing was decided for the port. We know public hearings are shams you know, often in the process of clearing of wild spaces. They were able to stop that. Because the media took it up…
Lalitha Krishnan: Nice.
8:25
Yuvan Aves: …and the District Collector said something like, “Let’s scrap the public hearing, looks like a whole lot of people are going to turn up; we have Covid issues…” and you know, all that stuff. And they stopped that and that was such an important thing in the campaign because very shortly later, a few months later, the new government came and they kind of rode on this.
You vote for us and we will scrap the Adani port.
It was a win in that sense, you know, a little spanner in the works.
So, this year what the children took up was… you know, these children have been part of creating a forest in an arboretum in our farm school which we have in Vellaputhur. And they have been to different landscapes around Chennai and India, understanding wild places. And so, one of the things they easily took up was a Law for Urban trees. A little background to that is a lot of states in India have a law for urban trees which means there are trees -very old ones- important for the cities’ health, for people’s health which have a specific law protecting them. You take, for instance, Maharashtra. It has a beautiful law, its implementation is up for question, but there’s a Tree Authority made of people and govt. officials who look at how to create awareness. Who scrutinise projects which want to fell a few thousand trees and so on? There is a Tree Helpline.There is a clause that says if trees are more than 50 years old, they get a label called ‘Heritage trees”. That gives them extra protection. But in Tamil Nadu, there is no such law. Similarly, West Bengal has, Kerala has, Assam has, Karnataka has.
In Tamil Nadu, any tree falling outside a protected area has virtually no protection. Virtually no personhood.
10:25
You know, through my activism work and looking at other movements in this state, if there is a tree law, it protects people and places. For instance, Pulicat. If there was a Tree law to protect the mangroves to protect the kinds of vegetation there-which is very old- it would be an added layer of security for the fisherfolk there. North Chennai is a watery landscape and artisan fishers are 1000s in numbers who have been living here for centuries.
Similarly, for instance, if you take the Salem highway recently, which has been scraped in some sense by the new government; but if there was protection for trees…lakhs of mango trees were going to be cut. But if they had protection, far more livelihoods are saved.
If you take the common urban landscape, trees support, protect people. They have a social life in urban society. The iron-walla, the tailor, the cobbler, the auto stand…everything is under trees…the provision shop. So, the children took this up and they wrote a letter and they got endorsements from students from about 100 different colleges and schools in Tamil Nadu. 600 endorsements from 100 different institutions. They’ve written to the Chief Minister, the Chief Secretary, the Principal Secretary of Environment. The media was interested. They spoke to the media and it’s kind of an ongoing process. I’m happy that it’s also kind of triggering conversations in other groups for instance who have been fighting for a cause like this. It’s a kind of coming together and one hope that this will result in a law.
12:27
Lalitha Krishnan: Definitely. That’s great. This coming together is itself a big force if it happens…the voices of many. Moving on, in an article you wrote about coastal sand dunes you said, “Sand is slow water, a patient fluid, which is moved, shaped, folded by wind, waves, and vegetation. It flows over the years and with the seasons, like a current in deep time”.
I loved that imagery but more importantly, what I didn’t know is the whole significance of sand dunes. That it can create freshwater for one or that sand dunes are even more effective than mangroves and casuarina plantations in terms of protecting coastal communities during a tsunami or storm. How so?
13:22
Yuvan Aves: Yes, there are studies by Care earth and Feral India which has brought out this truth, you know. Sand dunes are seen often as landscapes that don’t have life. If one were to go with an informed eye one sees so much. I was in a village called Poigainallur in Nagapattinam, a few months ago…in search of sand dunes in fact. Poigai is an interesting word. Poigai means freshwater pond in Tamil; a word which is not often in use nowadays but poigai also signifies an aesthetic water body. Something which kind of has a beautiful backdrop perhaps has lilies and lotuses. It’s called Poigainallur but it’s bang next to the sea. So, one thing that the village is known for and also a cluster of other villages around it is that there are massive sand dunes there. You know 40 feet. You have to climb them like little hills and go around them and navigate the landscape. And the people here have this interesting practice of protecting the sand dunes and letting them revive. If you went and spoke to them, they will say that as long as they can remember, they keep these palm fronds in the direction of the wind and stop the wind. So, sand kind of gathers there and they take palm seeds and put them behind and so they sprout and they grow sand dunes. After storms, after strong weather events, the sand dunes take a beating. They again use this practice to help them recover fast. And the whole aliveness of a coastal dune landscape I was able to see through those people’s eyes. You know, the fisherfolk of that place. And, it’s miraculous, 30 feet from the tide line they have water pumps –from which I have tasted the water—it gives clean water. And perhaps just 200 ft just behind the sand dunes there’s agriculture happening. So, these sand dunes—these are called secondary or tertiary sand dunes– they are massive. Right behind them, there is a forest because the sand has it from sheltered salt-layered winds and it creates a perennial pool. When you walk in such a landscape, the brain is confused because on one side there are waves crashing and on the other side there’s a frog scape. Frogs are calling hardcore freshwater species.
But the deeper hydrological importance of sand dunes or any coastal cities is that sand on the edge of a place actually creates this bio shield from seawater ingressing, you know. Still, water can travel underground into freshwater aquifers and contaminate them and they become unusable. If you look for instance, in North Chennai, where all the large coastal infrastructure has come up because the people here are largely from fisher communities, there is no beach. If you take archival pictures from British India of North Chennai, you will find there was a very large beach there. There is no beach right now. Interestingly, in 2019, a study by Anna University found that in the whole of India, maximum sea ingress is in North Chennai in places like Ennore and nearby. Sea in some places had come in, crept inside, underground up to 18 km and contaminated water. So, people have had to move from here, build desalinisation plants and so on.
The hope is to evoke the magic of sand dunes. ‘Sand’, the way we use that word is without life but not so. They actually ensure life happens by just being on the coast.
17:46
Lalitha Krishnan: That is so amazing. I really feel like and going and seeing them (sand dunes) now. Tell us about your travels down the Indian coast. Did you do that for two years? I am not sure if I got that right. So, what were you thinking when you began this venture and what did you return with?
18:04
Yuvan Aves: Yeah, so hopefully, I will be able to kind of begin again. On the 20th I am going on a long tour of the southern districts of Tamil Nadu where some very special coastal ecologies exist. And pre-Covid, also I was going to different places on the Indian coast and understanding the places a bit and the people who live there. The idea, the interest in coasts started with our campaign for Pulicat and the hope and the action to save it. One of the things we found was that while campaigning for this place, we did not have enough stories. We did not have in fact, in some places, scientific data and other kinds of things that would evoke this kind of place as beautiful, as magical, as worth saving.So, we had to do that on the go, on the run.
Coastal landscapes exist on a cusp. You know, with changing climate, with seas becoming more unpredictable, more intense, they are the most vulnerable. Coasts and coastal communities. But they are also our first line of defence from climate-change driven consequences and impacts raging in from the sea.
So, they exist on that cusp on that very difficult cusp. They are on the margins and also coastal communities are marginalised in that sense – in a political sense. That feeling… that intersection of realities during campaigning for Pulicat kind of drove this whole idea. So, what we’re doing is…one is a large project all across the Tamil Nadu coast, again, through Madra Naturalist Society. I work with a team of friends. I should mention their names; we’ve all been equally part of that. Vikas, Ashwathy, Anuja, Nandita and Rohit and myself. So, people call us the Ocean’s Six and all that. So, whatever time we have, we are on the beach. We are with fisher people; we are at estuaries and creeks and so on. We have finished 1/4th of the Tamil Nadu coast and we are looking at, as comprehensively possible, documenting the ecology and the life there. You know the deep inimitable knowledge of artisanal fisherfolk.
If you come to this part of Tamil Nadu, the north, not the entire Tamil Nadu, there are nine words for winds. Wind speech is so vivid that if you walk with a fisherman elder…you know of my greatest teacher has been Pallayam from Urapukkam village near Adyar estuary. He can stand there and he is so intensely perceiving the wind. And he can tell you if it’s (the catch) going be mackerel. Is it going to be no catch, is it going to be anchovies or is it good for crabs? (All) by reading the wind.
-Yuvan Aves
That, I have been understanding a little bit but for them, it’s an embodied knowledge. It’s knowledge in their blood. So, local knowledge and threats to this landscape. This is something we hope to do for the entire coast of Tamil Nadu.
As a personal thing, I want to travel to different places in India and collect these stories. I was in Goa recently speaking to fisherfolk in a village called Nauxim. Interestingly, the fluctuation between spring tide and mead tide is called sudthi-budthi. I just hope I am pronouncing it correctly in Konkani. Interestingly, sudthi-budthi is also a reference to our variation in emotion and mood. So, in their speech, the coming in and going out of the tides—the lunar fluctuations—is likened to the emotionality of the sea. And therefore, the sea is alive in that sense.
22:41
Lalitha Krishnan: Beautiful. So, do you think all of your travels, the research and conversations you’re having will one day become a book? Do you see a book emerging from it?
Yuvan Aves: Yes, that is a dream, stories from all around the Indian coast. Of biodiversity, of local knowledge of different threads of a coastal landscape being magical places. Perhaps a collection of essays or perhaps a different form. Of course, there are other people who are doing fantastic work. For instance, Marine Life of Mumbai. Work like those groups… different parts of India. Yes, I do hope it becomes a book in a few years.
23:31
Lalitha Krishnan: I hope so too. I would love to read that one. Yuvan, again, talking about music. You have so many talents. In 2019, you held a musical concert for conservation where you also performed. Tell us about your musical interest and the specific cause that you held this concert for?
23:52
Yuvan Aves: I’m a recorder player. The recorder is not a recording device. It’s a musical instrument from Europe. It’s a woodwind instrument seemingly simple to play at the beginning but it gets a lot harder when you progress with it. I started learning the recorder when I was three and a half when my mom joined me for classes. Interestingly, just a note about my teacher who is no more but then I owe a whole lot to him. S Balakrishnan. He was also a famous Malayalam music director. I wanted to pursue this instrument purely because of his own kindness. I was initially learning the piano from him. But he did not know it too much so he said, “See, this is all I know with respect to the piano. I can refer to other good teachers but if you want to learn from me, I know this bunch of (instruments). I know the flute, the recorder,” and so on. So, I happened to tell my mom, “See I don’t care what I learn, I want to learn from that teacher”. And, he was very kind and helped me love music. I have not pursued the piano. I have not pursued other kinds of things I had started learning deep back in childhood. But this, I have been able to pursue till date and I am a music teacher also and that is, of course, thanks to my teacher. So, coming back to your question about the concert of 2019, one of the things I hope to continually explore –of course, Covid got in the way—is to merge music with my work in activism. One opportunity which came by was the move of the Chennai metro to hack down Panagal park. That’s an old park with some very, very old trees—a few 100 of them—for a metro station. A metro station is a railway station that the cream of the cream of society uses. There’s MRTS, there’s Southern Railways, there are four kinds of local railways. Of course, it’s public transport and I have nothing against that but their siting was in parks. They’ve already kind of flattened two very old parks: Nageshwara park and part of Thiruvika park they have taken over and constructed and those parks have gone. And so, they wanted to take over Panagal park as well.
Panagal park is there as a green lung space, an oasis you can walk into in the most haphazard hectic park of Chennai. Around it is large cloth shops, Saravana stores, Nalli and so on where in fact, the employees during their break, come in here to destress. That’s something you see. It’s an important landmark of Chennai. So, they wanted to hack that down; we were putting together ways in which to stop that. Initially, we took Rober Macfarlane’s Heartwood poem. That’s the poem he wrote for the people of Shielfield who were protesting against the cutting of trees in their streets.
“Would you hew me to the heartwood cutter?
Would you leave me open-hearted?” As if the tree was speaking to the woodcutter who has come to it with an axe. I adapted that poem for Tamil and we made a little animation of it as a way of gathering solidarity with people. And, after that, if you look at music, music comes from the belly of trees. If you look at, for instance, the veena, or the kanjira, if you made it out of the heartwood of any other tree other than the jackfruit tree, it wouldn’t sound the same. It wouldn’t be the veena…its characteristic timbre and tone. If you made the violin from anything else other than spruce or maple or a few other related trees it wouldn’t sound like a violin. Similarly, with all the instruments you hear in an orchestra, the cello, the viola, the bamboo flute… So, music is really as we have known it for all these centuries, is the belly, the hearts of trees singing. So, that was the theme of our concert. ‘Music comes from the heart of trees, let’s save them’. And, there were professional musicians, there were children, there were readings of poetry around trees and it did make an impact along with the other kinds of campaigning work we did. And, right now the plan to hack down Panagal park is stalled. Not shelved but then Chennai Metro has gone silent about it and we are keeping the pressure on so yes.
28:55
Lalitha Krishnan: Another beautifuleffort. Also, I would never have thought of musical instruments like that though we do know they’re made of wood. That’s really amazing. So, you do want to harness the powers of music and use it to propel your activism more in the future.
Yuvan Aves: We planned in fact, a concert around wetlands in 2020. But that did not come to fruition because of Covid. But hopefully, when things ease up, even more, we’ll be able to do that.
29:27
Lalitha Krishnan: You’re self-educated; you authored two books already, and you’re at the forefront of relevant conservation efforts in terms of educating and engaging. Who or what has been the biggest inspiration in your life? I’m sure there are many.
Yuvan Aves: About the self-education journey itself, I am firstly very, very grateful to my mother whose life has not been very easy but one thing which has been her priority and continues to be is my growth and well-being. And despite all the hardships she faced, she gave me a beautiful childhood in the sense that parenting often becomes about projecting one’s own identity and needs and what one wants to draw from society onto the child. My mother’s philosophy of parenting shifted that and I am very grateful for that. And that’s something I’ve learned from and practised in my work as an educator. She observed me-the child-breathlessly. She would observe with care and curiosity – “What is the energy of this child? What draws him?” And then, she would feed into that. She would go read up, she would go research and she would buy things, create the experiences and that played a very big role for me to grow as a naturalist and in different fields which are not very popular or not too many people are in. Of course, increasingly they are but not as much perhaps.
So, it started like that and I was also fortunate to go into a Krishnamurthy School. First, I was at The School, in Chennai on a very beautiful campus.
And Krishnamurthy’s philosophy was you know, no group or person or leader or spiritual organisation can lead you to the truth. You have to be a light onto yourself. He said, “truth is a pathless land”.
He spoke about the energy to find that which is true or eternal is deeply unique or driven from within each individual, irreplaceably so.
31:51
So, the school’s philosophy was—and I met some amazing people there—who were interested in wilderness and nature who came to teach there. So that was important nourishing soil. After class 10, studying there-because of different circumstances, I did not want to pursue schooling in the conventional sense. One midnight, I went to the Director of my school. I said, “See, at this point in time, I can’t be at home. I don’t think I can pursue school the way I’ve done so far. You know, I have different ideas in mind but I just wanted to reach out to you.” His name is G Gautama and he has been an inspiration throughout. Both his philosophy and his toughness and his different threads of reimagining what education should mean… He would often come and say, “See, I don’t care what I’ve taught you,” -to parents, you know-, “If these three things, children feel good about, my work as an educator is complete. One, they should not contemplate self-harm or suicide. Two is they should be able to walk on fresh paths. They should feel empowered enough to try something entirely new”. And, he had a few principles like that which I am not recalling at the moment. So that fed in a lot into my own strength and my own practices as an educator. So, I went to him just when he has started a new school near a place called Vallipuram, a 100-acre campus in the fields and farmer landscape of Chengalpet.
Lalitha Krishnan: What is it called?
33:35
Yuvan Aves: Pathashalla. And he said, “You come over here, you pursue your education by yourself and we’ll see what we can do”. We’ll see how else you can be involved. I went there for my A levels, you know, the 11th and 12th, the Cambridge syllabus…I did it all myself. So, I would read the books, add questions, call up different people I knew… perhaps teachers in the school or other people who might be able to help me. I’d say, “Hey, I want to clarify these doubts, would you have half an hour in the evening?”
And then, I registered in a different school, Headstart Learning Centre outside Chennai. So, I would go there to write my exam and go back. The academic part of my education was very, very small. While I was there, I walked dozens of lakes. I have had so many conversations with colleagues, teachers, children, farmers, the Irula community, other kinds of people from the village
I also started doing what they call, ‘subject enrichment workshops’ for govt. schools around Pathshalla which are in a rural landscape and which don’t have much funds. So, our intention was to connect the content they are learning through the state syllabus to their immediate landscape, the biodiversity they see around them. The tools they use, the lives they live. Their landscape. That also went very, very well. I started reading and writing with far more fervour during that time.
So those are some of the people, there are a lot more. For instance, if I look at my activism work, I am deeply grateful to Nityanand Jayaraman, who I consider as my mentor. Right now, he is writing for Kodaikanal and for what Unilever had done there by dumping mercury and so on. That’s shortly how I came away from the conventional path of education and found other things and other people.
35:40
Lalitha Krishnan: You know, I feel you have achieved a great deal in a very short while usually young people don’t usually get asked this but if you had to turn back the clock, would you have done anything differently? Do you have any regrets?
35:54
Yuvan Aves: The thing with regret is that you know, one goes through suffering in life. One goes through difficult times. And a lot of important learning and a lot of growing comes from that. Sometimes when you think behind superficially you want to not have that difficult period, that painful experience. I’ve had, for instance, a very physically abusive father and a stepfather. And, let’s say sometimes when I look back, I want to undo that. But a lot of the commitment, the energy to work with children and to completely rethink education and parenting and just the community children are coming from that difficult experience.
Lalitha Krishnan: All the wrongs… are you sort of putting it right?
Yuvan Aves: Wrong and right is a polar way of thinking about it but sometimes what we hold as regrets were actually triggers for growth and wisdom, and one learns that on the way. I’m glad I don’t have the opportunity to go back and do anything although one wants to. Because those are times that shifted you, which moved you inside.
37:31
Lalitha Krishnan: Alright, thank you for sharing that. Is there’s anything else you’d like to talk about or share (about your work)?
Yuvan Aves: I want to talk about something that will be out soon. It’s something our coastal team is doingfor Place-based Education. You know, if you’re living in Chennai, everything you do from your daily life to your practicalities to your weather, to your occupation is affected by the fact that you are living next to the ocean. And one of the things about a centralised syllabus is that you learn a great deal about the Ganges and the Yamuna, you know? Important parts of India but then you go and ask an average citizen in Chennai or the public, “What are the three most important rivers through Chennai?” You know, cities grow around rivers always from deep back in civilization till now. That’s something we forget. Nobody can name three big rivers. Adyar, Kosathalaiyar, Cooum. It’s not in people’s imagination. Similarly, the different coastal habitats, the winds, the currents…although they kind of affect our daily life, and knowing about it would be important, not just the place but for our own connection with it, and living our lives in touch with these aspects…it’s not there in what children learn in schools.
One thing we’ve done and I want to share the material with you as well, is a set of posters specific to the coast. What lives there. And a little field guide which people can open. Go out there on any Chennai beach, find 100 different things right from gastropods to bivalves, to crab to reptiles, and so on. When you know the names, when you know what to look for, the place comes alive.
This is something I like to say in different places as well where I speak. Barrenness is always a state of mind never a state of the land. What is barren is our eyes and our imagination. But when these aspects, something like this come into our lives, places can turn magical.
So, a little field guide for the Chennai coast. By the end of this month, we would have distributed to a100 schools in Chennai. And the hope is to kind of shift the way children experience these places. One of the things I have found as a teacher is …you know, we had the Vedanthangal (Bird Sanctuary) Campaign. That campaign was mostly a success. I’m saying mostly because it has not been cancelled completely you know? The plan is to de-notify the sanctuary for commercial interests to allow big pharma companies to expand.
I was happy that I had taken many, many batches of children to that place because when that place was in threat, we went into Covid. Schools wouldn’t function. The first module we did was Vedanthangal. And, children sparked up to it like fire. And it was perhaps the largest, most copious art campaign which has been done in Tamil Nadu. Right from 3-year-olds, 4-year-old children you know… Vedanthangal is not just nursery ground for birds, lakhs of birds but also children.
So, taking children to a place and creating connecting experiences is one of the best ways to protect that place for long term conservation because that place begins to speak to them. It becomes part of their lives; it becomes a source of emotional connection.
-Yuvan Aves
So, this emotional connection we are creating for the Chennai coast would be available for and distributed all across Chennai and people and public and so on. The hope is to evoke these places as beautiful and magical in people’s imagination.
Lalitha Krishnan: That’s great so how do you do this. Do you have sponsors who help you make this happen?
Yuvan Aves: Yes, we’ve been sponsored by the Biodiversity Collaborative to make this material, print them and distribute them.
41:47
Lalitha Krishnan: OK. I usually ask my guests to share a word or concept that’s related to conservation and holds some significance to them. Somewhere I read you’ve discovered 140 words in Tamil that are related to the landscape and are lost in translation or not translatable at all. I’d like you to share a few of these lost words if you don’t mind. I can add all 140 on my blog, Earthy Matters if you give it to me for those interested.
Yuvan Aves:
One of my other big dreams hopefully is to create an ecological dictionary-not comprehensive in any sense, but then to evoke the deep reciprocity between language and landscape especially in India.
-Yuvan Aves
There is a beautiful article that was published by the Pioneers where linguistic diversity- if you look at the world- and biodiversity overlap.
The biodiversity hotspots are also the most linguistically and culturally diverse. I wrote an essay about this with specific reference to India and some of the work I have been trying to do; collecting from different parts, different states. It’s called ‘Speaking Rivers, Speaking Rain’. It was shared widely at the time it was written.
43:20
If you look at, for instance, one very fascinating example in Tamil Nadu, it’s the word, ‘purumboke’. It’s a word that refers to landscapes which are used commonly. Wetlands. Grasslands. Scrublands. These are places which nobody owns but everybody needs. And, they have very important ecological functions. They’re not allowed to be economised directly or they cannot be. You cannot go to a salt marsh and grow paddy. A salt marsh buffers the ocean’s rage. It protects your hydrology; it is a breeding ground for scrimp and fish and crabs. So, you know, sometimes in the minds of local people ‘commons’ also means a cross-species commons. ‘purumboke’ has the potential of embodying that philosophy. But during the colonial times, that word was shifted into meaning ‘wasteland’ because you could not go and grow things there. You could not have your plantations there. You cannot go and grow casuarina in the middle of the lake for instance. So, this (word) was twisted into meaning land which had no use. So now, it’s a bad word… you know, as a vulgar word you call somebody who is of no use as it were. So, one of the things we are trying to do in Tamil Nadu is shifting the word ‘purumboke’ back into meaning something beautiful. That’s an important story with respect to land words.
You look at water bodies; the number of words for water bodies. For instance, the word ‘eri’ means a specific waterbody that is sheltered on three sides and is a catchment area on the fourth side which is either facing another larger waterbody or is facing a river basin. Eri also means there is a system of flow and overflow of these eris; because if you look at Kanchipuram. After all the real estate, after all the building over wetlands, there still exists 2000 eris today. You look at the hydrological map in the National Wetland Action Plan of Kanchipuram and Chengalpet, you know, two coastal districts in Tamil Nadu, it’s blue. It’s a watery landscape and people understood that the only way to live here was to leave space for water to flow and create space for it to be and recharge. So, the word ‘eri’; I can’t translate it. I call it a lake but I can’t speak of it in English.
46:01
Similarly, ‘poigai’. You know, we spoke about poigai nallur.Similarly, ‘kundu’, “kundam… There is another word called ‘Aazhikkinaru’ which are special sites next to the coasts, very near the sea which for some reason give fresh water. Perhaps, they occur in other states too and these are some I visited. If you go to, for instance, Thiruchendur, a coastal temple, there is an aazhikkinaru there, where there’s an aquifer in the ground, right next to the sea which is giving pure freshwater.
And the beauty of these words is that they evoke land through poetry, through ecological function, through the mystery of each landscape
-Yuvan Aves
…and I have been able to collect this from different states as well.
46:51
For instance, you go to Dibang valley. They have words called ‘Khinu’. Khinu means spirit.There is ‘Golo’, there is ‘Khe-pa’there are different kinds of spirits of the forest. Spirit of the large tree, spirit of the hills, spirt of the landslide, of the house fire…
In the Mishmi perception of the world, everything is alive. Everything is embodied with spirit and agency, and voice. You go to Sikkim, all the words they have…you know, ‘Lepcha’. It started with my interaction with Mayalmit Lepcha who is protesting against the Testa dam. Teesta for them is an important river because their genesis story starts in the Teesta. The first man and woman were created by ‘The Great Mother, ‘Itbumu’ on the Khangchendzonga. When people die, they believe that their spirit travels along the Teesta and reaches Khangchendzonga again. Their sacrality, their spirituality is geographical you know? That’s the beautify of it. All their words—perhaps, I can share that essay with you is river-rhyme. T
“To be curved like a river”
“To be turbulent like a river” which refers to your mood and so on.
Lalitha Krishnan: That’s so beautiful…so lovely. Thank you so much.
Yuvan Aves: Thank you Lalitha
48:26
Lalitha Krishnan: I hope you enjoyed listening to Yvan Aves thought as much as I did. Do check out some links (below) on this blog, Earthy Matters. You can listen to Heart of Conservation on many platforms. You can also write to me at earthymatters013@gmail.com I’m Lalitha Krishnan signing off, till next time stay safe. Do subscribe for more episodes.
Birdsong by hillside resident, the collared owlet.
Disclaimer: Views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in the podcast and show notes belong solely to the guest featured in the episode, and not necessarily to the host of this podcast/blog or the guest’s employer, organization, committee or other group or individual.
Links to Yuvan’s writings and educational material etc.
A conversation with the Assistant Curator of the Madras Crocodile Bank Trust (MCBT)
Heart of Conservation podcast Ep#23 Show Notes (Edited)
Scroll for show notes. Cover photo courtesy @zoologistambika All photos courtesy: Ambika Yelahanka
I am speaking to Ambika Yelahanka whose has a very enviable job involving lots of animals. Ambika’s has a Masters in Zoo Conservation and a specialization in feline behaviour and reptilian husbandry. She’s the Assistant curator at Madras Crocodile Bank Trust in Chennai. Find out what a day at the Madras Crocodile Bank Trust as Assistant Curator looks like. Ambika explains why enrichment is as important for reptiles as it is for carnivores and other animals. She also tells us why zoos play an important role in conservations and explains in detail about captive breeding. She also regales us with her experiences in the game parks of Africa and has interesting info about volunteering at the MCBT (Chennai) and sound advice for future zoologists.
Lalitha Krishnan: Hi there, Thanks for listening in to ep #23 of Heart of Conservation. This is season three and I’m Lalitha Krishnan bringing you more stories from the wild that keep us connected with the natural world. I am speaking to Ambika Yelahanka whose has a very enviable job involving lots of animals. Ambika has a Masters in Zoo Conservation and specialization in feline behaviour and reptilian husbandry. She the Assistant curator at Madras Crocodile Bank Trust in Chennai. Without wasting more time let’s listen to her amazing story.
Lalitha Krishnan: Ambika, thank you so much for joining me on Heart of Conservation. It’s really nice of you.
Ambika Yelankha: Thank you for having me.
Lalitha Krishnan: So, Ambika tell us why zoo conservation? What inspired you?
Ambika Yelankha: Basically, my inspiration came from my family. My family is not directly involved with conservation but I haven’t ever been alone in the house in a way because my mom and dad have rescued over 200 cats and about 100 dogs. So, from the time I can remember, there have been at least about10 animals in the house along with the humans. So when I selected zoology it was not a big shock to my parents because they knew it was going to be something similar to what I’ve grown up around. That’s why I got into zoo conservation as well. I did do internships in field research and captivity and I fell in love with doing captive work. Field research is great but I didn’t think that was for me so I did my Masters in Zoo Conservation got into zoos and working here.
Lalitha Krishnan: Such a lovely childhood!
Ambika Yelankha: Yes.
Lalitha Krishnan: What is a typical day at the Madras Crocodile Bank Trust [MCBT] look like as the assistant curator?
Ambika Yelankha: As the Assistant Curator, my day usually starts off with a general check-up round so I go around and take a look at all the animals with the help of keepers. So, keepers will report to me or the curator depending on if there is anything to report or if everything is normal. Since these animals are nocturnal- most of the reptiles that we have here are nocturnal- there is a lot of activity at the night and we tend to miss out on most of it because we are not active at night. So, we do a general check-up in the morning to see if everybody is okay. If there’s any leftover food, any faeces that need to be removed from enclosures… Kind of decide what enclosures need to be cleaned for that day. That’s basically my morning. It takes about an hour to go around and check up on all the animals especially the babies to see they’re okay. After that, we tend to get into food preparation. So, with the help of keepers, we will prepare food for the herbivores that we have. For carnivores it’s pretty much basic food…so the meat comes frozen. All we have to do is thaw it and serve the food. Whereas for the herbivores it needs a little bit of preparation, a little bit of chopping for appropriately sized animals. After the food has been distributed, I do have some paperwork so I get some two hours of paperwork done. Then, if any medical treatments are required, I also assist the veterinarian with any medicals treatments that are required to be done that day. So currently we have an animal recovering from surgery so we have him on an alert watch so we check up on him every hour. If we have any special needs animals as such that will take up part of the day as well.
Lalitha Krishnan: So, you have a full day really. There’s a saying (actually a quote) that if you pet a dog, you have a full-time job or something like that but you have a zoo full of animals and keepers. When you speak of keepers and their wards, how many are you talking about?
Ambika Yelankha: We have about 50 people working as a team here. And all of them are separated into different designations. We have the Curatorial team, the Education team, the Veterinarian team and then Management. Our combined total is 50 but people are divided into four sections mostly.
Lalitha Krishnan: OK. I saw a post where you were proving engaging activity for a reptile. It almost looked like play but of course, it was sort of an enrichment activity. How important is this for captive animals?
Ambika Yelankha: As many people know and it’s one of the reasons why zoos get a lot of negative comments is because you tend to have wild animals that tend to have usually a lot of mental stimulation as well as physical stimulation in the wild. And, when you house them in smaller enclosures -especially in zoos- you need to sort of providing that sort of mental stimulation especially. Otherwise, like all humans, if you’re not active then you tend to deteriorate in your mental health. So that is something that is not been studied a lot in reptiles but is very common for mammals. Zoos actually provide enrichment ideas, especially for cats. You have your ‘carcass feeding’ or a big ball to play with… There’s a lot of enrichment for mammals but people tend to usually ignore reptiles when it comes to this because they are generally seen as lazy but they seem lazy because they need to conserve their energy. They don’t have that much energy as mammals do expend. That does not mean that they do not require mental stimulation and physical stimulation, especially in captivity. So a saltwater crocodiles that can swim from one continent to another continent needs exercise especially when it’s in captivity. Otherwise weight gain becomes a problem. To stop animals from displaying stereotypical behaviour, to stop the decline in mental health, enrichment is provided.
I am now training with an alligator, ‘Ally’. She is the only alligator bred in India, in captivity. So, I do enrichment activities with her and some of our juvenile gharials and also with our commodore dragons. So, depending on the species, the enrichment activities will change. Most of them will include a positive reinforcing stimulus such as food. So, any behaviour I want them to display will be rewarded with food. But if they display negative behaviour there will not be a punishment as such. She is open to display any sort of behaviour she wants but if she wants food, she will kind of do what I ask her to do.
When I’m talking about enrichment in captivity, especially in zoos, the enrichment is trying to get them to how they would naturally. So that is what separates this from circuses because a circus will make them do human-like tricks, jumping through the hoops and things like that. That is not what we are aiming to do. We just want her to swim really fast. Or jump up to get her food which are things that these animals do in the wild. And we just want her to display those same wild behaviour just in captivity. So there is not unnatural behaviour that will be encouraged.
Lalitha Krishnan: I like the way you differentiated what they do in a circus. You know it is exactly this photograph you had put up on Instagram that made your work so interesting to me. I’m so glad (I saw it). You’ve explained enrichment in much detail. So, one of the most important questions for you and for people who have negative views about zoos, is why are places like the MCBT and zoos important for conservation?
Ambika Yelankha: As manypeople already know MCBT as such has contributed to reptile conservation the most in India. Rom and Zia Whitaker started this facility because the crocodilian population especially the marsh crocodile and the gharial had declined so much, they were about to be critically endangered. Therefore, they started this breeding facility where most of the mugger crocodiles that were bred here were reintroduced in the wild. And that is how we still have a large population of mugger crocodiles in India right now. So, zoos as such, especially those focused on conservation breeding-especially for critically endangered animals- is very essential because one of the most popular stories are currently with critically endangered species is with the right rhino. Where the only last male passed away and the species has been declared functionally extinct. But there are two females in captivity which people are hoping to breed and bring back the species. So, for animals that have been hunted to that extent, bringing them back would only be from a captive place as such. So, zoos play a very important role in conservation breeding. Apart from that, zoos play a very important role in conservation education. I think, pretty much everybody saw wild animals for the first time in a zoo. As a kid, the parents would have taken them to a zoo and that’s where they see a wild animal and you get to learn about an animal that you didn’t even think existed in this world. I think it sort of builds a sort of curiosity.
We have a great education programme at MCBT as well as explaining why reptiles are important. Why you shouldn’t have an irrational fear of them. Irrational fear of snakes is generational. It’s passed on by grandparents, parents and things like that. So, if they visit the zoo and we help kind of eradicate that fear, maybe that person will not kill a snake if it enters his house next time. So, we’re hoping that education plays a big role in kind of eliminating fears especially of reptiles and kind of builds that curiosity…okay, maybe they want to join conservation. Because more people in conservation, the better.
Lalitha Krishnan: I think education and awareness makes a big difference. Tell me if I’m wrong but is it more likely that a younger child or a younger person is more likely to be influenced by you than say, an adult who has lived his life in fear?
Ambika Yelankha: Definitely.
Lalitha Krishnan: The last I visited a zoo was in Nanital aeons ago and to tell you the truth I had never seen healthier animals in any other zoo. They also had the opportunity for the public to sponsor animals which was pretty unique back in the day. I believe the MCBT also does that. But are people as receptive to sponsoring reptiles?
Ambika Yelankha: I think, with MCBT especially there are a lot of sponsors and a lot of people adopting the animals. Because the curiosity for snakes and crocodiles has exponentially grown over the years. And the outreach programmes done by MCBT has really made a big impact. My coworkers travel around the country and visit schools and hospitals to try to bring these species to light. And, they talk about why conserving them and why respecting their boundaries is also very important. So, I think these outreach programmes have played a very big role as well as social media. We have a big following on social media and a big following for our founders as well since they have done great conservation work for the country. They have a, I would say a fan following, very loyal people. So, the adoption scheme is going quite good especially the sponsorships. There are a lot of people who want to adopt crocodiles.
Lalitha Krishnan: So, are these people from India or abroad mostly?
Ambika Yelankha: Most of our adopters are Indian. We do have a couple of people from abroad. We have a lot of parents adopting for their children’s birthdays. Birthday gifts…
Lalitha Krishnan: How nice. Very cool. They’re changing the whole mindset.
Lalitha Krishnan: So, when you’re speaking of outreach and schools, what kind of schools do you go to? Are they private or govt? Or do you cover the whole spectrum?
Ambika Yelankha: I think the entire spectrum is covered. We started with govt. schools especially around Chennai because we are situated in Chennai. It was first initiated in all the govt. schools in and around Chennai and the radius slowly expanded from there. Now we have sister organisations that have taken up/are doing it in different states as well. So we have a bunch of organisations that collaborate with us and do it in the state that they’re present in as in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. It started with govt. schools but we started advertising it more on our social media and that got the attention of public schools and private schools as well. We’re now in collaboration with companies that will sponsor our travels and things like that and are going to schools all around the country right now, including the North East especially. Now we’re concentrating on schools and hospitals in the northeast and are hoping that it’ll be fruitful.
Lalitha Krishnan: So, if some school were to approach you directly you would make a presentation to them too?
Ambika Yelankha: Yes, definitely. Before the pandemic, we used to go to the schools. Any school that calls us, we will happily go and give them a presentation. So for multiple classes, I think my colleagues went every day for two weeks to give talks in multiple classrooms. Snakes, especially are a big fascination. King Cobra always brings out a lot of screams from the children.
Lalitha Krishnan: But, I bet it’s better than sitting behind a desk and looking at a textbook. That’s cool. So many renowned animal centres around the world like MCBT have breeding programmes that are bringing wildlife back from the brink of extinction like the Arabian Oryx, the California condor or the Amur Leopard. I know MCBT also has great success when it comes to captive breeding. Could you elaborate on that?
Ambika Yelankha: Yes, MCBT started with the goal of captive breeding and reintroduction. That was the main reason why the entire park was built in the first place. The first main species that was concentrated on was the Indian population of crocodiles. India has three species of crocodiles which is the marsh crocodile, the gharial and the saltwater crocodile. So, the main aim was to bring all three back to sustainable population because the Wild Life Act was published, crocodiles were almost hunted to extinction for their meat and their hide. So, after the Wild Life Act was published, hunting them was banned. It was still a big struggle because the population was so fragmented that without the captive breeding programme it would very difficult to bring them back to a sustainable population. Rom and Zai Whitaker started this park where animals and eggs that were collected in the wild- to ensure a 100% hatch rate- collected eggs from the wild and also a couple of animals from the wild. All this with permission from the forest dept., with permission from the state govt. and the central govt. and they were bred here, especially the marsh crocodiles. Once they reached a size and an age where the crocodiles could fend for themselves, they were reintroduced into pre-selected sights. So researchers from MCBT went to these wild sites and you know, did the research and saw what would be the best sites for reintroduction throughout India. These particular sites were selected and marsh crocodiles were transported from here to those sites and reintroduced. Now we have a thriving population of marsh crocodiles in India.
Lalitha Krishnan: It’s a huge project. Getting so many permissions to start with and to ensure that these marsh crocodiles adapt and survive in so many different parts of India is quite amazing.
Ambika Yelankha: Because the work doesn’t stop after you reintroduce the animals. You have to constantly monitor the reintroduced animals to see how they are doing. Because once you have reintroduced them and they are not doing great and reducing again then your site was not great then you have to change sites again. It’s a lot of work that continues after your animals have left the facility as well.
Lalitha Krishnan: Right. So, you’re still looking after them for a long time. Being a zoologist can have its perks apart from the obvious one of working with animals. You seem to have travelled/worked in many countries. Tell us about your experiences. I‘m sure the young people who are listening and want to be zoologists will be even more inspired.
Ambika Yelankha: Yes, I ‘ve had the privilege of working in a couple of places around the world. That was mostly during my Master’s degree. During my Bachelor’s degree, most of my internships and volunteering were within India. I did my Master in Zoo Conservation from Manchester Metropolitan University. Through the university…they provided a lot of opportunities, especially since I was doing Zoo Conservation… they had a collaboration with Chester Zoo which is in the UK. I got to do a six-month internship with Chester zoo. So, basically, while most college students go to their classrooms, my classroom was the zoo. So for six months, I had to take my class in the zoo. I had a lot of hands on experience. I got to do my Masters thesis as well at the zoo with some incredible researchers, incredible scientists. People who have been involved with zoos for over 40 years. I got to learn a lot of things.
Along with that, we did have the opportunity to go do a field project as well for which we were taken to Tanzania in Africa. We went to over eight national parks kind of doing research projects. I selected the grassland density of butterflies. I got to walk around the savannah with armed guards because hyenas were lurking right behind the bushes where I had to collect data. It was an experience that I shall never forget.
Lalitha Krishnan:I can imagine. I’m sure you have some particularly memorable moments which are part of these experiences at the zoo and the savannah.
Ambika Yelankha: When we were in Tanzania we were camping…so, the campgrounds are in the middle of the savannah. So, basically, you’re living inside the protected area. They warn you saying, the animals have become quite comfortable with visitors and do not shy away from entering campsites even if there are people there. So we were always told to be on the lookout. When we were in the Serengeti and we were camping out in the night, a bunch of us girls went to use the washroom and we opened the door and there were three hyenas right inside the washroom. We screamed and the hyenas kind of -I don’t know what the sound was-but I would say, they sort of screamed. They ran in one direction and we ran in another direction. It was almost comical.
Lalitha Krishnan: But scary at the same time. For both animals and humans. Lovely. So, you know, do you take volunteers and what sort of work can someone who wants to volunteer expect to do?
Ambika Yelankha: MCBT has a great volunteering programme as well as internship programmes. Currently, due to the pandemic, we are not taking any volunteers at moment but we will soon be opening programmes for people. And, anybody from any background can apply for this. It doesn’t have to necessarily have to be a zoology background. You can be from any background if you want to come and work with animals just for a week. That’s also OK. You get to be part of all of our four sections other than the management section. If you’re interested in the curatorial aspect you get to follow our keepers around, kind of observe what they do. And they’ll teach you the ropes of taking care of the animals. If you are more of a people person, then you can always tail our education officers who’ll teach you how zoo education works. How it is talking about animals. There are a lot of myths and false beliefs about animals and how you need to tackle those things. So you can do that. We also have some veterinary students that want to come and volunteer. They get to work with our doctor here and learn how reptile medication works.
Lalitha Krishnan: OK. You said you can be from any background. What about an age limit? Do you have an age limit?
Ambika Yelankha: As long as you’re 18 and above, there’s no upper limit for the age.
Lalitha Krishnan: You might just find me at your doorstep one of these days. So, I usually ask my guests to share a word or a term or concept something significant for them. Would you like to share something?
Ambika Yelankha: I may have just about have a few words (of advice) for people who want to get into conservation and study wildlife. I would say if you have the opportunity and you have the financial aid, please go ahead and spend that to further your education. Otherwise please look into getting internships and volunteering programmes rather than taking out loans. Don’t get into debt to try and get into this field. Because this field will not help you pay your debt back.
Lalitha Krishnan: That’s if you study abroad right? Can’t you study here in India?
Ambika Yelankha: Yes, you can study it here. It’s quite cheap as well. There’s the Wildlife Institute of India, there’s NCBS and ….. There’s ATREE and a lot of other institutions that offer you programmes to further your education while they get you internships and volunteering opportunities. If that is the case, yes.
Lalitha Krishnan: That’s good advice. Thank you so much. OK Bye.
Check out the useful links provided above by Ambika Yelanka. I hope you enjoyed Episode 23, stay tuned. I’m Lalitha Krishna and you’re listening to Heart of Conservation. You can read all show notes right here on my blog Earthy Matters. If you know someone whose story should be shared do write to me at earthymatters013@gmail.com. Heart of Conservation podcast is available on several platforms so do check it out. Till then stay safe and keep listening.
Birdsong by hillside resident, the collared owlet.
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