On a bright sunny evening, while I was relaxing on one of Goa’s many beaches, the sight of a white-bellied sea eagle through my binoculars made me feel good. However, something was troubling me.
Dogs! Not just any dogs but those annoying little ones who hang around everywhere in India – at beaches, famous monuments, beautiful parks, and tourist spots. In fact, there are some 62 million stray dogs, menacing the country, and this terrified me! But I also wondered whether these strays were unknown strangers or friendly but abandoned companions.
While I pondered, a pack of barking dogs were drooling at the sight of yummy snacks served by the local shack at the seashore. This took me back to the time when I used to have nightmares—spooky dreams where stray dogs chased me down a rocky cliff.
An ever-present problem
It has been four years and my fear of stray dogs still remains. The other day at my coaching class, I worried about a whole pack of strays I could see scavenging on the cricket pitch. At least I was able to laugh when a friend made a joke about them being fielders.
However, the situation with stray dogs isn’t very funny. Dozens make a home in the garbage-filled streets of Bengaluru, India. I have often seen people buying exotic breeds of dogs like labradors and chihuahuas who might provide immense joy. Unfortunately, stray dogs, unlike these pets, struggle for a single drop of water to drink.
This reminded me of the book Gopi’s Day Out by Sudha Murty. Gopi, a dog adopted by a kind and loving family, was lost one day. As he wanders through the streets, he notices the true life of stray dogs. On the way, he befriends a bone-thin dog who struggles to find morsels of food every day. Together, they journey out into the world of strays. Similarly, Woof by Aparna Karthikeyan is a real-life story about a stray dog named Shingmo and her daily life while growing up at the beach.
I truly feel that stories like these reflect and remind us about how much pain stray dogs feel. I have seen too many aggressive packs of starving dogs or news articles about car accidents where dogs have been killed. Although I once thought of them as troublesome creatures, I feel sad and pitiful seeing them struggle now.
Life-changing project
My perspective about stray dogs changed while working on a school project titled ‘Caring for stray dogs’.My friends and I researched about the problems caused by stray dogs globally, the reasons for their increasing population and the different initiatives we can take to raise awareness about them. As we completed our project, we found that humans abandon their pets for many reasons. These include financial constraints, lack of awareness, evacuation difficulties during natural disasters, health issues, and inadequate time to care for pets.
During our research we learnt about a disease called rabies that is caused by unvaccinated stray dog bites. We discovered that 97 percent of all rabies cases in India involved stray dogs (the others were related to stray cats and wild animals such as jackals and mongooses).
As part of the project, I surveyed my classmates from Grade 4 and recorded a total of 19 responses. The data revealed that 26.3 percent of the students took care or fed stray dogs very often. Also, 52.6 percent of the participants were not aware of organisations that care for stray dogs. This project and especially our survey results made me reflect on what practical steps I could take to address the stray dog problem.
Charlie Animal Rescue Centre (CARE) provides one solution. I visited CARE to interview a manager and meet a few rescued dogs—Mowgli, Captain and Skye, who melted my heart. The motive behind the organisation came from ‘Charlie’ who was a three-legged Indian dog who excelled in the field of canine therapy. This organisation vaccinates and uses sterilisers to prevent diseases like rabies. They provide varied services such as adoption, ambulance rescue, and trauma care for street animals.
Moving forward
My mindset about stray dogs has now gradually changed. I am no longer covered in goosebumps whenever I catch sight of them. Instead, I am confident when I encounter any stray because I see them as abandoned animals that have no home. I hope that sharing my journey helps others think twice about stray dogs, raises awareness about rabies through organisations like CARE, and the different actions we can take to help these animals. I urge people to care for animals like they would for themselves. Let us all take an oath to do our best in protecting stray dogs.
Kitten catastrophe
In the society where I live, a striped yellow cat gave birth to a dozen cute little kittens. As they grew up a bunch of girls kept feeding them milk and other cat treats. They never knew what dangers they were risking. They could have gotten scratched or bitten by the kittens, which could result in the transmission of rabies. The mother cat also looked pretty overfed to me. This happened for quite a while. The mischievous kittens kept venturing out in the neighbourhood and soon everyone had a kitten trailing behind them.
One sunny morning a naughty little kitten accidentally got stuck inside the engine of a car. When I heard this, I felt terrified. Finally, after a lot of time and effort spent rescuing it, the kitten was safe and sound. The lesson I learnt is that it helps to have a little awareness about the animal and its needs before we start taking care of it.
Further Reading
Karthikeyan, A. 2023. Woof! Adventures by the sea. Chennai: Red Panda, an imprint of Westland Publications.
One day, I was going on a trip in a car. While travelling, I saw a lion-tailed macaque sitting on the roadside, eating some nuts. I admired his silver-white beard and went near the monkey. He stared at me and quickly ran into the forest. I followed the monkey’s trail, and after some time, I found him rolling on the ground.
“What happened to you?” I asked.
“I have a stomach ache,” replied the monkey in pain.
I quickly checked and found a piece of Lay’s chips packet.
“Did you eat this?” I asked the monkey.
“A boy like you came in a car and threw this. It looked colorful and I have never tasted anything like that,” he replied.
“Nooo… It’s plastic! It’s harmful to you! You should not eat that.”
“Oh! I didn’t know that. I saw a friend of mine eating this the other day. Now, I understand why he was also rolling in pain.”
“It’s poison. A mistaken feast. Go and tell your family and friends, and I will also tell my friends and family not to throw plastic on the road. They should put it in dustbins or not use plastic at all!”
We should not pollute the world with plastic. Only then will the world be a better place to live for everyone.
Feature image: Mustard fields and human settlements in the Mrigakunja buffer zone of Chitwan National Park
Globally, wildlife is becoming increasingly habituated to human-dominated landscapes. But what about the humans living in these shared habitats? Do they have preferences that could enhance their ability to cope with dangerous wildlife in their backyards?
In the buffer zone of Nepal’s oldest national park, families wake up every morning not knowing if elephants have trampled their crops overnight or if a leopard has killed their livestock. Despite bearing the costs of living alongside large, charismatic animals, these communities show a remarkable willingness to embrace change, if current coexistence strategies match their actual needs and preferences.
Chitwan National Park is home to the world’s second-largest population of greater one-horned rhinoceros. It also harbours globally threatened terrestrial and aquatic wildlife that includes tigers, elephants, gharials, and Ganges river dolphins. Most of Chitwan’s human residents are farmers who primarily grow subsistence crops and rear livestock. Species such as elephants and rhinoceros are attracted to these crops, while tigers and leopards prey on livestock—with both causing direct economic losses that affect farmers’ wellbeing.
The park’s buffer zone is divided into four administrative sectors: Kasara, Sauraha, Madi, and Amaltari. Although local and international tourists flock to Chitwan to see iconic wildlife, tourism income has been concentrated in Sauraha, leaving communities in the other sectors with restricted economic opportunities to diversify their income sources.
Through collaborative efforts between the park, local communities, and the Nepalese army, wildlife populations are making a remarkable comeback. So Chitwan represents both a conservation success story and a human-wildlife conflict hotspot. The buffer zone, which was created in 1996 to make forest products available to local communities and provide additional wildlife habitat, has experienced increased conflict. Enhancing the communities’ capacity to coexist with wildlife could benefit both groups in the long term.
Listening to local voices
In our study, we presented residents living across all sectors of the buffer zone with different scenarios and asked them to choose between various strategies designed to enhance their ability to coexist with wildlife. Communities overwhelmingly favoured grassroots-level awareness programmes, reflecting their desire to learn about wildlife behaviour and acquire skills to mitigate conflicts. They also preferred sustainable economic opportunities, demonstrating that additional income to compensate wildlife-related losses is paramount to sustaining their livelihoods.
Household surveys were carried out across all four sectors in the buffer zone of Chitwan National Park.
More importantly, they chose to combine traditional knowledge with scientific approaches rather than abandon ancestral wisdom for modern technology. Chitwan is home to numerous Indigenous communities such as Tharu, Bote, Darai, and Majhi peoples, who inhabited the area before the park’s establishment. Combining their local ecological knowledge with modern scientific approaches could significantly enhance adaptability. Additionally, these communities favoured rapid response teams, trained to deal with incidents of human-wildlife conflict. This would be valuable across all four sectors, which experience high rates of conflict.
Beyond one-size-fits-all
Our research revealed noteworthy differences in preferred coexistence strategies between social groups. Indigenous communities had substantially stronger preferences compared to other residents, reflecting their urgent need for more equitable coexistence strategies. Similarly, more educated respondents strongly preferred change, suggesting their desire for co-adaption.
Our research highlights that coexistence strategies cannot follow a one-size-fits-all approach, but must be context-specific and adapted to address diverse community needs. This will generate co-benefits for different communities sharing space and resources with wildlife.
As shared landscapes expand globally, understanding and implementing community preferences that are culturally relevant becomes essential. The residents of Chitwan’s buffer zone demonstrate that successful coexistence requires more than managing conflict, it demands building local adaptive capacity for people and wildlife to thrive together in shared spaces.
Further Reading:
Ferdin, A.E.J., A. Pathak., M. Kamaludin., B. R. Lamichhane., S. K Shah., U. C. Aryal and N. Baskaran. 2025. Understanding residents’ preferences for adaptive capacity in human-wildlife coexistence: a case study from Nepal’s biodiversity hotspot. European Journal of Wildlife Research 71: 91. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10344-025-01963-y. (The open access version of the paper can be accessed here: https://rdcu.be/ezNLQ)
What do we visualise when we think of cities? Noisy, dusty spaces made up of concrete and glass, where life moves at a breakneck pace? And what do we imagine when we think of nature-filled spaces? A trek to the mountains, or a trip to a wildlife sanctuary?
Yet, our cities are teeming with a quiet, industrious world of nature that we often overlook. Ask any urban biologist, and they will show you the thriving ecosystem that persists in the cracks of pavements to the canopies of roadside trees.
What we need is the curiosity to gaze, and the compassion to understand.
The Living Museum, an illustrated guide to urban biodiversity in India, breaks the myth that our city is barren and devoid of nature. Created by the collective Café Oikos (Anisha Jayadevan, Ishika Ramakrishna, Jahnavi Rajan, Shishir Rao, and Manini Bansal) and brought to life through the vibrant illustrations of Studio Babakiki (Fahad Faizal and Sunaina Coelho), the book acts as a guide to the living natural world that surrounds us.
Nature in our backyards
The leader of this journey into urban wilderness is an unlikely curator: a jumping spider. While we often overlook it as a nuisance, this ‘hairy hunter’ is a bridge between the domestic realms of our homes and the complex ecosystems that lie right beside it. The choice of protagonist builds on the central theme of the book: conservation is not limited to the megafauna of larger ecosystems, but begins with the architects of smaller ones in our own homes.
Like a traditional museum, the book takes the reader into ‘halls’. However, these galleries are anything but static; they are diverse and dynamic, ranging from indoor spaces to gardens to roadsides. Leafing through the pages, the reader is transformed from passive resident to active observer—exactly as the book intends.
One of the book’s greatest strengths lies in its ability to translate complex biological behaviours into engaging stories. Readers are drawn to the high-stakes survival mechanisms of their not-so-familiar neighbours.
We learn about the masterful deceptions of the common Mormon butterfly, which drapes distasteful costumes to ward off predators. And the toxic chemical warfare of the plain tiger caterpillar, which utilises the giant milkweed as a biological shield.
The authors also give us a peek into the avian world. We learn about the spectacular breeding displays of black kites and the seasonal transformations of cattle egrets, which sport orange feathers to signal their readiness for a mate.
The book reminds us that our cities are part of the natural world, not separate from it. It gives us ways we can aid the adaptation of species we coexist with in urban spaces.
Beyond aesthetics
While The Living Museum is undeniably beautiful, it does not shy away from the harder science of urban ecology. The aesthetics of a tree-lined street is also backed by functional value. As research by ATREE shows, tree canopies create a temperature difference of up to 5°C compared to bare stretches of the same street, while also acting as sinks for airborne pollution.
The book subtly weaves these nuggets of knowledge into its pages. It reminds us that urban biodiversity is not just a luxury, but a life-support system. It also addresses the internal clocks of city-dwelling species, and how climate change is beginning to destabilise the delicate seasonal cycles of flowering and fruiting.
Art for conservation
The pages of The Living Museum are brought to life with vivid imagery. The illustrations by Fahad Faizal and Sunaina Coelho are sweeping and exuberant. The colourful artwork complements the prose in capturing movement and the flurry of activity.
In a world full of digital fatigue, the tactile and visual appeal of the book serves as an entry point to citizen science. The visual vignettes feed our curiosity, offering ways to connect with our surroundings through sight, sound, smell, and touch. From the sound of a bird call to the smell of a rain-soaked garden and the texture of bark, each element is a conduit of experiential learning that goes beyond facts and lays bare a world of urban ecology and citizen science.
In doing so, the book addresses the ‘extinction of experience’—the loss of direct contact with nature among urban dwellers.
Call to action
Ultimately, The Living Museum moves beyond observation toward agency. It poses a question: How can we, as citizens, contribute to the conservation of this living system?
As co-author Anisha Jayadevan suggests, the first step is simply fostering curiosity. By asking where a bird builds its nest or which month a tree fruits, we begin to draw patterns. These patterns become the foundation of citizen science, enabling ordinary residents to contribute to the data needed to protect urban ecosystems.
The book ends with a ray of inspiration and hope for urban communities to come together to conserve the rich biodiversity of these living ecosystems that surround us.
mon père est né là où la rivière se courbe comme un bras fatigué après avoir porté notre royaume toute la journée. ma grand-mère lavait les feuilles de bananier dans ses mains murmurantes, et les choux, et la canne à sucre, et tout ce que nous baignions dans le courant, pour ne pas marcher jusqu’à l’autre rivière avant que le feu de cuisine ne puisse respirer. ma mère est aussi née là où la rivière se courbe comme un bras fatigué après avoir porté notre royaume sous la chaleur du jour. mon oncle lavait les arachides dans ses courants agités chaque fois que nous devions les cuire sur place, quand la faim nous surprenait en pleine récolte, les mains plongées dans la générosité du sol. je coupais l’eau dans mes mains, trop paresseuse pour aller chercher les verres en aluminium dans le sac en raphia. boire à mes paumes était meilleur ; le courant glissant sur mes lèvres comme une douce discussion entre nous. dans ce courant, nous étions liés, deux forces se rencontrant et se reconnaissant. mes cousins apprenaient à nager avant d’apprendre à écrire ; et quand nous pleurions enfants, la rivière répondait toujours la première. en 2050, les gens appellent cet endroit un « puits de carbone », un « stabilisateur global », un « écosystème stratégique ». mais pour moi, c’est simplement la maison ; pleine de rires qui sentent le mbounga , de tambours qui s’élèvent de l’obscurité comme des lucioles chaudes, d’arbres plus hauts que tous les mensonges dits sur nous. le monde compte son carbone ; nous comptons nos bénédictions. et bien que les cartes ne le disent plus, nous appartenons toujours à cet endroit.
Feature image: Underwater Ocean corridor. Photo credit: Damocean via iStock
The work of economists Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson has never been more relevant. In their landmark book The Narrow Corridor (2019), they argue that social progress is possible only within a delicate, contested space where the power of the state and the power of society are held in a productive balance.
Criticisms aside, the metaphor is potent. On one side of this corridor lies the “Absent Leviathan”: a state too weak to provide basic services or enforce rules. On the other lies the “Despotic Leviathan”: a state so powerful it crushes society and serves only a narrow elite. Liberty, progress, and prosperity, they contend, exist only in the middle, where an organised society can hold the state accountable, creating what they call a “Shackled Leviathan”—one that is strong and able to fulfill critical functions, but bound to serve the common good.
For those of us in marine resource governance, this framework is a powerful diagnostic tool. The reason is simple: many of the world’s fisheries are managed by institutions that fall far outside this corridor.
In practice, fisheries management institutions often embody the Absent Leviathan: chronically under-resourced agencies unable to perform fundamental governance functions such as science, regulatory development, or enforcement. In many other cases, these institutions operate as arms of the Despotic Leviathan—captured by powerful elites who impose extractive economic regimes benefitting a narrow minority at the expense of the resource. The root of both failures is the same: the absence of a strong, capable state that is simultaneously held in check by a strong, mobilised society.
But can this grand theory of political economy help us both understand and design concrete advances towards more sustainable and equitable oceans? Two recent reforms in South America suggest the answer is yes.
Graphic representing the two case studies reported within the Narrow Corridor framing (Source: Acemoglu and Robinson, 2019)
How Chilean fishers reclaimed their rights
The story of Chile’s Fisheries Fractioning Law (2025) is a textbook case of society mobilising to correct a captured state. The conflict was institutionalised in 2013 with the Longueira Law, a regulation born from a crisis of legitimacy. Proven cases of corruption led to unfair allocation of rights: nearly 78 percent of the nation’s fisheries wealth were handed to the industrial fishing sector. For more than a decade, Chile shouldered this injustice: a Despotic Leviathan where the state’s power was wielded to serve a narrow elite, leaving the artisanal sector fragmented and marginalised.
The turning point required decisive action from the state, but this could only happen with strong societal backing. In a pivotal 2024 meeting (for an inside perspective, check Martínez, 2025), artisanal leaders diagnosed the root of their political weakness: their own disunity. From this insight, the National Alliance for the Defense of Chilean Artisanal Fishing was born, uniting multiple federations into a single political force.
By engaging in a safe space for open dialogue, the Alliance forged a unified front—one capable of bold action. Their agenda was clear: first, an immediate and equitable reallocation of quotas; second, the establishment of a long-term platform to secure access to basic social rights. Armed with a shared purpose, they systematically engaged the political process. In the framing of Acemoglu and Robinson, a newly mobilised society began to shackle a state that had long served elite interests. The results are a testament to their success.
The new Fisheries Fractioning Law, enacted in June 2025, represents a material reallocation of power. The artisanal sector’s share of national quotas has soared from 22.2 percent to a landmark 49.5 percent. This was not a gift; it was a political achievement, as well as a vivid reminder that the corridor is not a static place, but a space that is won when society organises to pull the Leviathan towards serving the common good.
Building a state for Peru’s squid fishers
The challenge in Peru’s giant squid, or pota, fishery was not the same. Here, the country’s largest artisanal fishery operated in a dangerous power vacuum. It was governed by an obsolete 2011 regulation (for further details, see Rojas 2025) designed to manage activities—such as the operation of an industrial fleet—that had since disappeared. This was a classic Absent Leviathan: a state whose weakness left a vital resource—and their users—legally unrecognised and vulnerable to capture by industry elites and alien interests.
The solution, therefore, needed to be more foundational. It began with patient institution-building to bridge historical tensions between groups with disparate interests. Before a unified voice could emerge, the actors themselves had to be organised. Through a focused process of catalysis, these disparate groups of fishers and processors came together to form coherent, national bodies—principally the artisanal fishers’ association SONAPESCAL (Sociedad Nacional de Pesca Artesanal) and the processors’ association CAPECAL (Cámara Peruana del Calamar Gigante).
Once these institutions were in place, the two groups—demonstrating remarkable vision—forged a strategic alliance. The breakthrough came at a precise historical moment—when, for the first time, incentives truly aligned. For processors, the motivation had long been the need to address a cascade of uncertainties threatening their long-term viability: an unknown stock status, an ineffective management regime, and an unstable legal landscape. For artisanal producers, however, it was only with the recent completion of fleet formalisation—and the security of licenses for more than 90 percent of the fishing vessels, a process SONAPESCAL critically supported (see Fiestas, 2025)—that the incentive to act truly emerged. Suddenly, this overwhelming majority of fishers and processors shared an urgent reason to work collectively, overcoming historic distrust and inertia.
The Squid Management Regulation enacted in 2025 is the direct outcome of this pivotal marriage of incentive and agency. Over 90 percent of the coalition’s policy proposal was adopted, formally declaring the fishery exclusively artisanal and establishing a modern governance scheme to secure the health of the stock. The Peruvian case offers a profound insight: sometimes the corridor is reached not by shackling a despot, but by empowering a society to call a capable state into being, ensuring it arrives already bound to serve the public good.
Two paths into the corridor, one critical lesson
Viewed together, these recent advances in Chile and Peru are two sides of the same coin. They represent two distinct struggles to forge power into the narrow corridor. In Chile, a powerful society rose up to constrain a captured state, pulling it back towards the middle. In Peru, a newly organised society effectively built a state where one was absent, giving away resistance to regulation, enabling the state to fulfill its role and pushing it forward into the corridor from a place of weakness.
These are not just local stories; they are illustrations of universal principles. They show that securing the fair and sustainable use of ocean resources is not primarily a technical problem to be solved. It is, first and foremost, a governance challenge—one that requires moving beyond simplistic, top-down fixes to engage with the complex, messy, and essential work of building and balancing power.
The ocean is a fundamental public good, and it can only be defended by state institutions that are both capable and accountable. As these cases show, forging such a state is the real work. Whether it means shackling a Leviathan that serves the few or building one to serve the many, the goal is the same: shaping governance institutions that can truly protect our shared planet.
The future of the ocean lies in that narrow, contested, and vital corridor.
Further Reading:
Acemoglu, D. and J.A. Robinson. 2019. The Narrow Corridor: States, Societies, and the Fate of Liberty. Penguin Random House.
Fiestas Flores, J. M., M.E. Rosas Houghton, J.L. Jacinto Galán, S.H. Juárez Ruiz, J. Querevalú Puescas, E.G. Vega Pardo, C.W. Yenque Carrasco et al. 2025. La Pesca Artesanal Peruana y la OROP-PS. Un Camino Colectivo por Nuestros Derechos. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.16741473.
Feature image: House surrounded by water in Barpeta, Assam (Photo credit: Vincenzo Cassano/ Unsplash)
As climate change alters our landscapes, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to ignore the emotional toll on our communities. Across India, average temperatures have risen by 0.7°C between 1901 and 2018, rainfall is up by over 75 percent since the 1950s, and groundwater is being rapidly depleted. The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre estimates that in 2024, floods, storms, and other climate-related disasters forced 5.4 million people to relocate within India. The impact of such loss goes beyond material or ecological damage, giving rise to a sense of psychological disorientation called solastalgia.
During my field visits to migrant communities on the fringes of Bangalore, I witnessed the human face of this invisible trauma. One encounter stayed with me—a young girl, her voice soft but steady, said: “Back home, the farmlands I ran in began to die from the heat. That made me sad. But I don’t like this place either—it’s not home.”
She and her family hailed from northern Karnataka, where heatwaves and water scarcity have destroyed farmlands. Here in the city, they live in makeshift huts, surrounded by concrete and dust, disconnected from the soil that once sustained them. Their story, like many others, reflects not only the struggle against climate change but also the grief over the fading way of life.
The term solastalgia was coined by the Australian philosopher Glenn Albrecht in 2003 to describe a sense of distress people feel when their home environment is altered beyond recognition. Unlike nostalgia—which is the longing to return to a place that no longer exists—solastalgia is the longing for a home that is still there but has been rendered unrecognisable. It is about a particular type of loss that comes not from moving away but from watching the slow decline of one’s world. Although it’s being increasingly discussed within academic circles, it’s not receiving its due in Indian policy and public discourse.
Solastalgia in the Indian context
A 2021 study by researchers from the Central University of South Bihar and the University of Allahabad surveyed 34 villagers in Gaya and Jehanabad, in the southern part of the state. They reported frequent heatwaves, erratic rainfall, delayed monsoons, dried-up water sources, and the disappearance of birds and trees, disrupting agricultural calendars—the seasonal patterns that guide planting and harvesting, as well as community practices. Participants described deep “worries and uncertainties” as they were forced to abandon traditional cropping, eroding their sense of self worth and belonging.
In Hingalganj—a vulnerable deltaic area of the Indian Sundarbans, part of the world’s largest contiguous mangrove forest—a 2022 study by Action Aid Association and the Professional Institute for Development and Socio-Environmental Management found that frequent cyclones, rising salinity, and repeated displacement have caused visible psychological distress among residents. The report revealed growing anxiety over food insecurity, erosion, embankment failures, and the loss of agricultural livelihoods. These stressors have contributed to mounting psychological pressure, particularly among women, who now bear the triple burden of earning an income, caring for children and elders, and managing disrupted households.
Alarmingly, the report also reveals cases of emotional trauma that have escalated into self-harm. Residents spoke of recurring emotional pain linked to the sudden deaths of loved ones, crop failures, and economic instability. For many, the trauma following Cyclone Aila in 2009 marked a breaking point, pushing them into cycles of hopelessness, indebtedness, and in some cases, suicidal ideation. While medical infrastructure in the area is limited, anecdotal evidence gathered during field interviews suggests a rise in untreated anxiety, insomnia, and psychosomatic conditions. The study called for urgent mental health interventions, integrated with climate resilience programmes, to support affected communities.
In the Nilgiris region of the Western Ghats—including Sathyamangalam, Masinagudi, and Wayanad—elephant corridors are being developed to mitigate the rising human-elephant conflict, which has been exacerbated by climate change, as forests dry and animals stray into villages. These corridors have displaced over 12,000 people, including hundreds of tribal families from communities like the Irula, Kurumba, and Mullu Kurumba. During my field visit to the Sathyamangalam Tiger Reserve, a Forest Officer explained that “no amount of monetary support could ever truly compensate for the loss of their land”. For many, this loss is not merely physical but also psychological, severing ties to home, heritage, and identity.
Meanwhile, a looming crisis is unfolding in the Nicobar Islands, where plans to build an airport, port, and townships on Great Nicobar threaten to uproot the isolated Indigenous Shompen and Nicobarese tribes, who have had little outside contact. Though yet to occur, experts and human rights advocates warn of catastrophic consequences: destruction of mangroves, disruption of turtle nesting beaches, and a rise in solastalgia.
Migrant housing along a waste-filled canal in Bengaluru (Photo credit: Kalkivai Aneesha)
Across the world
Studies from the Pacific show that when isolated communities are uprooted or their environments eroded, solastalgia can appear long before relocation can take place, as fear, distress, and anticipatory grief. Research from the James Cook University of Queensland on Erub Island in the Torres Strait found that residents already expressed sadness, worry, and a loss of belonging as coastlines disappeared. A more recent collaborative study led by the UNSW Sydney (School of Psychology) in Australia and New Zealand described this as ‘anticipatory solastalgia’—the psychological distress people feel in the present while anticipating environmental decline. Breaking such intimate bonds with land is often tantamount to destroying identity.
International research increasingly recognises the significant psychological impacts associated with solastalgia. In Australia—where the term was first coined—several studies, particularly involving farmers and Aboriginal communities, have shown a strong correlation between environmental change and mental distress. A national scoping review of 18 such studies confirmed widespread experiences of anxiety, depression, and a deep sense of loss tied to environmental degradation. Australia is also among the few countries where solastalgia has entered public health and climate adaptation conversations, though its inclusion in formal mental health services remains limited and uneven across regions. Communities with strong cultural ties to land are especially vulnerable to such distress, but they also demonstrate greater resilience when given culturally grounded mental health support.
During the 2019–20 Australian bushfires, surveys of over 2,000 residents found solastalgia strongly mediated the link between fire impact and mental health outcomes such as anxiety and depression, and even people geographically distant from the fires reported distress. Australian policymakers now advocate pre‑emptive, land‑based therapy, community mental health hubs, and cultural engagement to address solastalgia. After the fires, the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health called for a broad rollout of mental health resources in rural areas to counteract solastalgia.
In Canada and the United States, post-wildfire mental health research has increasingly identified solastalgia as a key factor contributing to rising cases of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, and anxiety. Communities affected by severe wildfires often report a negative psychological experience, not just from the immediate trauma of evacuation and loss, but from the long-term grief of seeing familiar landscapes permanently altered or destroyed. In response, mitigation strategies have included a combination of family-based therapy, government-provided financial aid, and community-centred recovery initiatives that help restore a sense of stability and agency.
In Canada’s northern territory of Nunavut, where Indigenous Inuit communities face the compounded effects of climate change, these frameworks go further. Here, mental health programmes are being adapted to address “country food insecurity”—the decline in access to traditional hunting and fishing resources due to melting ice and disrupted ecosystems. Counselling services are paired with cultural revitalisation efforts, such as land-based healing, community feasts, and intergenerational storytelling, helping individuals not only process their grief but also reconnect with identity and tradition.
How India can learn—and lead
India has only a handful of studies on climate change and mental health, and most are not widely known. A 2025 scoping review by psychiatrists in Kerala, published in The Primary Care Companion for CNS Disorders, analysed 12 Indian studies and concluded that research on climate anxiety and solastalgia remains sparse. Globally, a 2024 review in BMJ Mental Health confirmed that solastalgia is linked with higher rates of depression, anxiety, and PTSD —but also highlighted that most existing studies are observational and too few to establish causality. These gaps show why India urgently needs systematic, long-term monitoring in regions like drought-prone Karnataka, the flood-affected Sunderbans, and the fragile Nicobar Islands.
Policy gaps are equally stark. Environmental Clearances (ECs) evaluate ecological impacts, while Social Impact Assessments (SIAs) under the RECTLARR Act (2013) examine livelihoods and resettlements. In principle, both could incorporate psychosocial assessments, but documented cases in India are extremely limited, whether due to a lack of transparency in reports or simply because mental health has never been prioritised in these processes. This silence leaves a critical gap: while homes, land, and compensation are measured, the psychological distress of displacement is not.
One way forward is Health Impact Assessments (HIAs), which the WHO recommends for evaluating health, including the mental health consequences of projects. Integrating HIAs within ECs and SIAs could help identify psychosocial risks such as solastalgia. As emphasised by Dua and Acharya (2014), very few Indian projects, such as Sardar Sarovar and Bargi Dam developments, have used HIAs, and most were not embedded within formal EC or SIA processes. The study highlights that making HIA integration mandatory and coordinating it through intersectoral policy support, legislative backing, and public health capacity building could be an effective approach.
Building on this gap, India’s existing health policies and programmes could provide an institutional foundation for integrating mental health safeguards into climate responses. According to the Indian Journal of Psychiatry in 2024, the District Mental Health Programme now covers 767 districts, making it a cornerstone for counselling and outreach in rural and disaster-affected areas. The National Tele-Mental Health Programme (Tele-MANAS), launched by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in 2022, expands this reach through 24×7 toll-free services and state-linked call centres, ensuring access for remote populations.
Moreover, India’s health and disaster management frameworks also have potential entry points for addressing solastalgia. For instance, the National Disaster Management Authority’s 2023 Guidelines on Mental Health and Psychosocial Support in Disasters could be expanded to include slow-onset crises, such as droughts and coastal erosion, beyond sudden events. Likewise, health sector programmes such as Ayushman Bharat Health and Wellness Centres embed mental health screening and referrals into primary care, offering an institutional base for long-term psychological support in vulnerable regions
For Indigenous and rural communities, culturally grounded measures are key. Canada’s Inuit country food programmes illustrate how protecting traditions preserves identity and reduces grief. In India, broader efforts toward cultural preservation—such as the Ministry of Tribal Affairs’ support for local festivals and Tribal Research Institutes, as well as state initiatives in Tripura and Ladakh to promote cultural hubs and festivals—could be meaningfully expanded to help communities stay connected to their environment. Drawing on traditional knowledge and shared rituals, such programmes could offer grounding against the disorientation of solasalgia.
If India’s climate policy is to be truly just, it cannot limit itself to counting trees or compensating land; it must also protect minds and identities. Anticipating solastalgia and embedding psychosocial safeguards into environmental, health, and resettlement frameworks is not symbolic; it is a necessary act of climate resilience and responsible governance.
Further Reading
Acharya, A. and B. Dua. 2014. Health impact assessment: Need and future scope in India. Indian Journal of Community Medicine 39(2): 76. https://doi.org/10.4103/0970-0218.132719.
Bogard, P. 2023. Solastalgia: An Anthology of Emotion in a Disappearing World. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press.
Rafa, N., A. Zabala and L.P. Galway. 2025. Empirical research review on solastalgia: Place, people and policy pathways for addressing environmental distress. People and Nature 7(8): 1811–25. https://doi.org/10.1002/pan3.70090.
Yamini, T., T. Sarkar and A. Joshi. 2024. Climate stress and migration in India: An exploratory study of environmental changes on population movement. Journal of Informatics Education and Research 4(3): 3559–65.
Feature image: The Palais des Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, home to major international environmental negotiations and multilateral institutions
It is coffee break time at a meeting of the Convention on Biological Diversity. Around the conference hall, small groups of delegates gather with steaming cups, their conversations flowing in a patchwork of languages.
A negotiator from Brazil shares with a colleague from Mozambique updates on new forest restoration targets. Across the room, scientists from Malaysia and Indonesia compare notes on coral reef monitoring in the Coral Triangle. Near the counter, representatives from France and Morocco discuss how to strengthen the next Global Review of Progress towards the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF).
They are all here to serve a shared purpose—protecting life on Earth—yet their exchanges are shaped, and sometimes limited, by the languages they speak. Some turn to interpretation headsets, others to hesitant English, others still to gestures and patience.
What connects these people is not only their commitment to biodiversity but the fragile thread of language that allows their cooperation to exist at all.
Delegates participating in the 14th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Migratory Species (COP14) in Samarkand, Uzbekistan
Language barrier
In an international conservation meeting, the air hums with translation headsets, documents in multiple versions, and delegates waiting for their turn to speak. Yet beneath this choreography of diplomacy lies a quieter imbalance, one not of ideas but of languages.
Conservation is a global effort, but it is carried out through a remarkably narrow linguistic lens. The world’s major environmental treaties such as the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) or the Convention for Migratory Species (CMS) largely operate in just three to six languages: English, French, Spanish, and, less consistently, Arabic, Chinese, and Russian. These languages were chosen for historical and political reasons, not ecological ones. As a result, the nations that hold the most biodiversity often find themselves outside the linguistic boundaries of global conservation.
This mismatch matters. GBF, adopted in 2022, calls on all nations to live “in harmony with nature” by 2050. Research has long shown that language is more than a communication tool; it is a gatekeeper of participation and power. In global biodiversity meetings, English often becomes the default, especially in the smaller groups such as the “friends of the chair” or contact groups. Friends of the chair is a very small group of chair-selected countries that have divergent views on specific clause(s) of one decision and come together with the aim of reaching a compromise. Contact groups are groups of countries that will actually negotiate language, line by line, of the decision in question. These are the groups where key compromises are actually achieved. Delegates who are not fluent may struggle to intervene, and their perspectives may be diluted or delayed by interpretation limits.
In our article titled ‘Languages of life: A global perspective on linguistic priorities for biodiversity conservation’ published in Conservation Letters, we explored whether the languages currently used by major international biodiversity agreements reflect where biodiversity is actually found. We noted that even when interpretation services exist, they are “typically restricted to English, French, or Spanish”, excluding many of the most spoken languages worldwide.
This linguistic inequality trickles down the policy chain. National agencies receive technical documents in unfamiliar languages. Field practitioners and local conservationists, those mostly responsible for turning global commitments into action, often work from secondhand summaries or partial translations. Over time, this creates a gap not just in understanding but in representation: whose science informs policy, whose priorities shape conservation goals, whose voices are heard at the table.
Beyond practicality, language barriers expose deeper questions of justice. For example, in conservation, this means the communities most intertwined with nature often have the least say in global decisions about it. We argue, linguistic accessibility is “central, not peripheral, to the success of multilateral environmental governance”. The loss of biodiversity, then, is not only ecological. It is also linguistic, a quiet erosion of understanding that undermines cooperation at every scale, from United Nations negotiations to a ranger’s notebook in the field.
Mapping the languages of life
To understand how language shapes global conservation, we articulated a surprisingly simple question: in which languages does the world’s biodiversity “live” in? We searched for data to identify where the highest levels of biodiversity, by taxonomic group, were located and which languages are spoken in those locations.
We began with one of the most comprehensive databases in conservation science, the IUCN Red List. We compiled the maps of the distribution of more than 33,000 species of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and corals. These groups were chosen because they are comprehensively accessed in the IUCN Red List—which means that we have global maps of the distribution for virtually all species. Then, we overlayed a map of species richness of each of the groups with a map of languages spoken in different countries based on the work of Negret et al., 2022. For every country, we noted both the official language used for governance and the most spoken language used by its people.
By combining these two layers of information, we could see how species distributions overlap with linguistic boundaries. In other words, for each species, we asked: In what language is this species most likely to be “spoken about” by the people and policies that govern its range?
The results were revealing. When official languages were considered, Spanish and English emerged as the two dominant languages of biodiversity, each covering about a quarter of all species distributions. They were followed by Portuguese, French, and Malay, which together accounted for another quarter. But when the researchers looked instead at the most spoken languages, the picture changed considerably. English and French lost ground, while Malay gained prominence, especially in the marine-rich regions of Southeast Asia.
This shift highlights a simple truth: some of the languages where the highest biodiversity of some groups exists are not represented in many cases in the international policy arena. For example, coral species are concentrated in the ‘Coral Triangle’, spanning Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Timor-Leste, and Papua New Guinea. Yet few global conservation documents are ever translated into Malay or Bahasa Indonesia, the very languages spoken by the communities who manage these reefs.
Even Portuguese, which ranked above French in the study, is invisible in multilateral biodiversity fora. It is the official language of nine countries across South America, Africa, Europe, and Asia, including Brazil, Mozambique, and East Timor, regions that together hold vast portions of the planet’s biodiversity.
The pattern is clear. The biodiversity of the world is represented by a multilingual community of countries, but the international policies meant to protect it are most often not. The study’s figures show that two non-UN official languages, Portuguese and Malay, are among the most relevant for global biodiversity, yet they remain largely ignored by Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs).
This mismatch does more than complicate communication. It limits whose knowledge, science, and priorities inform conservation policy. As we put it, the languages of biodiversity conservation have evolved for political convenience, not ecological necessity. And that, we believe, needs to change.
Words shape the world
If biodiversity conservation depends on cooperation, then language is the first bridge that must be built. Our findings make clear that language barriers are not a side note in conservation; they are a structural fault line running through it. The choice of official languages in multilateral agreements, such as English, French, and Spanish, reflected post-war diplomacy and the workings of the United Nations. But biodiversity does not follow the same map as politics. Some of the richest ecosystems on Earth are governed in languages that rarely appear in international conservation dialogues.
When major policy documents and technical manuals remain untranslated, the result is exclusion in slow motion. National agencies that receive these documents may lack the capacity to translate or interpret them accurately. Local conservation officers and field teams, who are responsible for turning broad policy goals into on-the-ground action, are often left with secondhand summaries or unofficial translations. This weakens implementation, but it also shapes whose knowledge counts as legitimate.
In practice, this means that international decisions about coral reefs in Indonesia or forest restoration in Mozambique are often informed by materials written in languages foreign to those who manage them. Even the most dedicated practitioners cannot apply what they cannot fully understand. As our study points out, “countries with representatives that do not fully dominate the English language are excluded from effectively participating in the decision-making process”, and the same pattern repeats at national and local scales.
The issue goes deeper than efficiency. It is about justice and power. The dominance of certain languages in conservation determines which scientific studies are cited, which communities are consulted, and which forms of knowledge are seen as credible. A growing body of research has shown that much of the world’s biodiversity science is written in non-English languages, yet remains overlooked in global assessments. When translation lags behind, local insights and Indigenous knowledge risk being silenced.
Language thus becomes both a mirror and a barrier. It reflects old hierarchies while quietly shaping new ones. Policies written for everyone but comprehended by few cannot foster true collaboration. The study reminds us that inclusivity in conservation is not achieved only through funding or representation, but also through the words we choose and the languages we use to speak for nature.
The future must be multilingual
If the world’s biodiversity is represented by voices speaking in many languages, then conservation must learn to listen in many as well. We argue that solving the language gap is not just about adding more words to a document, but about rethinking how global conservation communicates with the people who live closest to nature.
We propose a practical solution: a four-tier system for prioritising translation in MEAs and global policy forums. The first tier includes the lingua francas of global diplomacy, such as English, French and Spanish, which allow countries to communicate across borders. The second tier is made up of the official United Nations languages, including Arabic, Chinese, Russian, which already have established systems for translation and interpretation.
But the real shift happens in the third tier. Here we suggest what we call ‘biodiversity-priority languages’—those spoken in countries that hold a large share of the planet’s species and ecosystems. Portuguese and Malay, for example, are used across vast regions rich in tropical forests, coral reefs, and endemic wildlife. Yet these languages are almost absent from major biodiversity conventions. Translating technical guidance, reports, and training materials into these languages could make a direct difference for conservation officers and researchers who depend on them every day.
The fourth tier focuses on local and Indigenous languages, which play an irreplaceable role in the implementation of conservation policies. These are the languages in which people discuss fishing practices, forest use, and sacred landscapes. They carry generations of ecological knowledge that often remain invisible to formal policy frameworks. Including them, even through small steps such as community-led translation or local naming in educational materials, strengthens both equity and effectiveness.
We also recognise that language inclusion must be feasible. We do not call for every document to be translated into every language, but for a smarter, more strategic approach. We suggest partnerships, where various actors call for coordination in the translation and review of policy documents. This would correspond to the ‘whole of society approach’, as the Global Biodiversity Framework of the Convention on Biological Diversity calls for. Voluntary funding or regional networks could support this process, ensuring that the languages most relevant to biodiversity get the attention they deserve.
Technology could help too. Machine translation tools are becoming more accessible, but they cannot fully replace human understanding, especially for complex technical, scientific, or legal concepts. The study recommends hybrid systems that combine artificial intelligence with expert review to maintain accuracy while reducing costs. Another idea is to escalate crowd-sourced translation, where local professionals and conservation students contribute to translating materials relevant to their regions, either by raising awareness about the relevance of translation and/or finding some sort of incentives for wider engagement. This not only improves context and quality but also builds local capacity and ownership.
Behind these technical suggestions lies a powerful message: conservation cannot be truly global if it speaks only a handful of languages. The biodiversity crisis demands cooperation from every level of society, from international diplomats to local field teams. And cooperation depends on comprehension. As we write in our paper: “An international conservation arena that truly embraces inclusivity must make greater efforts to acknowledge the rich linguistic diversity of humanity.”
Language inclusion, then, is not an administrative exercise. It is an act of respect, a recognition that the protection of life on Earth begins with the ability to understand one another.
Further Reading:
Negret, P. J., S. C. Atkinson, B. K. Woodworth, M. Corella Tor, J. R. Allan, R. A. Fuller and T. Amano. 2022. Language barriers in global bird conservation. PLOS ONE 17(4): e0267151. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0267151.
Veríssimo, D., C. Hazin, R. Rocha and M. P. Dias. 2025. Languages of life: A global perspective on linguistic priorities for biodiversity conservation. Conservation Letters 18(5): e13139. https://doi.org/10.1111/conl.13139.
Are names just words? As children, most of us would have wondered why certain things are called what they are called. Why is a cat called a cat? Or a crow a crow? We are given names, we use names to refer to people, animals, and all kinds of objects—even creating new names for things that catch our fancy. Names can reflect the values of our ancestors, as well as the cultures and societies they were a part of. The process of naming varies across communities and changes over time and over space. Thus, names serve a range of purposes—to identify, to describe, to indicate, to honour, and to value.
There is a saying in Kerala: Kadalile meenu arayanitta peru (fish in the sea are named by the fisher). Our project as part of the Coexistence Fellowship—jointly run by the University of Trans-Disciplinary Health Sciences and Technology (TDU) and the Coexistence Consortium—was to document the traditional ecological knowledge of fishers in Thrissur and Kollam in Kerala. We came across various local names for flora and fauna and learned their origins. How fishers name species has changed over time and across different locations. Here, we focus on a marine mammal group that is occasionally sighted along Kerala’s coast: whales.
The common Malayalam word for whale is thimingalam, derived from the Sanskrit word timiṅgila, which refers to a large fish. But what did this name signify to fishers? Oil, meat, blubber? Or is there another narrative? We collected stories and experiences of traditional fishers with whales, their ecological knowledge, the different names they use for thimingalam, and how each one points to a distinct relationship with the whale—as a father, a child, and an elephant.
Kadalachan
The concept of the sea as a mother is deeply embedded in many fishing communities. They refer to her as ‘Kadalamma’ and see themselves as the children of the sea. If the sea is the mother, then for some fishers, the whale is ‘Kadalachan’, the sea father. Hence, they hold the whale in high regard.
Some fishers silently acknowledge its presence, a few pray to it, and some even make offerings to temples when they see one during a fishing trip. They often remark, “The father of the sea is guiding the fish towards the coast to help us.” A belief that explains the respectful interactions that fishers have with whales. For them, Kadalachan represents strength, guidance, and devotion. The term also encapsulates the belief that a father will not harm a child and vice versa; hence we coexist.
Chellapillai
Amongst some traditional fishers, the roles attributed to the father and child are reversed: the fisherman becomes the father, and the whale becomes the child. For instance, in the southern part of Kerala many fishers use the term, ‘Chellapillai’ which means ‘dearest child’. It is quite ironic to call the whale, one of the largest animals on Earth, a small baby! They believe that whales are as harmless as a small baby, and that they seem to be crying, smiling, or singing.
For the fishers, this majestic creature conjures up feelings of overwhelming joy and love, and creates an innate desire to protect them. Often, they regard the whale as a childish soul trapped in a gigantic body and the name brings together the concepts of parenthood and protection.
Kadalaana
During our time at school, we once heard that a whale had washed ashore at the beach and we wanted to see it. Until that point, the largest animal that we had ever seen was the elephant. We were in for a surprise when we reached the beach. What we saw was a different type of giant—our teacher said that its tongue alone weighed as much as an elephant.
With its massive size, the way it spouts water, and its trumpeting sounds, the name ‘Kadalaana’ or ‘elephant of the sea’ seemed fitting. Even though they were large creatures, they, like elephants, were considered to be graceful and gentle. For the fisher community, the whale was Kadalaana.
Why do whales matter?
The well-being of whales is the well-being of the ocean. Right from birth to decades after death, whales play a vital role in maintaining the health of marine ecosystems. When, after feeding in the deep ocean, they move to the surface to breathe, they transport nutrient-rich materials from the depths. And at the surface, they release waste that is also rich in nutrients. This cycle, known as the ‘whale pump’, helps promote the growth of phytoplankton.
And there is whale fall: when they die and sink to the ocean floor, their bodies become a rich habitat for diverse kinds of organisms, from worms to sharks, and they also act as a long-term carbon sink for centuries.
India became a member of the International Whaling Commission in 1981 and has been an active participant ever since. Whales are listed under Schedule I of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, which affords them the highest level of legal protection in the country. In the realm of marine conservation, whales are regarded as flagship species because of their ability to evoke deep emotional and socio-cultural responses.
In a community-based participatory approach to conservation, it is important to recognise both their ecological and socio-cultural significance. Names such as Kadalachan, Chellapillai, and Kadalaana reflect the traditional reverence for whales. Their size, intelligence, and majestic presence make whales an integral part of the community’s imagination, long before modern ideas of conservation or flagship species were introduced.
Lost history
Fishers pointed out that many fish have disappeared from the waters. However, when they explain this, they use old names that scientists, authorities, and conservationists do not recognise. This poses a conservation challenge because how can we protect a species when we don’t even know it’s gone! And so, preserving local names and their origins becomes important for researchers. As renowned British nature writer Robert Macfarlane explains: “Names—good names, well used—can help us see, and they help us care. We find it hard to love what we cannot give a name to. And what we do not love we will not save.”
Names are an expression of culture, a complex concept that includes shared beliefs, values, traditions, and behaviours. They have the ability to shape how a person thinks, behaves, and views the world. The animistic belief systems held by local communities are a way of feeling and experiencing the nature around them. This may be rooted in emotion, but in conservation practice, emotions are important, and values are significant.
Through the different names of the whale that symbolise father, child, and elephant, we can see a certain way of understanding human-wildlife coexistence. Few people are aware that whales exist along the coast of Kerala, and among them, only a handful are aware of the local names. In a rapidly changing world, local knowledge, stories, songs, and names truly matter!
Further Reading
Kumar, A. B. and R. Anitha. 2017. Traditional knowledge of fisher folk of Kollam district, Kerala on coastal and marine biodiversity and conservation. Journal of Traditional and Folk Practices 5(2): 37–49. https://doi.org/10.25173/jtfp.90.
Feature image: An upside-down Indian flying fox flapping its large, leathery wings
I was home for a knee injury, a result of many small follies built up over time; but staying in bed, waiting for it to heal was the longest six weeks of my life! Under the tight supervision of my mother, I was allowed to sit in the backyard and look at Delhi’s urban wildlife. Soon, I migrated to the garden during the morning and evening activity peaks. Armed with my camera, I waited for birds and monkeys. Meanwhile, my laptop ran long codes deciphering bat phylogenies and long models for my ongoing study on them.
One evening, I stayed out long after the birds had gone home, and while I became a feast for mosquitoes, I looked up to see large, black shadows fly across the sky. I knew then, I was going to be dragging my parents around Delhi, looking for its nocturnal residents—bats. When people found out, they often asked, “Why bats? They stink and spread disease!”
Yet, in the heart of the capital city, nobody seemed to notice trees laden with the largest bats in the country, as well as in the world—Indian flying foxes (Pteropus medius). There, at Hauz Khaz, one among many places I visited, I saw the largest roost I had witnessed to date. Squawking and loud, several hundred bats hung upside down, flapping their wings, right above hundreds of blissfully unaware human passers-by.
A flying fox colony roosting in different species of trees at Hauz Khaz, Delhi
Looking up at them, amma wondered aloud, “How do they occupy such a highly urbanised space in these large numbers?” I wasn’t sure then, but their mere presence throughout a densely populated Delhi meant something was helping them thrive, be it their adaptability or resilience.
Orange and loud, the Indian flying fox is native to the Indian subcontinent. Equipped with a keen sense of smell and excellent night vision (no, not as blind as a bat!), these large frugivores leave their day-roosts at dusk and spend hours feeding on a variety of fruits. Their roles as seed dispersal and pollination agents are pivotal for the regeneration of fruiting trees and maintaining the resilience of plant communities.
A lone flying fox dozes through the day
Unfortunately, irrespective of the range of ecosystem services flying foxes provide, they are often persecuted for feeding on cultivated crops. Previously considered vermin, they were granted legal protection under Schedule II of India’s Wildlife Protection Act (2021 Amendment Bill). However, this certainly does not protect them from the environmental challenges they face—shrinking habitats and rising urban temperatures.
Degradation of their natural habitats has pushed bats toward agricultural orchards and closer to human settlements, increasing the potential for conflict and heightening the risk of pathogen transmission across species in the area. Despite these troubles, these animals have managed to carve out an urban niche for themselves. Though classified as ‘Least Concern’ on the IUCN Red List due to their large numbers, their populations are beginning to show a gradual decline.
Lacking sweat glands, flying foxes spend their day in the shade of trees, roosting close to water bodies. They drench their fur in water or saliva and fan their large wings to cool themselves down. Regrettably, these methods were no match for the 2024 heatwaves that battered northern India. Suddenly, hundreds of these large fruit bats were dropping dead from dehydration. These mass deaths serve as a reminder that climate change is continually pushing wildlife towards extinctions—global and local.
Flapping its wings in an attempt to cool down
While the healing of my knee slowed down considerably from all my Delhi hiking, if you, dear readers, happen to turn your gaze skywards at dusk, you will find these enigmatic mammals, flying in steadily darkening skies, preparing for their nightly feasts. As you look up at them, be reminded that their presence, among other animals, serves to keep forests and urban landscapes healthy.
A flying fox returns to the communal roost during the early hours of dawn
Feature illustration: An eastern phoebe perched on a branch, eyeing up a dragonfly
We like to say “one swallow does not make a summer”, but as aerial insectivore populations—as well as the insects that they depend on—decline globally, future generations may be lucky just to catch a glimpse of a swallow. Undoubtedly, these trends are linked to human activity in a changing climate, highlighting a pressing need to improve biodiversity conservation efforts. But how can we do this more strategically?
Many governments maintain steadily growing lists—often legislatively mandated—of threatened species within their borders. Those who are tasked with prioritising habitat conservation on a ‘one-species-at-a-time’ basis find themselves like Sisyphus, trying to roll an ever-larger rock up a steepening hill. However, with modern mapping tools and state-of-the-art genetic techniques, it is now possible to streamline conservation priorities across multiple species.
As a COVID-19 pandemic era project undertaken at the Canadian Rivers Institute at the University of New Brunswick, we set to work coupling biodiversity observations and high performance computing to inform the protection of entire groups of interacting species, while also addressing the role they play within the larger ecosystem. We focused on two distinct groups of species that naturally occur together: flying insect-eating birds and their food—aquatic insects—which are a rich source of essential fatty acids for fledgling development.
Rather than managing or conserving habitats for a single species, this strategy integrates the habitat needs of multiple species across both terrestrial and aquatic environments, while preserving the functional link between these birds and their food. This work follows a previous study, which examined how nature-based restoration, commonly known as rewilding, can heal broken watersheds by restoring basic food provisioning and other support services of natural ecosystems.
A tree swallow sits on a nesting box. In the background is a riverine wetland within the Wolastoq watershed in New Brunswick, Canada. (Photo credit: D. J. Baird)
Our study (Wegscheider et al., 2025) focused on Wolastoq, a large watershed straddling the eastern US-Canada border and flowing into the Bay of Fundy. To map insectivorous bird habitat, we employed data from the Maritimes Breeding Atlas for five species: barn, tree, and cliff swallows, eastern phoebe, and eastern kingbird. Data on aquatic insect distributions, such as, mayflies, caddisflies, and stoneflies, were obtained in association with Canada’s community-based river biomonitoring program, CABIN, in collaboration with whom we collected environmental DNA. These are traces of freely occurring genetic material available in the environment that can be used to identify individual species presence. This process enabled us to detect environmental DNA corresponding to 95 different insects and allowed us to simultaneously model the distributions of many insect taxa at unprecedented detail.
Biodiversity data in hand, we mapped distributions of the five insect-eating birds and aquatic insects in our study. This enabled us to explore different conservation strategies to protect aquatic insect biodiversity and productivity, thereby supporting insectivorous birds. We evaluated scenarios following two targets for habitat conservation: (i) the UN Biodiversity Convention’s Aichi Targets at 17 percent of land area under conservation, and (ii) Canada’s national target of 30 percent land conservation by 2030 (‘30×30’).
We found that existing conservation areas were insufficient to ensure protection of either aquatic insects or insect-eating birds, according to the 17 percent and 30 percent area targets. Equally importantly, we found that prioritisation of bird habitat alone did not equally protect insects, and vice versa. Just as one swallow does not make a summer, focusing on single species or even closely-related groups of species will not halt losses across the full spectrum of biodiversity. By expanding conservation to include groups of organisms that contribute essential underlying ecosystem functions, we can develop smarter, more resilient, and efficient strategies to protect biodiversity in a rapidly changing world.
Further Reading
Rideout, N. K., N. Alavi, D.R. Lapen, M. Hajibabaei, G. Mitchell, W.A.Monk, M. Warren, S. Wilson, M. Wright and D.J. Baird. 2025. Quality versus quantity: response of riparian bird communities to aquatic insect emergence in agro-ecosystems. Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems 8: 10.3389.
Rideout, N.K., B. Wegscheider, M. Kattilakoski, K. McGee, W.A. Monk and D.J. Baird. 2021. Rewilding watersheds: Using nature’s algorithms to fix our broken rivers. Marine and Freshwater Science 72: 1118–1124.
Wegscheider, B., N.K. Rideout, W.A. Monk, M.A. Gray, R. Steeves and D.J. Baird. 2025. Modelling nature-based restoration potential across aquatic-terrestrial boundaries. Conservation Biology 39(5): e70046. https://doi.org/10.1111/cobi.70046.
Feature image: Dire wolf puppies Romulus and Remus (Photo credit: Colossal Biosciences)
When Colossal Bioscience announced that the dire wolf was back from extinction in April 2025, they faced a barrage of criticism. Sceptics highlighted practical reasons that the project isn’t conservation, including the huge void between the birth of three puppies and a thriving population in the wild.
But what if that void could be crossed? If Colossal’s dire wolf lived free as part of a flourishing ecosystem, would that be conservation? This question may be hypothetical, but it is of huge importance. Unless we decide what conservation is, we can’t develop effective strategies.
Extreme examples such as de-extinction force us to confront our values, and test whether our intuitions stand up to scrutiny. The arguments about whether the dire wolf is conservation may already have run their course—the puppies are widely agreed to be a distraction that offers false hope. But the debate still offers a unique opportunity to address vital underlying dilemmas.
Here are seven questions that are brought into focus by dire wolf de-extinction.
1. Is conservation about a return to the past?
By resurrecting a lost species, de-extinction is perhaps the ultimate attempt to recreate a past form of nature. However, it highlights the futility of any attempts to turn back time. Ecosystems have changed beyond recognition, and introducing one extra species won’t return them to a past state. After all, nobody is going to bring back extinct bacteria and nematodes that shaped prehistoric ecosystems alongside the dire wolf.
We also have the philosophical problem that any past baseline is arbitrary—when do we choose? Change is the one constant in nature, and there’s no morally significant moment in the past when nature was in a ‘correct’ state.
2. Should conservation recreate nature that is unaffected by humans?
It’s tempting to suggest that nature should be returned to a past baseline defined by an absence of human influence. This reflects a Western-centric worldview, seeing humans and nature as separate. But humans evolved as part of nature, meaning it’s not somehow ‘unnatural’ for us to influence other organisms.
There is also a practical objection, as once again we’re confronted with the futility of this objective. What could be more ironic than using cutting-edge genetic technologies to undo changes made by humans? By definition, conservation by people can’t recreate a form of nature untouched by humans.
3. What is important, genetics or characteristics?
It isn’t yet possible to create an animal that is genetically identical to a long-extinct species. The ‘dire wolf’ puppies are actually grey wolves with a few genetic changes, so some sceptics question whether this really is de-extinction. Colossal Biosciences disagrees. Speaking to the BBC, their Chief Scientific Officer Dr Beth Shapiro stated that this is indeed de-extinction because the puppies have characteristics of the extinct dire wolf.
This raises the fascinating question of what’s valuable about an organism—are its genetics important, or just its characteristics? If it performs a particular role in an ecosystem, does its evolutionary history matter?
Perhaps the problem is simply the name. Even if we don’t define these puppies as dire wolves, they could still be valuable. If their descendants play a unique role in future ecosystems, maybe it doesn’t matter what we call them or how many genes they share with an extinct species. Unless we know what we want from conservation, we can’t pass judgements on whether the wolf puppies are ‘dire’ enough.
4. Should conservation promote human wellbeing?
Our society is founded on a belief that humans have moral worth—that’s why we have strict laws around how people can be treated. However, this has seldom featured in debates about the dire wolf. It’s an oversight.
For anyone who sees human wellbeing as a key motivator for conservation, there will be fascinating discussions around how people could thrive as part of ecosystems shaped by dire wolves. What world are we creating for our descendants?
Given the resistance that predator (re)introductions face, the human implications are important even for conservationists who are motivated by protecting nature itself (and I argue that claims about nature having value in its own right are on philosophically shaky ground).
5. Does conservation have responsibility for animal welfare?
Most people extend some moral consideration to other sentient animals (at least to the ones they like). However, conservation has a surprisingly complex relationship with animal welfare—there can be tensions between protecting species and protecting individuals.
Often, conservationists ignore questions of animal welfare, and easily accept animal suffering as necessary ‘collateral damage’. However, the dire wolf story offers a valuable opportunity to address this. What responsibility would we have for the welfare of dire wolves we release into the wild? If we are (re)creating a predator, do we have moral responsibility for the suffering and death of its prey?
6. Should conservation prevent loss or create something new?
Species conservation has focused on protecting the species that survive—until now there has been no option for bringing back what’s already lost. Sadly, the result has been only to slow further extinctions. But what if we looked instead to create something new? ‘De-extinction’ could create new species that resemble those we have lost, perhaps allowing alternative forms of nature to thrive.
This outlook of creation already forms part of ecosystem conservation. We no longer simply prevent further habitat loss; we create new ecosystems. In the case of rewilding, these ecosystems can be entirely novel.
As rewilding shows, a move from protection to creation can generate exciting new possibilities. New forms of nature can be resilient in a changing climate, meaning we can go beyond simply slowing the rate of loss. But it also comes with risks, as de-extinction demonstrates. Attention and resources dedicated to what’s new can detract from what we already have, perhaps paving the way for further extinctions.
7. Should economic growth be an important motivator for conservation?
If conservation is about economic gain, then the dire wolf is a winner. With funders including Paris Hilton, Colossal Bioscience’s valuation is now sitting at over $10 billion. That’s a humbling thought as US conservation budgets are slashed.
Further Reading
Molhuizen, T., K. Beumer and I. Dorresteijn. 2025. Who to revive? Explaining charismatic species bias in the selection of de-extinction candidate species. Environment and Planning 8(2): 642–59. https://doi.org/10.1177/25148486241310698.
Nesbit, R. 2022. Tickets for the Ark: From wasps to whales – how do we choose what to save? London: Profile Books.
In the heart of Karabanche village stood a majestic tree, its branches stretching towards the sky like withered fingers. This was no ordinary tree: it was the Magic Tree, a treasure bestowed upon the village by their ancestors. The tree provided an abundance of fruits, herbs, and fresh air, making it a beloved landmark.
King Aziba, the ruler of Karabanche, took great pride in the Magic Tree. He would often sit beneath its shade, listening to the rustling of leaves and the sweet songs of birds. The king’s love for the tree was contagious, and soon the entire village cherished it.
One fateful day, King Aziba fell ill. A small rash appeared on his skin, and despite the best efforts of the village healers, the king’s condition worsened. The villagers were frantic with worry, as they had never seen their beloved king so frail. Desperate for a solution, the villagers sought the advice of healers from neighbouring kingdoms. After many consultations, a wise old healer from a distant land revealed the shocking truth: the Magic Tree felt sad and its sorrow was making the king feel unwell.
Chief Dekelu, a revered member of the village council, gathered the youth of Karabanche to share the healer’s words. The chief explained that the Magic Tree needed companions—other trees to surround it and alleviate its loneliness.
The youth leader, a bright and ambitious young man named Kato, took charge of the mission. With the help of his friends, they set out to purchase various native seedlings from the community market. Chief Dekelu gave them the money needed and the youth eagerly began planting the sapling in the best spots throughout the village.
As the new trees began to flourish, the Magic Tree’s sorrow started to lift. Its branches regained their vibrancy, and its leaves rustled with renewed joy. The king, sensing the change in the tree’s energy, slowly began to recover. The villagers rejoiced as King Aziba’s health improved, and soon he was back to his usual self, sitting beneath the Magic Tree’s shade. The king thanked the youth for their efforts, acknowledging that the tree’s happiness was indeed linked to his own well-being.
From that day forward, the villagers of Karabanche made it a point to care for the Magic Tree and its new companions. The village became a lush oasis, with trees providing shade, fruits, and fresh air. King Aziba ruled with a newfound appreciation for the natural world, and the villagers lived in harmony with the land and its magical treasures.
Sea turtles are reptiles that spend most of their life in the sea, but return to the shore to reproduce. They have a shelled body and flippers, helping them adapt to marine life.
Do you remember the father-son sea turtles Crush and Squirt cruising along the Eastern Australian Current in the Pixar movie Finding Nemo? Crush is the definition of ‘cool’ and offers sage advice to Marlin, claiming to be young at 150 years old. Squirt is the adorable and energetic turtle baby that stole our hearts. In real life, sea turtles are as cool and adventurous as Crush, but in many other ways. Let’s dive in to find out how.
1. There are seven different species of sea turtles
They are the leatherback, green, loggerhead, flatback, hawksbill, olive ridley, and Kemp’s ridley sea turtles.
The leatherback sea turtle has a leathery shell and is the largest sea turtle, reaching a length of 2 metres and a weight of 500 kg. That’s as heavy as a large bear or a small rhino!
The other six turtles have a hard shell. The Kemp’s ridley turtle is the smallest among the lot and grows up to 60 to 90 cm in length. A sea turtle cannot separate from its shell (unlike what you see in cartoons). The shell is part of its skeleton and is made up of more than 50 bones, including its ribs and spine.
2. Turtles cannot breathe underwater
Turtles breathe air like us and not through gills underwater. This means that they must return to the water’s surface regularly for air. However, they can hold their breath underwater for very long periods—up to 40 minutes while searching for food, and up to 7 hours while sleeping!
3. They shed tears to get rid of excess salt
Turtles need to maintain a hypotonic environment in their body—that means the amount of salt in their body must be lower than in the ocean water around them. Their kidneys are not capable of excreting such high amounts of salt from their body. Hence, special glands around their eyes, called lachrymal glands, help excrete the excess salt in the form of salty tears.
4. Turtles migrate long distances using an internal GPS
Turtles migrate large distances—over thousands of kilometres—each year, in search of food, mates, and for nesting. Thanks to a sense called magnetoreception, they are able to detect and use the Earth’s magnetic field as a natural compass, which allows them to reliably navigate in the open ocean against strong currents.
5. Female turtles nest on sandy beaches
Sea turtles spend their entire lives at sea, but females return to shore to lay eggs, usually at night. A female finds a sandy spot on the beach and uses her flippers to dig a hole about 50 cm deep. She then lays her soft-shelled eggs in this nest. The eggs are laid in a set called a clutch. Each clutch may have 100–200 eggs, depending on the species. She then refills the hole and uses her flippers to smooth the sand. She may also spread vegetation over the spot to camouflage the nesting site, after which she goes back to sea.
Females can return to the beach to lay more eggs, sometimes up to eight clutches in a season.
6. Hundreds and thousands of turtles synchronise their nesting
Kemp’s and olive ridley sea turtles arrive at beaches in large numbers, sometimes in the hundred thousands, to lay eggs communally. This spectacle is called arribada (meaning arrival in Spanish).
Another interesting phenomenon called natal homing means that females of certain turtle species undertake long journeys to lay their eggs at the same beach where they were born.
7. Turtle sex is determined by temperature
The eggs hatch within 60 days of being laid. The hatchlings are around 6 cm in length at birth. Warmer temperatures during nesting produce female babies, whereas cooler temperatures produce males. Climate change has led to warmer temperatures, leading to skewed sex ratios—more females than males.
8. Only one in a thousand turtles makes it to adulthood
Naturalists have found that of a thousand eggs that hatch, only one turtle reaches adulthood. As the hatchlings make their way from the nest to the ocean, they fall prey to birds and other animals. Even in the ocean, they are targeted by predatory fish. Harsh lights, sounds, and human activity at the beach endanger the eggs as well as the hatchlings as they make their way back to the ocean.
Human activity also endangers adult turtles. They are hunted for consumption and for their body parts (including shells) in many parts of the world. They also get entangled in nets meant for catching fish. Coastal redevelopment, pollution, and increased activity at the shore lead to habitat loss and threaten their survival.
The IUCN Red List, which determines a species’ conservation status, classifies loggerhead, olive ridley, and leatherback turtles as Vulnerable; green turtles as Endangered; and the Kemp’s ridley and hawksbill as Critically Endangered (the most severe category for a living species).
Turtle conservation projects around the world focus on demarcating exclusive hatchery zones to provide undisturbed nesting for turtles during nesting season. Efforts are also being undertaken to reduce unnecessary human activities, pollution, and illegal fishing that harm turtle numbers. We can each contribute in our own small ways—raise awareness and be a responsible turtle warrior.
In the coastal village of Tonka, nestled between cliffs and waves, 10-year-old Chilu was spending her holidays at her Aaji’s cosy old house on a low cliff, overlooking the sea.
Every evening, as Aaji made snacks with tea, Chilu sat on the verandah swing, legs swaying and nose buried in one of Aaji’s fascinating books about animals and wild places. Aaji had spent years working with forest officials and researchers, helping protect creatures that were often unseen. Her bookshelf was full of field journals, hand-drawn maps, and stories.
One night, as the sky turned inky and the stars twinkled bright, Chilu spotted something unusual on the beach below. Small dark shapes were slowly pulling themselves ashore.
She squinted. “Turtles?” she whispered, jumping off the swing.
Barefoot, she raced down the narrow path to the beach, the salt breeze in her hair. By the time she reached the sand, the creatures were already digging, flippers flinging soft sand behind them in perfect rhythm.
She ran back up to Aaji, heart pounding. “Aaji, come quick! There are turtles! Big ones! On the beach!”
Aaji chuckled, setting down her cup of tea. “Ah, they’ve come early this year,” she smiled. “Come, let’s go meet our visitors.”
They walked down the cliff hand in hand, and Aaji turned on her torch but kept it low, shielding the beam with her palm.
“These are olive ridley sea turtles,” Aaji whispered as they watched from a respectful distance. “They’ve crossed thousands of kilometres just to come lay eggs here, right on this very beach.”
Chilu gasped, watching the mother turtles dig silently in the sand.
“They always come back to the beach where they were born,” Aaji continued. “Because the sand remembers, it holds their memories.”
Chilu leaned closer. “How do the babies find the sea?”
Aaji pointed to the glimmering moon. “They follow the light of the moon reflected on the water. It’s like a glowing path that tells them where to go.”
She paused, and then added, “Even early in the mornings or on cloudy days, they look for the brightest direction—usually the ocean. But if there are bright lights from buildings, street lamps, or even phone screens, they can get confused and head the wrong way.”
Chilu looked down at her small torch. “So I shouldn’t shine it too much?”
Aaji nodded gently. “Only if you really need to. Just enough to help. Until the stars take over.”
Chilu nodded slowly, still watching. “Can I come tomorrow?”
Aaji grinned. “Of course, I’ll show you how we take care of them.”
The next morning, just after sunrise, Chilu and Aaji walked down the path to the beach hand in hand, where a few volunteers and forest guards were already at work. The sun was still low, casting long shadows across the sand.
Aaji knelt beside a set of faint, crisscrossing tracks.
“Look closely, Chilu. These are from a turtle that came to lay her eggs last night. See the way she dragged her flippers?”
Chilu crouched beside her, nodding in amazement.
The team gently followed the tracks to a spot where the sand looked freshly turned. Aaji explained, “We never dig unless we’re sure. But once we find the nest, we place bamboo markers around it so no one steps on it by mistake.”
They watched as a volunteer carefully placed a small wooden tag into the sand. Aaji read it aloud: “March 14,2025, 93 eggs.”
“Do we always leave the eggs here?” Chilu asked.
“Not always,” Aaji said. “If a nest is too close to the tide or in a spot where dogs might find it, we move it to a safer hatchery nearby. But we try to disturb the nest as little as possible.”
They walked a little further, where another volunteer was fixing a red cloth over a resort’s outdoor light.
“Some of the resorts now help by covering bright lights or using red filters during nesting season,” Aaji told her. “Bright white lights confuse the turtles, remember?”
Chilu nodded. “Just like my torch!”
“Exactly,” Aaji smiled. “And sometimes, when a mother turtle is healthy and calm, we attach a small geo-tracker to her shell. That way, we can learn about her journey across the oceans.”
Chilu’s eyes widened.
“Like a turtle map!”
For the next few weeks, every morning became a new kind of adventure. Chilu carried water bottles for the team, helped count the bamboo markers, and even made her own “Do Not Disturb” and date signs.
She never touched the nests, but she watched everything—careful, quiet, and full of questions.
One soft moonlit evening, Chilu spotted a nest near the rocky path leading to the beach. Aaji had already gone to the other end of the shore with the guards, so Chilu ran home and picked up one of her handmade signs.
She knelt down to place it gently in the sand, when suddenly, the ground near her feet moved.
A tiny flipper poked out. And then another.
“They’re hatching!” she whispered.
She quickly stepped back. As she quietly watched, one by one, dozens of hatchlings began wriggling out, their round eyes blinking under the moon. Most turning instinctively toward the shimmering sea.
But suddenly one hatchling spun the wrong way. It scuttled towards the hill, toward the village, toward the streetlight that hadn’t been switched off.
Chilu’s heart stopped.
She ran up the sandy path.
The shopkeeper, busy closing down for the day, looked up, surprised.
“That light!” Chilu pointed urgently. “It’s confusing the baby turtle. They follow the moon to reach the sea, but your light is too bright!”
The man blinked, and then glanced over her shoulder. He spotted the tiny hatchling, no bigger than his hand, wobbling toward the roadside.
“Ayy, sorry about that, kid,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. “I totally forgot, I’ll turn it off right away.”
He hurried inside and flipped the switch. The street went dark. For a moment, all was still. Then the moonlight gently filled the beach again.
Chilu crouched behind the little turtle, clicking on her small torch and pointing it carefully toward the sea—low and steady.
“This way, little one,” she whispered. “Like Aaji said, only until the stars take over.”
The hatchling paused, and then turned. It followed the gentle light, inching slowly, until the waves embraced it and carried it home.
Aaji returned just in time to see the final ripple melt into the sea. She knelt beside Chilu, placing a warm hand on her shoulder.
“You remembered everything,” she said, voice quiet with pride.
Chilu nodded, her eyes on the waves.“ So did the turtle,” she whispered. “It just needed a little help.”
They sat together for a moment, listening to the hush of the tide.
Aaji smiled. “And if you ever aren’t sure how to help, you ask someone who knows. That’s how we take care of nature—with love and care.”
Chilu beamed and held her Aaji’s hand as they headed back, beneath the shimmering stars guiding them home.
Author’s note:
Olive ridley turtles are one of the smallest sea turtles in the world. In India, they come ashore in large numbers every year to nest on specific beaches along the east and west coasts, including Orissa, Tamil Nadu, Goa, and Karnataka.
But their journey isn’t easy.
Light pollution, plastic waste, beach construction, and curious crowds can all confuse or endanger them, especially the tiny hatchlings that rely on the moon and stars to guide them to the sea.
In places like Tonka (based on real villages in coastal Karnataka), forest guards and local communities work together to protect nests, monitor hatchlings, shield lights, and keep the beaches safe during nesting season.
Just like Chilu, you can help too—by learning, sharing, and caring.
Leopards, known for their adaptability among large carnivores, have long coexisted with human communities across Asia and Africa. In India, they are found in almost every state, inhabiting forests, rugged hills, semi-urban areas, and farms. This high adaptability distinguishes them from other big cats such as lions and tigers, which need significant, undisturbed habitats. Leopards have learned to thrive in diverse environments, including sugarcane fields, tea estates, orchards, and city outskirts. For generations, rural people saw leopards as an integral, sometimes feared, part of their environment. Encountering a leopard or its pugmarks was not always a sign of danger; it was simply part of life in landscapes shared by humans and wildlife.
Over the past two decades, technological advancements have significantly altered the way humans and leopards coexist. The widespread use of surveillance devices, such as camera traps, CCTV, and smartphones, along with the extensive reach of social media, has altered the way wildlife encounters are perceived and understood. A leopard seen crossing a road, resting, or drinking water can now be instantly photographed, uploaded, and shared. What might have gone unnoticed once can now go viral, often with sensational headlines and alarmist comments. This evolving perception has transformed the image of the leopard from a silent neighbour to a potential threat, marking a shift from coexistence to conflict in many areas.
Shared landscapes
Leopards have historically shown remarkable resilience and adaptability. Their ability to survive in fragmented habitats and areas heavily altered by humans is largely thanks to their stealth, nocturnal habits, and highly versatile diet. Unlike tigers, which primarily depend on wild ungulates and dense forests, leopards can survive on smaller prey and quickly adapt to available food sources, such as livestock, feral dogs, and pigs, where wild prey is limited. This opportunistic feeding behaviour allows them to thrive in environments that are unsuitable for many other large carnivores.
Invisibility plays a crucial role in maintaining coexistence. Leopards are often called “the ghosts of the forest” because they can remain unseen even near human settlements. For centuries, rural villagers were aware of their presence through indirect signs, such as tracks, scat, or occasional livestock kills, but seldom saw the animals directly. This invisibility created a psychological buffer, encouraging tolerance. People considered leopards as part of the environment without needing daily reminders of their closeness.
Cultural beliefs have historically fostered coexistence. In many regions of India, leopards feature in folklore, mythology, and local religious stories. Some communities view them as incarnations of local deities or guardians of sacred groves. This cultural acceptance reduced fear, enabling humans and leopards to coexist peacefully without ongoing conflict.
Increasing visibility
Camera traps, introduced in the 1990s, transformed wildlife research by offering ecologists unprecedented insights into elusive species, including their movement, population, and behavioural patterns. Created for scientific purposes, these devices have now spread beyond research, complemented by the rapid growth of CCTV networks in urban and rural areas. Although these technologies have enhanced our understanding and management of wildlife, they have also diminished the invisibility that once allowed for peaceful coexistence.
In the digital age, visibility often signals threat. A leopard spotted on camera is no longer just a sign of biodiversity; it is frequently viewed as a security risk. Each new sighting or video can potentially cause panic, especially when shared widely on social media. News outlets often sensationalise these events, showing dramatic footage with alarming headlines. This creates a cycle of fear: greater visibility leads to more anxiety, prompting public demands for authorities to capture or eliminate the animals. Over time, this reduces acceptance and increases hostility, even among communities that have coexisted peacefully with leopards for generations.
Examples from across India clearly demonstrate this change. In Mumbai, for example, leopards that live within and near Sanjay Gandhi National Park have coexisted with over two million residents for a long time. Scientific research indicates that these leopards are skilled at avoiding humans and mainly feed on stray dogs. However, with CCTV cameras now present on almost every street and in every compound, every leopard movement is recorded and shared online. Even non-threatening sightings can cause public concern, with residents calling for the immediate capture or relocation of leopards, despite evidence suggesting that translocated leopards often return or cause new conflicts elsewhere.
In rural areas of Maharashtra and Gujarat, sugarcane fields have become crucial habitats for leopards. These dense plantations provide shelter for females with cubs and an abundance of prey, including small mammals and dogs. Traditionally, local farmers have accepted this coexistence. However, videos showing leopards emerging from these fields often go viral on social media, where they are seen as threats. Such portrayals stigmatise local communities living near these animals, labelling them as residents of ‘danger zones’ and leading to unnecessary wildlife interventions.
In the hill regions of Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh, leopards have lived alongside mountain communities for hundreds of years. However, modern technology has shifted how these interactions are perceived. Incidents that once seemed isolated or manageable now attract widespread media coverage, fuelling the idea of a growing ‘leopard threat’. Every attack or sighting is rapidly turned into a spectacle, often ignoring the ecological and social factors involved in human-leopard relations.
The growth of social media has also significantly changed how wildlife is discussed publicly. Leopard sightings are no longer confined to local news; they go viral and are widely shared, often losing ecological details. This digital spread has three main effects. First, it fosters the view of leopards as dangerous intruders, even if they aren’t truly threatening. Second, it increases public pressure on forest officials to respond quickly, often through capturing, relocating, or killing the animals instead of supporting long-term coexistence. And third, it sustains harmful stereotypes that obscure the vital ecological functions of leopards as top predators and managers of prey populations.
Rethinking coexistence
Despite their controversial reputation, leopards play a vital role in ecosystem stability, even in areas altered by human activities. By hunting feral dogs, pigs, and herbivores, they regulate populations that could otherwise threaten crops, spread diseases, or outcompete native species. In farmland regions, their presence indirectly supports farmers by lowering crop damage from herbivores. Ecologically, leopards serve as barometers of environmental health, as their continued presence indicates healthy predator-prey dynamics and sufficient prey populations. The disappearance of leopards from these areas would suggest wider ecological decline and diminished ecosystem resilience.
The primary issue today is not removing leopards from human areas, but instead changing human attitudes toward coexistence. While technology has sometimes increased fear, it can also support conservation. Essential strategies include media outlets practising ethical reporting with ecological context and avoiding sensationalism. Community awareness programs can educate residents about leopard behaviour and provide them with proper responses to encounters. Tools such as camera traps and GPS collars should be employed to promote understanding, focusing on scientific facts rather than fearmongering. Additionally, sharing stories of successful coexistence where leopards and people share space peacefully can challenge negative perceptions.
At the policy level, wildlife authorities should transition from reactive approaches, such as indiscriminate capture, to proactive coexistence strategies that emphasise education, monitoring, and conflict prevention. This involves enhancing livestock protection, restoring wild prey populations, and encouraging livelihood incentives that foster tolerance. By combining technology, educational efforts, and traditional ecological knowledge, it is possible to maintain landscapes that benefit both human communities and leopard populations.
Leopards have coexisted with humans for centuries, adapting to various environmental challenges. Recently, the change isn’t in leopard behaviour but in how they are perceived, shaped by technology, media, and fear. In an era of omnipresent surveillance, leopards are no longer invisible, leading to reduced tolerance and coexistence. Recognising their ecological role and improving public understanding are crucial for restoring harmony. By leveraging technology as a tool for connection rather than division, communities can help ensure leopards remain vital parts of shared habitats, embodying resilience and coexistence rather than conflict.
Further Reading Athreya, V., M. Odden, J. D. C. Linnell and K. U. Karanth. 2016. A cat among the dogs: Leopard (Panthera pardus) diet in a human-dominated landscape in western Maharashtra, India. Oryx 50(1): 156–162. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0030605314000106.
Surve, N. S., S. Sathyakumar, K. Sankar, D. Jathanna, V. Gupta and V. Athreya. 2022. Leopards in the city: The tale of Sanjay Gandhi National Park and Tungareshwar Wildlife Sanctuary, two protected areas in and adjacent to Mumbai, India. Frontiers in Conservation Science 3: 787031. https://doi.org/10.3389/fcosc.2022.787031.
Despite global nature conservation and restoration targets, and the implementation of numerous conservation actions around the world, the decline in biodiversity continues. Conservation and restoration initiatives offer promising solutions, but we need them to be more effective, implemented on a greater scale, across biomes, populations, and to last well into the future.
So how can we get pockets of good practice to catch on and spread (i.e., scale), in order for conservation initiatives to have the necessary positive, lasting impact around the world? Over the past ten years, we (the Catalysing Conservation team) have been working to uncover what makes different conservation initiatives scale. Here we present five of our top tips for scaling, based on case studies from around the world.
ONE: INITIATIVES SHOULD BE COMPATIBLE WITH THE LIVES OF LOCAL PEOPLE, REFLECTING THEIR NEEDS AND ASPIRATIONS
Imagine being told that the vegetable patch in your garden needs to be replaced with wildflowers. Wildflowers are pretty, but the vegetable patch provides food for your family and lowers your grocery bill. You are reluctant to adopt the new practice because it is not compatible with your current needs. One of our key findings was that compatibility of initiatives with local practices motivates people to adopt conservation programmes. This includes, for example, the degree to which the initiative is consistent with peoples’ values, past experiences, and needs.
The Cairngorms National Park stretches across mountains, moorlands, and forest in northeastern Scotland, and supports rare and diverse species such as the golden eagle and red squirrel. The area is also home to landholders, including local farmers and gamekeepers. These landholders can participate in woodland creation schemes and choose to create mixed native woodland on their land in a bid to restore forests.
When we investigated what motivated them to create mixed native woodland on their land, we found they were more likely to do so if they thought woodland was compatible with what they used their land for. Arable farmers, for example, were generally against planting trees on fields with good soils to grow crops, as this could lead to a loss of income. However, changes in farming practices with the use of larger farm machinery had, in many cases, created “dead corners”—areas of the field where tractors and harvesters turn. Many farmers saw these uncropped areas as ideal for woodland creation.
We find similar results across different initiatives and geographical locations. In a study that explored peoples’ motivations to adopt a community-based conservation programme across five separate initiatives, compatibility of the programme to fit with local customs was often highlighted as critical for adoption. “Each and every location has their own customs,” said one participant. “An approach that works in one village doesn’t necessarily work in the other.”
TWO: THE COSTS AND BENEFITS OF AN INITIATIVE MUST BALANCE TO HAVE OVERALL BENEFITS FOR PARTICIPANTS
Before investing time or money into a new project or habit, you will likely have weighed up the pros and cons and decided that your investment is worthwhile. Participating in a conservation initiative is similar, and initiatives have a wide range of potential benefits and costs. It is not one specific benefit that drives engagement, but the overall benefits that influence adoption.
Locally Managed Marine Areas (LMMAs) are areas under Indigenous protection, where communities set fishing rules to help protect and restore the marine ecosystem. In Madagascar, for example, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) which support LMMA implementation give livestock (chickens and goats) to participants, to compensate for any loss of earning from fishing restrictions. Villagers identified these economic benefits as important in their decision to adopt the initiative. However, they also highlighted inequalities in livestock distribution across the community, which led to conflict. Initiative design should therefore reflect local perceptions of fairness. In this case, both fishers and non-fishers believed that livestock should be distributed to everyone in the community, not just to fishers.
Benefits are not fixed and may change over time and across geographical regions, as an initiative spreads. Territorial Use Rights for Fisheries (TURFs), like LMMAs, are marine areas where a group has exclusive fishing rights, but with fishing organisations leading their management. In Chile, fishing organisations were initially motivated to adopt TURF programmes for economic reasons. However, over time other benefits like marine tenure and status became more important.
THREE: DESIGNING INITIATIVES THAT RESPOND TO PEOPLE’S MOTIVATIONS FOR ENGAGING IN THEM WILL SUPPORT ADOPTION
We are all motivated by different things. It follows then, that different people will engage in conservation initiatives for a variety of reasons.
The Atlantic Forest in Brazil is a biodiversity hotspot, which is crucial for safeguarding for future generations. One aim of restoration initiatives here is to incentivise landholders to plant trees on their land. However, we have found differences between what motivates large and small landholders to participate in this region. For example, large landholders with an average of 500 hectares of land (equivalent to more than 700 football fields) participated in restoration initiatives to comply with environmental legislation. And uncertainty over changes to legislation by future governments hindered the participation of some large landholders. Moreover, certain carbon offsetting programmes offered incentives that resulted in higher earnings than if the land was not used for restoration.
In contrast, smallholders were motivated by the compatibility of the initiative with their existing land use. Many smallholders rely on cattle ranching for income, and they perceived restoration as interfering with the use of land for cattle grazing. “People […] depend on the space on the property for income (from grazing),” said one smallholder who had not participated in the restoration initiative, “so they are afraid that they would lose this space (to restoration).” It was not only the immediate benefit that mattered, but also how secure that benefit would be in the future.
FOUR: LONG-TERM AND QUALITY EXTERNAL SUPPORT IS KEY
External support, such as covering start-up costs, hosting workshops, facilitating engagement with other actors, and other forms of extended support are often provided by NGOs and external agencies when restoration and conservation initiatives begin. We found that such support is key to helping people adopt an initiative. In Brazil’s Atlantic Forest, NGOs provide financial support for both small and large landholders who participate in a restoration programme. This support was key for landholders to engage—none of the landholders we interviewed could afford to fully fund the programme on their land and only 3 percent of landholders had invested some of their own money to get started. Aside from financial support, the NGOs provided training on forest plot management for smallholders, and linked large landholders with companies that could carry out the restoration work for them.
Extended support was also key to the spread of five community-based conservation initiatives across Namibia, Nepal, Fiji, Madagascar, and Chile. “I think the presence of an outside supporting organisation is very, very important […],” said one interviewee. Yet, the support must be targeted to community needs. People reported that they felt communities were not always provided with the support they needed, or that opportunities for training were missed: “[…] our fishermen know nothing about monitoring samples […]. It is so sad for me because I saw a lot of money go by, and I think we could have done a lot better,” said another interviewee. Similarly, we must ensure it is the community, and not the overarching organisations, who benefit from the support. “One of the many problems is that the external funding is going to NGOs, rather than to communities, because the communities […] don’t have a bank account,” reported a different interviewee.
Therefore, organisations must provide quality support, be trusted, and be there for the long term as initiatives scale.
FIVE: LEARNING FROM PEERS CAN DRIVE AN INITIATIVE TO SCALE
Peer-to-peer learning and seeing others around you succeed are important factors motivating people to participate in conservation and restoration initiatives.
Smallholders in Gujarat, India, commonly cultivate cotton and pulses on their land. Restoration schemes in the area support the planting of native trees on their farmland. We asked farmers who engage in the scheme what motivated them to participate, and asked those who didn’t engage what prevented them from doing so. Farmers reported that seeing outcomes of fellow farmers helped them decide whether to participate. This peer-to-peer learning happened for both positive outcomes (helping the initiative to spread), and also when the outcome was negative. “I don’t think it is viable based on the experiences of other farmers near me […],” one farmer said, suggesting that he wouldn’t participate because of poor outcomes experienced by his neighbours.
In Fiji, learning from others also seems to have been key to the spread of a local initiative. The Fiji Locally Managed Marine Areas (FLMMA) Network supports villages with the design and implementation of fishing plans that account for the needs of the community, as well as the environment. We found that nearly 75 percent of participants had a nearest neighbour who had also participated in the network. This suggested adoption is driven, in part, by peer-to-peer learning. Learning can be organic, or encouraged through facilitated exchange processes, or by designing moments of learning within the adoption process. Peer learning can be a powerful way in which ideas spread.
Critically, not all conservation initiatives can or should be scaled. In fact, scaling certain programmes may be harmful. Pressures to scale can incentivise poor practice and exclusion of local communities. This can lead to abandonment of the initiative in the long term, harm to local livelihoods, economic instability, and rise of conflict between communities. Thus, before planning for scale, we must carefully consider whether an initiative should be implemented at scale, and the impact scaling may have on others. By choosing the right initiatives to scale, we can support both ecosystems and the communities that rely on them.
Understanding what motivates people to adopt conservation initiatives is vital to help conservation succeed around the world. Our research provides insights that can guide practitioners when designing initiatives that can scale, while delivering benefits to people and nature. For example, proactively addressing factors such as compatibility of an initiative or its benefits, and facilitating peer-to-peer learning, will ultimately help the initiative to succeed in the future.
Further Reading
Jagadish, A., A. Freni-Sterrantino, Y. He, T. O’ Garra, L. Gecchele, S. Mangubhai, H. Govan et al. 2024. Scaling Indigenous-led natural resource management.Global Environmental Change 84: 102799. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102799.
Joglekar, A., A. Jagadish, C.B. Jardim, L. Cullen, A. Souza, T. Pienkowski, R. M. Chiaravalloti et al. 2025. Landholders’ engagement in restoring Brazil’s Atlantic Forest is linked with livelihood compatibility and legal compliance. International Forestry Review 27(S1).
Lewis-Brown, E., H. Beatty, K. Davis, A. Rabearisoa, J. Ramiaramanana, R. M. Ewers and M. Mills. 2025. Improvements for better scaling of locally managed marine areas. Conservation Biology 39(5): e70091. https://doi.org/10.1111/cobi.70091.
Lewis‐Brown, E., H. Beatty, K. Davis, A. Rabearisoa, J. Ramiaramanana, M. B. Mascia and M. Mills. The importance of future generations and conflict management in conservation. 2021. Conservation Science and Practice 3(9): e488. https://doi.org/10.1111/csp2.488.
Mills, M., M. V. Touchon, E. Denis, S. Milligan, Y. Zuffetti, Z. Ahmad, Z. Husain et al. 2025. Scaling out community conservation initiatives: experts identify economic and social benefits, compatibility with needs, and external support as key. Conservation Letters 18(3): e13100. https://doi.org/10.1111/conl.13100.
Pienkowski, T., A. Jagadish, W. Battista, G. C. Blaise, A. P. Christie, M, Clark, A. P. Emenyu et al. 2024. Five lessons for avoiding failure when scaling in conservation. Nature Ecology & Evolution 8: 1804–1814. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-024-02507-4.
Picture a leech, a tick, or a tapeworm. You probably flinched. Most people associate parasites with harm and disease. This is largely due to how parasites are depicted in the media, with mainly highly (human) pathogenic species causing problems making it to the spotlight. But the story is more complex than that.
A parasite is an animal, plant, fungus, single-celled organism, virus, or bacterium that causes some harm to another species in or on which it lives—the host—and which needs it to complete its life cycle. The host-parasite relationship can ecologically be classified as “antagonistic”, though in comparison to true predators (for example, a tiger) they typically only have a single victim in each life stage. About 99.9 percent of animal parasite species are found in/on wildlife, leaving humans and domesticated animals untouched. You can breathe a sigh of relief.
Most parasites don’t kill their hosts, as they rely on them. Many parasites are so well adapted to their host that they do not even cause disease. More often than not, it is in their best interest to keep the host alive. After all, the host means a house and a meal for the parasite. However, some parasites need to move to a new host to continue their life cycle and to do so some may let their current host—that served its purpose already—be eaten by the next host.
Bright side
In fact, parasites can be beneficial to host individuals, populations, and ecosystems. But since the ecological roles of parasites are complex, the benefits for one species can mean harm to another. Host individuals benefit from the exposure to parasites because this enhances the development of the immune system, and may reduce the risk of autoimmune diseases and mitigate the infection by other parasites. Also, some parasites such as spiny-headed worms remove heavy metals and other toxic pollutants from the host.
Parasites can regulate the growth of animal or plant populations. Without them, some populations might grow unchecked and disrupt the ecosystem balance. For example, the crab hacker barnacle (Sacculina carcini) surgically castrates the introduced European green crab (Carcinus maenas). This makes infected crabs infertile and unable to become “weedy”. However, the same parasite also reduces native populations of flatback mud crabs (Eurypanopeus depressus), affecting the ecosystem services these crabs provide.
Exotic species, which also unbalance ecosystems, are slowed or hampered by parasites when they arrive to new areas. For example, the blister rust (a parasitic fungus) affects the exotic white pine more severely than the native European pine. This prevented the exotic pine from North America from invading forests in Europe.
Parasites can also lead to the coexistence of different species. For example, normally the confused flour beetle (Tribolium confusum) is decimated by the red flour beetle (T. castaneum). But when a single-celled coccidian parasite infects them, the red flour beetle is debilitated and preys on fewer confused flour beetles. With the parasite in play, both beetles are able to share the same environment.
Certain parasites have the ability to manipulate host appearance and behaviour, favouring predation of infected hosts with consequences at ecosystem level. For example, infected crickets are induced by horsehair worms in their intestine to seek water and throw themselves in ponds and rivers. This allows the worm to swim away and complete its life cycle. Meanwhile, fish can enjoy a free “home delivered” cricket lunch. This forges a connection between terrestrial and freshwater food-webs, boosting the flow of energy through the ecosystem.
While parasites can deliver food, they can also be a food source themselves, with their mass sometimes exceeding that of free-living organisms. For example, crabs eat the larval stages of flukes (a group of flatworms), which are an important part of their diet.
Parasites can also be useful for science. Researchers can use parasites as indicators of environmental quality. For example, laboratory analysis of spiny-headed worms in fish can warn us about lead contamination in water. Parasites can be used as biological tags to reconstruct host population histories. For instance, the DNA of flukes revealed the migratory origins of populations of steelhead trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss irideus). And parasites can also be a potential source of medical compounds. For example, the anticoagulant hirudin was isolated from leeches.
Knock-on effects If parasites disappear, we will also lose their important effects on host individuals, populations, and ecosystems, as well as their future use for research and medicine. Habitat loss, pollution, introduced or invasive species, and climate change are all threats to both free-living and parasitic organisms. In addition, parasites also face threats from the decline or extinction of their hosts. Many endangered species are those with a close relationship with another species, such as parasites and mutualists (including pollinators).
When available host individuals are scarce, transmission of parasites may not be sufficient to keep a viable parasite population. Two outcomes are then possible: switch to another host and thrive, or follow the host’s decline and eventually go extinct. Generalists and parasites needing a single host species for their entire lifecycle might be able to leave the sinking boat, but specialists and parasites needing multiple host species for different life stages are more likely to be doomed.
Parasite extinction may sound like good news for host individuals. But it is certainly bad news for populations and ecosystems. Think of the horsehair worm again: if it disappears, crickets would safely avoid water. A field experiment in Japan showed the cascading effects of this. With crickets out of the menu, fish started predating aquatic invertebrates. Because of the increased predation, aquatic invertebrates declined by two-thirds. Fewer invertebrates ate less algae. As a result, algae were able to proliferate. And so, the entire aquatic community was reorganised as a consequence of the missing horsehair worm!
About 3–5 percent of parasitic worms are estimated to become extinct in the next 50 years. These estimates might be optimistic, since they only consider known parasitic species. However, because of their tiny size and hidden lifestyle, many parasite species are yet to be discovered. It is extremely sad that some parasites may be forever lost before being found, described and named by parasitologists. Another sad truth is that even known parasite species are still not well understood. Most parasitic worm species that are scientifically described are never observed again or studied further. Information on their population size, geographical distribution, temporal trends, and host range is often missing. Therefore, the extinction risk of parasites is largely unknown and hard to quantify.
The conservation status of only two parasitic animals has been formally assessed for the IUCN Red List: the pygmy hog-sucking louse (Haematopinus oliveri) and the Manx Shearwater flea (Ceratophyllus fionnus), both of which are now classified as Critically Endangered. But about 40–70 percent of the 3–10 million estimated species on Earth are parasites, so we have a long road ahead of us!
New hope
Here is the good news: parasite conservation can start now and in great style! We can profit from the experience we gained so far from vertebrate conservation and avoid many mistakes. Also, we can couple parasite conservation with conservation of their hosts, saving resources and making conservation more effective and inclusive.
There’s an example of such co-conservation from Belgium. While breeding the endangered European weatherfish (Misgurnus fossilis) to release them back into the wild, three parasitic flatworms were found on their skin or gills. These flatworms were previously suggested to be endangered in Eastern Europe. When fish populations were kept under captive conditions imitating natural ones, the infection remained low and did not negatively affect the fish population. And since infection did not hamper fish conservation, the three potentially endangered flatworms were allowed to persist alongside their host. This was done simply by avoiding worm-killing treatments and providing fish with living conditions that avoid high numbers of parasites.
But while co-conservation is a reasonable win-win solution for endangered albeit harmless parasites, it will be more challenging to decide whether to conserve a pathogenic parasite of an endangered host. These cases need to be individually considered as there is no one-size-fits-all solution.
We need to take three necessary steps to advance parasite conservation. First, we need baseline data on the existence and occurrence of as many parasite species as possible. To assess extinction risk, we need to know whether a parasite is declining over time or across regions, and why. A Red List of threatened parasites will help determine and prioritise species for conservation. Second, collaboration with conservation experts should be encouraged. The above example illustrates an ongoing collaboration between parasitologists and fish conservation practitioners.
Third, we need to gain the support of the general public, which has been shown to positively influence conservation outcomes. Knowing how people perceive parasites would help us better communicate the importance of parasite conservation. The World Archives of Species Perception-Parasites (WASP-P) is an ongoing project that aims to understand what traits make a parasite species appealing, potentially choosing flagship species for initial public engagement, and to test whether public perception is linked to knowledge on parasites. The ultimate goal is to advise on how to switch from negative to positive perception by better communicating the critical role of parasites in the ecosystem.
And after reading this article, you will hopefully see beauty and value in these hidden creatures, knowing they are overlooked heroes.
Further Reading Carlson, C. J., S. Hopkins, K. C. Bell, J.Doña, S. S. Godfrey, M. L. Kwak, K. D. Lafferty, M. L. Moir, K. A. Speer, G. Strona, M. Torchin and C. L. Wood. 200 A global parasite conservation plan. Biological Conservation 250:108596.
Truter, M., B. C. Schaeffner and N. J. Smit. 2025. Aquatic parasite conservation. In: Aquatic Parasitology: Ecological and Environmental Concepts and Implications of Marine and Freshwater Parasites (eds. Smit, N. J. and B. Sures). Pp. 325-360. Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland.
Wood, C. L. and P. T. Johnson. 2015. A world without parasites: Exploring the hidden ecology of infection. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 13(8): 425–434.
Although beautiful, with colourful stripes and fan-like fins, lionfish (from the genus Pterois) are among the world’s most successful invasive species. Originally from the warm waters of the Indo-Pacific, two of the 12 species of Pterois—the red lionfish (P. volitans) and the common lionfish (P. miles)—have rapidly colonised much of the western Atlantic, including the Caribbean. Here they are known for outcompeting native species and disrupting local ecosystems, with the lack of natural predators in their new environments allowing their populations to grow uncontrollably.
Rising ocean temperatures in the Mediterranean are mirroring conditions of the Indo-Pacific, allowing lionfish to thrive in places they couldn’t before. It’s believed that they got here via the Suez Canal, an artificial waterway connecting the Mediterranean with the Red Sea. It’s one of the busiest and most important marine trade routes but also serves as the primary pathway for marine bio-invasions into the Mediterranean.
Lionfish were first documented in the eastern Mediterranean around 2012. Within three years, they spread to Tunisia and Greece, and by 2021 they had reached Croatia, over 1,000 km away. Another factor aiding their spread is ‘prey naïveté’—native species, unfamiliar with lionfish as predators, fail to recognise the danger, making them easy targets.
A recent study by Emma Mitchell and Victoria Dominguez Almela, from the University of Southampton, assessed the distribution of the common lionfish (P. miles) in the Mediterranean and how far they might spread in the future. To do this, they used two key methods: (1) Spatial Distribution Models that predict the current range of lionfish using data on their known locations, combined with environmental factors (such assalinity and temperature) to predict where else they might be found (2) Ecological Niche Models that identify environmental conditions that make an area suitable for the species and use climate predictions to forecast where lionfish are likely to thrive.
The study authors used two climate change scenarios, called Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP), to predict the likelihood of lionfish invasion under future climates. RCPs show how climate could change based on different levels of greenhouse gas emissions. For example, if emissions continue to rise at the current unprecedented rate, we could face extreme global warming (RCP 8.5), while cutting emissions could lead to more moderate warming (RCP 4.5). They used machine learning techniques to map out potential areas at risk of lionfish invasion under each scenario.
An emerging threat
The models predicted that lionfish are likely to spread widely across most Mediterranean coasts, except Libya and northern Egypt. By 2040–50, their distribution could expand into the southeastern Mediterranean, with some spread into western areas. In the worst-case climate scenario (RCP 8.5), nearly the entire Mediterranean could become suitable for lionfish by the end of the century. High-risk areas include southern Greece, Turkey, and the Strait of Sicily. Predictions show a shift north and east by 2090–2100, especially in the RCP 8.5 scenario.
Lionfish have already caused considerable damage to ecosystems in the western Atlantic, and, if left unchecked, will do the same in the Mediterranean. However, the Mediterranean invasion is still in its early stages, meaning there’s time to act before lionfish become established and harder to control.
The good news is that Cyprus is already leading the charge. More than 35,000 lionfish have been removed from their waters through spear fishing. Combining these efforts with natural processes that keep lionfish populations in check, including predators and pathogens, could make an even bigger impact. This might involve protecting natural predators of lionfish that help control their populations. And creating markets for lionfish in the seafood and jewelry industries could ultimately make removal efforts more sustainable.
Entirely preventing this invasion in the Mediterranean may be challenging. However, accurate species distribution and prediction models can help manage their spread and are the first steps to slowing it down. Cyprus’ actions show that these conservation management efforts will pay off.
If you notice a lionfish or another unusual species, it might be invasive—report it to local wildlife authorities or upload a photo to iNaturalist. Citizen scientists play an important role in collecting biodiversity information and could even help detect new invasions in time to take action.
Further Reading
Mitchell, E. and V. Dominguez Almela. 2024. Modelling the rise of invasive lionfish in the Mediterranean. Marine Biology 172: 18. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00227-024-04580-6.
He’s a nice tan with white front stockings, a white bib, and a happy white-tipped tail. When he sees me, his ears flatten excitedly, his tail wags itself into a blur as he jumps up at my face, and his dark, liquid eyes brim with friendliness. He religiously accompanies me to and from the field station in Mudumalai Tiger Reserve at meal times, waiting patiently outside or next to me on the veranda while I eat. In between, he settles down outside my door to bark at passing cows, goats, langurs, and other dogs, and alerts me to the field station staff who’ve worked here for years entering their own room next to mine.
As a nod to the cheap price of this devotion, I’ve temporarily named him Biscuit. As a companion, he is undoubtedly affectionate and easy to like; as a study animal, he’s quite unsuitable, because he’d happily let anyone remove any GPS collar I place on him without protest. But why would a wildlife ecology student be collaring dogs?
On a personal level, I’m fond of animals and dogs in particular. As a kid, I used to pet any and all street dogs I came across. When we later adopted our own dog, I was the one who trained her, trimmed her fur, and walked her on the beach. I even borrowed books from the school library about dog training, behaviour, and sensory abilities—not quite common reading fare for a 13-year-old. I toyed with the idea of becoming a veterinarian, but ultimately decided against it—I wasn’t too confident about the surgery bit. Since my fondness for animals encompassed wild ones as well, it was natural to turn to studying wildlife ecology.
And somewhere along the way, I learned that domestic dogs are, in fact, relevant to wildlife conservation. While I was delighted to discover this bridge between the personal and professional, dogs—specifically free-ranging dogs, or unconstrained and unmonitored dogs—can actually be a serious problem for wildlife.
Man’s best friend, wildlife’s enemy?
The first and most common complaint is predation. Dogs have been companions and protectors for thousands of years, following where humans go; therefore, when humans settle near natural ecosystems, dogs are usually right there with them. The most abundant carnivore on Earth, they have contributed—as invasive predators—to the extinction of 11 vertebrate species. Some dogs have been reported to kill hundreds of individuals of a species, like a German shepherd who killed an estimated 500 kiwis in New Zealand in 1988.
Of course, not all dogs kill in this indiscriminate way. But since dog populations are subsidised by the food and shelter provided by humans, they can reach considerable sizes. Even occasional hunting can add up to serious damage to an endangered species, if the dog population is large enough. Additionally, the presence of so many human-supported predators means that wild predators must suddenly face strong and well-fed competition, affecting their ecology, behaviour, and perhaps even population size. Even if dogs scavenge rather than hunt, enough of them doing so can result in other animals dependent on the same resources, such as jackals, vultures or foxes, going hungry more often than they otherwise would.
While predation is the most widely reported negative impact, there are several other facets to dog interactions with wildlife. Free-ranging dogs have been known to hybridise with wild canids like wolves and jackals, posing a potential threat to the wild gene pool. While the majority of such reports are from Europe, an Indian wolf-dog hybrid was reported for the first time in 2023 from the savannas near Pune.
Dog populations near wildlife areas may also exacerbate human-wildlife conflict, since many wild species across the world have been documented to prey on dogs, including grey wolves (Europe, Asia, and North America), coyotes (North America), pumas (North and South America), Amur tigers and leopards (Asia), and lions and spotted hyenas (Africa). As a result, large dog populations may attract these predators close to human settlements. Leopards, in particular, have been documented to prey on dogs since the colonial period in India, even entering houses to do so. This could lead to wild predator populations rising sharply, sustained by the abundance of dogs as prey, increasing the risk to humans and livestock; or, conversely, the strong emotional bond between dog and owner could lead to retaliatory killing of wild predators that hunt dogs.
Lastly, dogs may act as reservoir hosts of dangerous, highly contagious diseases, most notably rabies, canine parvovirus, and canine distemper, increasing the chances of transmission to wildlife. For example, in a particularly high profile case, the lion population in the Serengeti dropped by around 30 percent between 1993–94 after an outbreak of canine distemper that was attributed to transmission from domestic dogs.
The Indian context India hosts one of the largest dog populations in the world, of which a majority is and has historically been free-ranging—British complaints about ‘pariah’ dogs thronging the streets of colonial India are not difficult to find. Dogs are also more likely to be free-ranging in rural areas than urban areas, and India’s wealth of diverse wildlife is inevitably never too far away from a rural human settlement, given the size of our human population. Therefore, free-ranging dogs have and will continue to interact with wildlife near protected area boundaries.
Are dogs a problem for Indian wildlife, then?
The answer, it turns out, depends on the socio-ecological context. Despite the many ways in which dogs can potentially affect wildlife, studies abroad have found that dogs might pose anything from a dire threat to no threat, depending on the ecology of the wild species in question, density of the dog population in the area, and level of care and food the dogs receive. In the Americas, for example, dogs were found to pose no threat to the common, widespread white-tailed deer, but a potentially severe one to the vulnerable, restricted southern pudu (a small South American deer), as they were encouraged by their owners to kill wildlife. The case studies that are so detrimental to dogs’ ecological reputation are from relatively limited literature when compared to similar research that exists for, say, feral cats. There is sizable scope for studies that go beyond merely identifying impacts to investigating their severity and persistence, with explicit reference to local ecological context.
In India, published research that quantifies the impact of dogs on wildlife is mainly from two landscapes: the Trans-Himalayan mountains (specifically Spiti and Ladakh) and the grasslands of Maharashtra. In the Trans-Himalayas, food availability fluctuates seasonally—restaurants and hotels open in summer to cater to tourists and close in the harsh winters, leaving free-ranging dogs with no alternative food sources. In their search for food, dogs have been documented to form large feral packs, attacking and killing endangered wildlife, valuable livestock, and even humans. They remain a persistent threat in this landscape.
In Maharashtra, studies near the Great Indian Bustard Sanctuary found that dogs influence which parts of the landscape Indian foxes use, as well as how vigilant the foxes are while foraging, potentially increasing the energy cost of foraging. One disease-focused study also found that canine distemper virus, parvovirus, and adenovirus are all enzootic (self-sustained) in dog populations in the area. Indian foxes, on the other hand, were somewhat susceptible to parvovirus and adenovirus, and highly susceptible to canine distemper virus, with high rates of mortality. Dogs could therefore play a role in transmitting these diseases to foxes in the area.
Additionally, a large-scale survey-based study on domestic dog attacks on wildlife in India found that dogs have attacked 80 wild species across the country, with most of these incidents occurring near protected areas.
However, we still have very few multidimensional studies that focus on other landscapes in India. While dogs are certainly likely to negatively impact wildlife, a much larger foundation of scientific evidence about how exactly they affect specific ecosystems or species is sorely needed to evaluate the overall risk that they pose to Indian wildlife.
Management woes Dog management in wildlife adjacent areas is complex, not only because of the range of ecological issues—from predation and disease to hybridisation—that must be addressed, but because of the socioecological context of dog keeping as well. Different cultures have vastly different attitudes towards dogs and dog keeping practices.
In most Western cultures, for instance, dogs are either pets or working dogs, and are the property of their owner. As strays exist outside this boundary, they can be euthanised as a matter of course, depending on local laws. In these countries, wildlife-related dog management includes policies such as compulsory leashing near sensitive wildlife areas, specific dog-friendly trails in national parks, or restricting dogs to human-use areas like camping grounds or visitor centres. Where trained dogs are used for hunting, the extent to which they are involved (only chasing versus actually killing) is usually regulated for humane reasons. In such cases, managing dog impacts on wildlife can be done by targeting the dog’s owner—for example, implementing educational programmes to facilitate behavioural change of the owner.
On the other hand, free-ranging dogs that belong to no one (feral dogs), everyone (community/village dogs), or even to a single owner, are widespread and particularly abundant in developing countries. Such dogs can sometimes fall under multiple of these categories, and pose a much more nuanced—and therefore difficult—problem to solve. On an individual level, with respect to owned free-ranging dogs, many people like having a loyal, furry friend around; a farmer or jeep driver or shopkeeper from a village near a protected area can certainly love their dogs just as much as someone in a metropolitan city apartment.
Dog keeping can also be a matter of survival, since dogs in rural areas are usually kept to herd and protect livestock, chase crop-raiding wildlife away from farms, or alert their owner to the presence of wildlife near homes. In this role, they may help reduce human-wildlife conflict by averting incidents of livestock lifting, crop loss or even human death. Does this balance out the increased presence of wild predators that come to prey on dogs? We don’t know, but the bottom line is that simply telling people living near protected areas not to keep dogs, or even to keep their dogs permanently caged or leashed, is not a viable solution to dog-wildlife issues when free-ranging dogs help protect people’s families and livelihoods.
On a broader level, emotions tend to run high when dog management is discussed. Though Indian laws only allow Animal Birth Control (ABC) or surgical sterilisation as a legal form of population control, “We should just kill all the dogs!” is repeated vehemently and often in conservation circles. While there is assuredly good reason to say that dogs should be removed from wildlife-sensitive areas with endangered species, and humane euthanasia should remain an option in the absence of any others, culling is not sustainable in the long term and will increase the rate of population turnover as adult dogs are removed. As the proportion of young increases, and dogs from nearby populations move in, the spread of disease can increase because contagious diseases are often more prevalent in younger animals and immigrating dogs may carry new pathogens. This is not only a risk to dogs and wildlife, but an issue of public health for humans, especially in an India burdened by a high rabies caseload.
What then is a solution? People concerned for animal welfare, whether conservationists or not, usually advocate for ABC and vaccination programmes, but these require effort, personnel facilities, and long-term funding to be even slightly effective. These resources are not easily accessible in rural India. The issue remains a bitterly contested one with no easy answers, and suggestions from scientists can be overshadowed by public perception of which side of the issue they land on.
Sniffing out coexistence Unaware of the political nature of his existence, Biscuit trots ahead as we step out for breakfast. On the way, he barks at langurs, chasing them up trees, before returning to me with a proudly wagging tail. Last week, a friend at the field station showed me a photo of a dead langur, the corpse covered with flies. “Killed by that pack of black dogs,” he said. I know that pack, and I know they’re owned. Though they too accept the occasional biscuit and pat on the head, they’re overall fiercer and hardier than Biscuit; perhaps understandably, since that household has lost multiple dogs to leopards. The ones that remain do their job, guarding their owner’s cattle, just as Biscuit does his job as self-appointed guardian of my doorstep.
If they see other animals, they chase. If they catch them, they might kill. The outcome is the same, whether they go to the wildlife or the wildlife come to them—both can happen, at these porous village-forest boundaries. Indeed, I would later analyse my GPS collar data to find that owned free-ranging dogs spent 96 percent of their time in human settlements or agricultural fields, with about 98 percent of data points being within 500 metres of the owner’s home. And yet Mudumalai Tiger Reserve has previously been in the press for reports of dogs chasing wild animals. Do you then blame the dog for chasing the deer it sees near its home, the deer for avoiding natural predators by approaching village boundaries, or the humans for building their settlements in the middle of a forest and bringing their dogs with them?
Regardless of whether we see them as affectionate, indispensable companions, or a nuisance and menace to humans and wildlife, the dogs themselves are ultimately just doing what dogs do. It’s up to us to research dog ecology—from movement and disease to behaviour and diet—in the context of natural ecosystems. Learning more about this interface is the only way to eventually be able to implement effective, sustainable management strategies that benefit all the species involved, whether wild or domestic.
Further Reading Gompper, M. E. 2014. Free-ranging dogs and wildlife conservation. New York: Oxford University Press.
Gompper, M. E. 2021. Adding nuance to our understanding of dog–wildlife interactions and the need for management. Integrative and Comparative Biology 61(1): 93–102. https://doi.org/10.1093/icb/icab049.
Young, J. K., K. A. Olson, R. P. Reading, S. Amgalanbaatar, and J. Berger. 2011. Is wildlife going to the dogs? Impacts of feral and free-roaming dogs on wildlife populations. BioScience 61(2):125–132. https://doi.org/10.1525/bio.2011.61.2.7.
Feature image: Painted storks roosting on a Mahua tree inside the Thirupudaimaruthur Birds Conservation Reserve in Tamil Nadu, India
Last year, a team of three women—a sociologist, a field associate, and myself—set out to engage with the residents of Thirupudaimaruthur village, nestled along the banks of the Thamiraparani river in Tamil Nadu’s Tirunelveli district. The village is home to India’s first conservation reserve, the Thirupudaimaruthur Birds Conservation Reserve (TBCR). Thanks to the presence of tall, mature trees and availability of food from the river, the village is a popular nesting and roosting spot for wetland birds, such as painted storks, spot-billed pelicans, and egrets. These birds visit the village for several months each year, establishing a seasonal but deeply rooted ecological relationship with the landscape.
Our study, as part of the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment-Agasthyamalai Community Conservation Centre (ATREE-ACCC), focused on examining the community’s relationship with these birds, perceiving their understanding of conservation, and assessing the feasibility of community-based ecotourism as a potential livelihood opportunity. This required not only structured interviews but also unstructured conversations, observations, and ongoing trust-building with the villagers.
Through our community engagement and observations, we found that for the villagers, conservation meant coexisting with birds and other life forms. They tolerated the strong smell of bird guano and had even given up hunting and the use of firecrackers for the wellbeing of the birds. They considered the birds a source of pride for the village, drawing researchers like us to their community, even though many villagers mistook them as ‘vellinattu paravai’ (foreign migratory birds).
I had assumed that, as women, our identities might make it easier to build trust with the villagers during fieldwork—and in many ways, that assumption turned out to be true. With the support of a few key community members, such as the gatekeeper of the village, the head and secretary of the panchayat (village council), and our field associate—who hailed from the region and had a few local connections—we were able to profile potential participants for interviews and discussions. Such local support proved invaluable and enabled us to ease into conversations.
We formally introduced ourselves to the village through a Self-Help Group meeting, a gathering primarily attended by women. This proved to be a pivotal access point. From the very beginning, the women were warm, curious, and generous with their time. Many were eager to share stories about their village, especially when we approached them during informal group settings. Most women rolled beedis (handmade cigarettes) for a living and typically worked outdoors in small, chatty groups under the shade of trees, in front yards, or on quiet street corners. These natural social settings became perfect sites for open, fluid conversations that offered us rich qualitative insights.
A resident of Thirupudaimaruthur village rolling beedis outside her home along with other women from her family
In contrast to the men in the village, the women were far more vocal about the everyday challenges their community faced. They spoke candidly about issues like water shortages during the rainy season, limited access to sanitation, and the lack of decent income-generating opportunities. Many women also expressed a genuine interest in being trained, and in taking ownership of community-based ecotourism initiatives.
Within a few weeks, we had completed interviews with nearly 50 percent of our target sample—most of them women. However, the next phase of recruiting and retaining male participants proved to be much more difficult.
We initially tried to contact the men in the village using phone numbers collected from the women. We had assumed that scheduling interviews with male family members through the women would be straightforward. However, this proved to be wrong. Most of the men worked in agriculture or traveled to nearby towns for daily-wage jobs. Attempts to reach them at home early in the morning rarely succeeded; many had already left for work, and some were reluctant to participate in an interview at that hour.
The author (first from right) having an informal chat with one of the beedi-rolling social groups
Eventually, we began frequenting the village’s only tea shop, a bustling morning gathering place for many men. They would stop by to sip tea, read the newspaper, and exchange banter before heading off to work. This became an ad hoc recruitment centre for us. We managed to speak to a few men, but the sampling was not representative as not all social groups equally shared that space.
To increase our outreach, we split into two teams. Since we were an odd-numbered group and I could converse in Tamil, I often worked alone. We began calling male participants ahead of time to schedule interviews more deliberately. That’s when we encountered another layer of complexity; many men were only available late in the evenings. And these time slots came with challenges as some men had a routine of drinking alcohol at night. I had to remain alert for signs of intoxication before starting any interviews. I still recall an evening when I had to prematurely end a conversation because the participant was visibly inebriated. Despite being accompanied by a colleague, I didn’t feel safe continuing the conversation.
Engaging young men between the ages of 18 and 30 turned out to be the most challenging part. Many from this age group were either disinterested, shy, or felt that they had little to contribute. A commonly heard refrain was, “My parents know more about the village, the birds, and the temple. You should speak with them instead.”
One young man in particular kept postponing his interview, offering a different excuse each time. Eventually, we had to drop him from the study. Curiously though, he ended up helping us recruit a few of his male friends, encouraging them to participate even as he remained firmly on the sidelines. While he declined to be interviewed, he seemed genuinely interested in listening in on his friend’s sessions.
Surprisingly, some male participants opened up more freely during joint interviews conducted alongside a female family member—usually their wife. The presence of a familiar person appeared to lower their inhibitions, making them more engaged and less guarded. Such incidents highlighted how social comfort and peer validation played subtle roles in male participation.
Even when male participants had confirmed appointments for Sundays, many were not at home when we arrived. Despite repeated follow-ups, the retention rate remained low. What we were able to accomplish with women in a few weeks stretched into months when it came to men. There were a few standout male participants, who spoke deeply about their lives. Some shared vivid childhood memories, such as crossing the river by foot or spending summers outdoors, while a few described working as lifeguards, helping save pilgrims who accidentally fell in the Thamiraparani river. These stories, filled with detail and emotion, added another layer to our understanding of how livelihoods and nature intersect in the village’s cultural fabric.
This gendered disparity in engagement revealed more than just logistical hurdles—it provided insights into the rhythms of daily life in Thirupudaimaruthur, and the differing degrees of availability, willingness, and trust among the villagers. It reminded us that participatory research is never just about asking the “right” questions. It’s about understanding social cues, finding the right moments, and sometimes, identifying the right person to ask them. By the end of our fieldwork, we had not only gathered data, but also witnessed the subtleties of participation, power, and perception.
Feature image: Salar de Uyuni by Javier Collarte/Unsplash
Salar de Uyuni is located in southwest Bolivia. In a hidden part of the Andes lies the world’s largest salt flat. During the rainy season, surrounding lakes overflow and allow a thin layer of water to transform the salt flats into the world’s largest mirror.
We have been called spies, weak researchers, and arrogant. The reason? We are critical social scientists. We expose power dynamics, social inequalities, and injustices in conservation. This work produces knowledge that is considered “unwanted”, “threatening”, or “disobedient” by those whose interests are challenged.
Some say sticks and stones may break my bones, but words shall never hurt me. However, words have been used against us for character assassination, legal threats, job exclusions, retracted publications, and censorship. One may not expect this to happen in conservation research, but it does. It is instigated by research granting bodies, policymakers and government officials, donors, ethics bodies, conservation biologists, and international and local conservation NGOs.
In a recent article in Conservation Biology, we show how such intimidation happens before, during, and after the publication process. Here we highlight a few examples in which the topic and type of research were the most likely reason for the authorities’ obstruction. We conclude by directing a way forward for the wellbeing of people and nature.
Ground realities
Before doing research, some of us faced difficulties in obtaining research permits. India and Indonesia raised “national security” issues to censure research that didn’t adhere to their developmentalist agendas. Access to the Great Nicobar Development mega project in India was denied to a researcher because she does “political ecology” and had “foreign” funding. In Mozambique, researchers were denied park entry into Parque Nacional do Limpopo. They were unjustly accused of inciting local residents who were protesting against eviction and resettlement.
Receiving permits does not guarantee that intimidation will stop. While conducting research about militarised transboundary conservation in Central Africa, one of us was driven to a secluded, fenced complex by an all-male and armed group of national intelligence officers. Accused of spying, she was pushed to identify pictures of hacked body parts during a three-hour interrogation. Shocked and anxious for the safety of her local hosts, she left the country. Today, it still impacts her mental health and well-being.
Several of us faced intimidation during or after publication. For instance, South Africa’s national lobby organisation for wildlife ranching sent an email to all its members asking them not to collaborate with two PhD researchers. Rigorous research was dismissed as “anecdotal” and “unscientific”. Some of us were bullied across various media platforms. A European donor unhappy with non-academic publications critiquing management of Virunga National Park, told one of us to be “pragmatic” and that for every hundred Congolese people who did not like the park, he could show her a hundred happy ones.
Commitment to truth
Michel Foucault, a French philosopher, said the courage to speak truth is not optional but an obligation. We understand that conservation is highly competitive, because funding is limited. Therefore, conservation NGOs and governments are under pressure to show their successes. However, research findings—even when uncomfortable—enrich our combined understanding to improve conservation.
We suggest: (i) conservation organisations and social scientists engage and collaborate better (ii) (critical) social scientists should better understand the position, interests, and contexts of conservation practitioners (iii) educational curricula should include social sciences in mainstream conservation teaching (iv) funders should rethink “success” in their criteria and make more room for critical reviews.
Intimidation is destructive, not only for critical social scientists but also broadly for conservation, affecting borth people and nature.
Further Reading
Foucault, M. 1984. The courage of truth: The government of self and others II—Lectures at the Collège de France 1983–1984. Palgrave Macmillan.
Koot, S., N. Anyango-van Zwieten, S. Sullivan, W. Dressler, M. Spierenburg, L. Trogisch, E. Marijnen et al. 2025. Intimidation as epistemological violence against social science conservation research. Conservation Biology 39: e14454. https://doi.org/10.1111/cobi.14454.
Authors
Nowella Anyango-van Zwieten, Stasja Koot, Sian Sullivan, Wolfram Dressler, Marja Spierenburg, Lisa Trogisch, Esther Marijnen, Robert Fletcher, Inaya Rakhmani, Suraya Abdulwahab Afiff, Tor A. Benjaminsen, Sarah Milne, Hanne Svarstad, Bram Büscher, Anwesha Dutta, Celia Lowe and Nitin D. Rai are critical social scientists working on themes ranging from political ecology, human geography, anthropology and sociology to development and science-and-technology studies. They study the politics of conservation, development, and sustainability, examining how power, justice, and economic logic shape people-nature relations and global environmental governance.
Feature image: Three generations of Mosopisyek, the two oldest of whom were born and lived in the forests of Mount Elgon before eviction
For centuries, the Mosopisyek people have called the high-altitude forests of Mount Elgon, an extinct volcano marking the Uganda-Kenya border, their home. They managed to forge a life out in this terrain, their survival becoming intricately linked to the land—relying on livestock grazing, hunting, and gathering from the resources of the forest. However, in the name of conservation, first, the British colonial government and then the Ugandan government forcibly evicted them, leaving them landless and marginalised. Today, the Mosopisyek continue their struggle for recognition and the right to return to their ancestral lands.
A legacy of displacement
The Mosopisyek’s forced displacement began during the colonial era when British authorities designated parts of the mountain a forest reserve in 1938. This move aimed to protect the forest’s biodiversity but overlooked the Indigenous communities residing in it.
In the 1950s, the British imposed further restrictions on forest access, criminalising traditional practices such as hunting and gathering. This disrupted the Mosopisyek’s way of life, forcing them to adapt to an unfamiliar system of land use regulations. While colonial authorities framed these measures as essential for environmental protection, they largely served British economic interests by prioritising timber extraction and resource control over Indigenous land rights.
Post-independence, in 1983, the Ugandan government allocated 6,000 hectares of land in Kween and Bukwo—neighbouring districts situated on the slopes of Mount Elgon—for the tribe’s resettlement, acknowledging their ancestral claims. But in 1993, Mount Elgon was upgraded to a national park, leading to mass evictions by the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA). Houses were destroyed, and families who had lived in the forests for generations were rendered homeless. By the early 2000s, an estimated 6,000 Mosopisyek people had been displaced, many without compensation or alternative livelihoods.
Resettlement areas such as Yatui village in Kween district, on the edge of the Mount Elgon rainforest, are remote and lack access to basic services, including education and healthcare
The consequences of this fortress conservation approach have been devastating. Stripped of their land and traditional way of life, the Mosopisyek have faced poverty, discrimination, and statelessness. Living on the fringes of their former homeland, they lack access to basic services such as education and healthcare.
A 2024 report by the International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs highlighted that, between October 2022 and November 2023, the Mosopisyek community suffered the destruction of 96 houses, the arrest of 70 community members, and the impoundment of 1,295 animals, leading to severe food insecurity.
Without legal recognition, they have struggled to assert their rights and traditional practices, such as cattle grazing and collection of medicinal plants, with these further being criminalised under conservation laws. Encounters with UWA rangers often result in arrests and violence between both parties, which in the long run has further marginalised the community.
Forest roots
For centuries, the Mosopisyek people’s way of life has been intricately tied to the forest and its resources. Their traditions and survival strategies reflect a coexistence and an intimate understanding of their environment—knowledge that has been passed down through generations.
One of the traditions that is central to their way of life is beekeeping. The Mosopisyek make and craft beehives from hollowed-out logs, bark, and vines, then position them high in the trees to protect them from predators. Honey is more than just a food source; it holds medicinal value, is used in rituals, and is a key ingredient in lakwek, a fermented honey-based drink consumed during social gatherings and ceremonies. Crafting these hives takes patience, skill, and deep knowledge of local trees—especially since only three species native to the region, including Elgon teak and red cedar, are used. These specific woods are even believed to shape the flavour of the honey itself.
Beehives are made of locally available materials; the Mosopisyek have improvised with plastics for weatherproofing because they can’t get some materials from deep within the forest
Beekeeping is also important in Mosopisyek traditional marriage practice, where the bride’s father climbs up a tall tree to plant a beehive, cuts the branches on his way down, and any suitor who manages to climb up this branchless tree and successfully harvest the honey will be the rightful man for the bride.
Historically, hunting was an integral part of their subsistence, carried out with deep respect for nature. Using bows, arrows, and carefully placed traps, they selectively hunted antelope, buffalo, and birds, among other animals. However, with hunting now criminalised under conservation laws, the Mosopisyek have lost a key component of their diet and traditional way of life.
Herbal medicine remains central to their culture and the heavy reliance on it is further reinforced by the poor access to modern healthcare, primarily because resettlement areas like Yatui village are so remote. Elders hold vast knowledge of the healing properties of plants, using them to treat ailments ranging from fevers to infections. Since access to the forest has been restricted, the Mosopisyek have begun creating communal herb gardens within their settlement areas. These gardens ensure they can still practise their traditional medicine without the risk of being arrested for trespassing in the national park.
Another striking aspect of their culture is the use of soil in home decoration. Women and children collect different shades of earth to mix natural paints, which are applied to homes in intricate patterns. These designs are not only decorative, but also serve as a cultural identity marker.
A Mosopisyek boy collecting earth, which is then turned into pigments used to create intricate house designs
A house decorated with different soil pigments
The evictions from the forest directly changed the Mosopisyek way of life. But they managed to adapt and become small-scale farmers, allowing them in a limited way to still practise their traditions. But with heavy restrictions on forest access, their culture is slowly dying, according to Francis Barber, a Mosopistek leader and healer.
The conservation debate
The Mosopisyek’s plight raises critical questions about fortress conservation, which seeks to protect biodiversity by excluding human communities. Conservation was the argument used when Mount Elgon was designated as a protected area, citing a fragile ecosystem that needed to be safeguarded from human encroachment. The park is indeed home to diverse flora and fauna, including rare plant species and endangered wildlife, in addition to serving as a vital water catchment area for surrounding regions.
However, Indigenous rights advocates contend that the Mosopisyek have historically lived in harmony with the forest, managing its resources sustainably long before formal conservation policies were introduced. Research indicates that Indigenous stewardship can enhance biodiversity rather than degrade it. A 2021 report by the Rights and Resources Initiative found that forests managed by Indigenous peoples often have equal or higher biodiversity levels compared to protected areas managed by state agencies.
Francis Barber, a last-generation forest dweller, elder, and healer, holds a bow and arrows made from specific eagles’ feathers, known for their water resistant qualities
The situation on Mount Elgon is not unique; across Africa and other continents, Indigenous communities have been displaced in the name of conservation. In Cameroon, the Baka people have faced similar evictions from protected areas, leading to loss of livelihood and cultural erosion. In Kenya, the Ogiek community’s struggle for land rights in the Mau Forest mirrors the Mosopisyek’s challenges.
An uncertain future
In 2005, the Mosopisyek took their case to the Ugandan High Court, which ruled in their favour, recognising them as the rightful owners of their ancestral land and ordering the government to grant them formal land titles. However, nearly two decades later, this ruling remains largely unimplemented. Bureaucratic inertia, competing interests, and conservation policies that favour tourism revenue over Indigenous rights continue to hinder progress.
The Mosopisyek have also sought justice beyond Uganda’s borders. They have appealed to international human rights organisations and regional bodies, hoping to pressure the Ugandan government into action. However, these efforts have yet to yield tangible results, leaving the community in a state of limbo.
Cases like the Mosopisyek’s are playing out across the world with countless people being affected, and with limited capacity and agency to act against state agencies and brutal conservation practices. A report by Amnesty International suggests integrating Indigenous knowledge and involving local communities in conservation efforts can lead to more sustainable and equitable outcomes.
Co-management approaches, where Indigenous communities participate in decision-making processes, have shown promise in various parts of the world. In Australia, the involvement of Aboriginal communities in managing national parks has led to improved conservation outcomes and strengthened cultural ties to the land. Similarly, in Canada, Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas (IPCAs) have been established, recognising the role of Indigenous peoples in preserving biodiversity.
Implementing such models in Uganda would require significant policy changes and a commitment to upholding Indigenous rights. It would involve granting the Mosopisyek legal recognition, ensuring their participation in conservation planning, and providing support for sustainable livelihoods that align with environmental goals.
Further Reading
Campese, J., T. Sunderland, T. Greiber and G. Oviedo. 2009. Rights-based approaches to conservation: Exploring issues and opportunities for conservation and development. Gland, Switzerland: IUCN.
Petursson, J. G. and P. Vedeld. 2015. The “nine lives” of protected areas. A historical-institutional analysis from the transboundary Mt Elgon, Uganda and Kenya. Land Use Policy (42): 251–263. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2014.08.005.
Editor’s note: An earlier version of this book review misattributed a reference to Manish Chandi’s work on mapping tribal lands, which has now been corrected, and a few other changes have been made by the author to improve the flow of the text. Islands are quite something. They are the picture-postcard image of a perfect holiday, the setting for marvelous films like Castaway and Madagascar, and more importantly, the inspiration for one of the greatest scientific breakthroughs in the world—the theory of evolution. However, it seems like apart from holidayers, moviemakers, and naturalists their allure is rarely appreciated.
Great Nicobar is a tropical island located in one of India’s seismically active zones. It is home to two historically isolated Indigenous communities (the Shompen and the Nicobarese) and teems with rare flora and fauna. 6.8° N, 93.86° E is where Galathea Bay is situated—one of the world’s largest nesting sites of the leatherback turtle and the coordinates deemed ideal by mainland India to plonk a massive transshipment port.
As Peter Wohlleben states in The Secret Network of Nature:“It’s important for us to realise that even small interventions in nature can have huge consequences, and we’d better keep our hands off anything that we have no pressing reason to touch.”
In the context of the Great Nicobar mega project, the ‘pressing reason’, quite ironically, seems devoid of reason. Island on Edge follows The Great Nicobar Betrayal, a book that brought together diverse perspectives on the ecological and cultural damage threatening the island in the name of development.
This time again, through its various authors, Island on Edge is able to showcase the absence of reason in the room. The editor Pankaj Sekhsaria is persistent. He brings us incisive analysis and lucid commentary on the impending catastrophe, and one hopes that both books would snowball into a broader movement.
Island on Edge also takes care to construct a case for vicariousness among those not directly affected by the project. To feel compelled to resist a mega project more than 2,000 kilometres away from mainland India requires a different kind of attentiveness. It asks readers to listen for distant thunder and realise that tempests forming far offshore do not remain contained.
Where money meets the wind
Since the mega project was announced, its components largely remain the same—a transshipment port, a power plant, a township, and an airport. What keeps changing though is the project cost. Initially pegged at INR 72,000 crores (around USD 7.6 million), the project estimate is now at INR 80,000 crores (around USD 8.5 million) and is likely to go up in the future.
Who is going to foot the bill, asks M. Rajashekar in his powerful article that gives us details of the monies involved in having such a structure in place. The Galathea Bay transshipment port is expected to save India up to $200 million a year in foreign exchange and secure its place in the global maritime economy, but Rajashekar’s research steadily unravels this optimism. On Great Nicobar, where construction costs run two to three times higher than on the mainland, the arithmetic begins to falter. The port might also be unable to charge more than established rivals like Colombo; therefore, the projected volumes (four million containers a year) would not suffice to earn enough to service its own interest payments. With murky commercials and strong competition from other regional ports, larger institutions like banks and foreign investors might show signs of hesitation. The funding burden then shifts to the Indian government, which might have to tap into the national budget to prop up the project.
Suman S., Pankaj Sekhsaria, and Rishika Pardikar’s commentaries highlight several red flags of the project and talk about the imminent strain on the island due to various social and environmental violations including the lack of autonomy of the companies involved in certifying the project proponents.
When distant storms become local
Patai Takaru (Big Island) is what the Indigenous tribes call the Great Nicobar island which has evolved in a timeline that is unfathomable to the human mind. Its forests date back to the Pleistocene period, that is, around 2.5 million years ago or 34,400 human lifetimes (given an average lifespan of 75 years). Most humans cannot even imagine what the world was like 150 years ago, or on a more relatable note, the lives of their great grandparents.
What happens when Indigenous people are wiped out of their lands?
The project proponents probably took the term ‘uncontacted tribes’ too literally for the mega project. Rishika Pardikar writes about how the Nicobarese community members were not included in discussions, despite a Social Impact Assessment (SIA) having been officially conducted. The SIA, a legal requirement for projects of this scale, had been done in haste and secrecy with a vague pronouncement of the project impact on indigenous tribes. Pardikar also references Manish Chandi’s earlier work on mapping tribal lands, which is crucial to understand where borders were drawn but marked for erasure now.
“Do not come near our hills,” one Shompen tribesman says in the interview transcript.
It is deeply concerning that there are no qualms about upsetting a million-year-old system in order to dock ships, however the mega project is not Great Nicobar’s first rodeo. The island has been subjected to earthquakes, tsunamis, marine debris piling along its coasts, and bio-invasions through introduced species. Its final problem could be the mega project.
Vaishnavi Rathore’s piece covers an interview with a leading anthropologist who is able to extract a list of concerns from the Shompen tribesmen. Destruction of soil erosion systems, diminishing water resources, and an influx of outsiders on their land are just some of the issues that they are able to articulate or rather what we are able to comprehend.
Ajay Saini and Anvita Abbi’s analysis drives home the point of displacement. The loss of native people, flora, and fauna cascades to losses of many kinds—of language, ecology, wisdom, and survival strategies.
Compared to The Great Nicobar Betrayal, Island on Edge covers more ground on humanitarian issues, seeking to strike a chord of concern with readers that resonate with the tragedies of displacement.
‘20 Christmases After the Tsunami’ by Leena K Nair shows us how a natural calamity paved the way for a human-made one. When the 2004 tsunami struck, little did the islanders know that the devastation would carry on for years. Displacement, forced labour, and other hardships continue to plague tribespeople who have had to learn new and arguably unnatural ways of survival due to the lack of official support. The proposed port would be located in a seismically active zone that experiences about 44 earthquakes (major and minor) every year, but this hasn’t shaken the confidence of those backing the project.
Rumbles through the rainforest
What is the big deal about island biodiversity? Island flora and fauna have evolved in isolation, slowly adapting to their local environments and occupying ecological niches. Because they don’t experience the conditions of life found on continents, they aren’t good at coexisting in altered habitats and with introduced plants and animals.
There is the idea of treating Great Nicobar’s natural ecosystems as movable parts—akin to getting humans to live on Mars without research on Martian systems that support life.
The problem with the compensatory afforestation programme in mainland India’s Haryana is quite basic—top biologists say that it is unlikely to succeed. T. R. Shankar Raman and Rohan Arthur, eminent voices in Indian conservation, write about the folly in their poignant piece for Frontline magazine, aptly titled An Obit for Patai Takaru. They give the reader a glimpse of the nuances of restoration and ask some pertinent questions, such as how meaningful forest and coral restoration efforts would be, the metrics used to evaluate outcomes, and costs of interventions. Current coral reef relocation plans are drawn without accounting for broader ecological impacts like soil erosion, for example. A more logical restoration proposal would be to work within degraded areas of the Andaman islands, given that they share similar ecological characteristics with the Nicobar islands.
It’s not just the Shompen and Nicobarese. Saurav Harikumar in ‘A Threat to Wildlife’ gives us a non-exhaustive list of probable victims of the mega project. Species on the edge include the Nicobar megapode, Nicobar treeshrew, Omura’s whale, saltwater crocodile, along with others that are possibly unknown to science.
In essence, Island on Edge is a book about human folly. The painstaking work of scientists, researchers, and journalists on the impacts of the mega project provides an early warning of the many disasters that may unfold. Despite caution thrown to the wind, decision-makers choose to look the other way. The book also carries an interesting annexure section, featuring letters between people in power who are interested in the project—but for different reasons. Timelines and earlier reviews of The Great Nicobar Betrayal give the reader a snapshot of the project, purported to bring ‘development’to the region.
With the recent ruling of the National Green Tribunal, one can now associate the word development with the tone of a storm forecast: delivered with confidence, laden with numbers, and subtly bracing everyone for loss. These are the storms of our own making.
I was walking through the streets under the scorching sun. Suddenly, my gaze fell on an aita, an elderly woman, sitting on the threshold of her home. As soon as our eyes met, she smiled and gestured for me to come closer. I introduced myself as a wildlife researcher and told her I had come to speak with her. She welcomed me warmly and began recalling how the place looked some 30-40 years ago.
“Jackals?” she said, her eyes lighting up with memory. “Back then, this whole area was full of trees and wild vegetation. There were only two or three houses around. And on chilly winter evenings, around six o’clock, the jackals would start howling. They even came into our front yard and we could see them clearly in the moonlight.”
As she spoke, weaving memories into vivid threads of nostalgia, I sat there thinking about how powerful it is to listen to these stories. This was during my fieldwork in Assam, India. I had set out to understand how people perceive species such as jackals—once commonly seen, but rarely heard or spotted now.
Assam is a land where wildlife is deeply embedded in the culture. Jackals too have long been associated with its storytelling traditions and folklore. Growing up in this state, I often heard stories about them, such as how they would sneak into villages to snatch poultry. Consequently, people would chase them off, sometimes throwing sickles or knives. One story that stayed with me was about a jackal who lost its tail during such an encounter, which gave rise to the image of the “tailless jackal” famous in Assamese folktales.
These stories made me wonder—were such narratives grounded in real-life interactions? With the spread of urbanisation and shrinking natural habitats, are younger generations still aware of these tales?
Oral traditions
Although considered ecologically resilient on account of their wide distribution and flexible diet, golden jackals are vanishing from places across India that they previously occupied. Habitat modification, intensive agriculture, urbanisation, fatal vehicular collisions, hunting, interactions with free-ranging dogs, are some of the threats faced by this so-called resilient species. And populations are now only found in fragmented patches.
As I continued speaking with people across different age groups from urban, peri-urban, and rural areas, I began collecting beautiful oral narratives that featured the xiyal (jackal) in everyday life. These included poems, lullabies, idioms, and stories. “Xiyali ei, nahibi rati, ture kaney kati logamei bati. Kaankati murote moruwa phool, Kaankati palegoi Rotonpur.” In this lullaby, a mother warns a jackal not to come at night to disturb her child. If it dares to come, she says, she will cut off its ear and use it as a wick for her oil lamp. She goes on to describe the jackal wearing an imaginary flower on its head. The animal is then said to be walking far enough to reach an imaginary village (famous in Assamese tales) called Rotonpur. Though sung playfully, this lullaby conveys subtle cues of human-jackal interactions and instils a fear of jackals in young children.
Another children’s rhyme goes: “Rod dise, boruxun dise, xora xiyal r biya, ghonsirikai tamul katise, amak-u olop diya.” It translates roughly to: “If it’s raining and sunny at the same time, then it’s the tailless jackal’s wedding. The sparrows are cutting betel nuts. The guests, including humans, request them to share some nuts.” The poem anthropomorphises jackals and links them with cultural practices in Assam such as betel nut chewing, and associating their presence with certain weather events— even if not ecologically grounded.
Proverbs, too, reflect the jackal’s place in Assamese life. One saying goes: “Xui thaka xiyal e haah dhoribo nuare”, a very common sarcastic dialogue used by Assamese parents. It translates to “A sleeping jackal can’t catch poultry”, implying that laziness leads to failure. But this expression also reveals ecological knowledge that they prey on poultry or birds.
“Siyale soru suwte, kukur motyote nai” is used when someone tries to blame another for something they didn’t do. It likely arose from lived experiences. In the past, jackals would sneak into kitchens that were made of bamboo and mud, sometimes picking up or eating from clay utensils. If the animal wasn’t seen, dogs were blamed. But the elders would say, “There were no dogs in the village then, it must’ve been a jackal.”
Older respondents also shared how, in the past, dogs were domesticated specifically to deter jackals. Stories by Lakshminath Bezbaruah in Burhi Aai’r Xadhu (Grandmother’s Folktales), often portrayed jackals as clever tricksters or wise animals. It shows their dynamic relationships with humans and other animals. These stories, while entertaining, also served to normalise human-animal coexistence, inflict moral values, and pass on ecological understanding, especially to children.
As I continued my fieldwork, one observation stood out clearly: perceptions of jackals varied greatly across generations. When I interviewed younger adults, a common pattern emerged. They had heard of xiyal, but many were unable to identify the jackal when shown a photo. Some recalled hearing jackal howls during their childhood. However, they also said such occurrences had become rare in recent years in the cities. Interestingly, most of them were familiar with the animals more through oral stories than real-life encounters. Many expressed concern over habitat loss and felt that jackals were disappearing due to rapid environmental changes. They believed that jackals and other wildlife in shared spaces should be protected. In addition, they also suggested nature education is important for raising awareness.
When I spoke to children, especially in urban areas, the connection had shifted even further. Most had never heard oral narratives about jackals. Their knowledge came primarily from textbooks or YouTube videos. In periurban and rural areas, some children had seen these canids but often expressed fear or disinterest. Many felt they belonged inside forests and should not be near human settlements. The emotional and cultural familiarity, and ecological knowledge about jackals as predators or scavengers that older generations possessed seemed to be fading.
Precious connections
This whole experience made me realise that species conservation is not only about counting them and mapping habitats—it is also about listening. Narratives are valuable repositories and an important part of culture. Shaped by knowledge, experience, and beliefs, they provide a window to understanding the interconnectedness between human and more-than-human worlds. They also enable us to think about and make sense of social structures.
Further, narratives tell us how people historically observed and interpreted wildlife behaviour, as well as how they perceive and value the natural world. They can foster empathy and tolerance towards wildlife, or sometimes reinforce fear, hatred, or indifference. In communities across Assam, jackals live not just as biological entities, but as characters reflecting what Nabhan (1997) once called “cultures of habitat”.
During my interactions, I began to sense that as cities grow and daily life becomes more fast-paced, people’s connection with nature is gradually diminishing. Narratives were once a bridge between generations and between humans and non-human animals. But as they fade, it signals not only the loss of stories, but a form of knowledge that has long helped humans to coexist with non-human species. For culturally significant but overlooked or common species, oral narratives can help rekindle people’s emotional connection and build awareness. While digital platforms such as YouTube and children’s books attempt to recreate some of these narratives, their reach remains limited. Many traditional stories are not documented at all and get lost with time.
As a researcher, I have found oral narratives to be excellent icebreakers. Especially when approaching communities where people are often busy or hesitant to participate. Asking about folklore or cultural beliefs often stirred a sense of nostalgia and pride, making people more open, engaged, and willing to talk. Thus, in a world racing ahead, listening to forgotten stories can perhaps help us find our way back to our roots.
Further Reading
Bhatia, S., K. Suryawanshi, S. M. Redpath, S. Namgail and C. Mishra. 2021. Understanding people’s relationship with wildlife in Trans-Himalayan folklore. Frontiers in Environmental Science 9: 595169.
Shawon, R. A. R., M. M. Rahman, S. O. Dandi, B. Agbayiza, M. M. Iqbal, M. E. Sakyi and J. Moribe. 2025. Knowledge, perception, and practices of wildlife conservation and biodiversity management in Bangladesh. Animals 15(3): 296.
Nabhan, G. P. 1997. Cultures of habitat: On nature, culture, and story. Washington DC: Counterpoint.
When we think about conservation, plants and animals are often the first organisms that come to mind. This makes logical sense as they are large, visible to the naked eye, and can be easily observed, allowing us to study their populations and understand their roles in their ecosystems. Many are considered charismatic and can evoke an emotional response to their plight—just think of a baby elephant or a panda eating bamboo. Or picture a sea turtle stuck in a fisherman’s net or seaweed suffocated by plastic debris. Who wouldn’t want to save them?
What about organisms we can’t easily see or observe? Like soil microorganisms. At the base of the soil food web, they are essential to supporting biodiversity and nutrient flow within ecosystems. Given their microscopic size, they often remain neglected. And we typically only hear about microbes in relation to disease or illness. This raises two questions: do soil microbes need conservation, and how would we even know? It’s not as straightforward as referring to the IUCN’s Red List of Threatened Species, because microorganisms are rarely included in such assessments.
In this article, let’s look at why conservation of soil microbes is important (spoiler alert—it has to do with the ecosystem functions they perform!).We’ll also cover how microbiologists look at microbial diversity and its drivers, the impacts of climate change on soil microbial communities, and what we should do to preserve this important group of organisms.
No small feat
Although invisible to the naked eye, soil microbes play a crucial role in our ecosystems. These microbes—bacteria, archaea, fungi, and viruses—are crucial for nutrient cycling. For example, if a tree dies, fungi and bacteria are largely responsible for breaking down organic compounds present in the wood (such as lignin, cellulose, and hemicellulose), so that carbon is released back into the ecosystem. Without them, our world would be full of dead plant tissue that would not decay effectively.
Besides carbon, soil microbes also play a key role in nitrogen cycling. Nitrogen is essential for plant growth and is used to make chlorophyll, proteins, the nucleic acids (DNA and RNA), and other compounds needed for growth and development. Nitrogen in the air cannot be used by plants until it is converted to ammonia, which plants are able to absorb through their roots. There are free-living and plant-symbiotic bacteria in soil that perform this conversion, called nitrogen fixation. In fact, one of the most wellknown and agriculturally important relationships between plants and bacteria is found between leguminous plants (such as soybeans, chickpeas, alfalfa) and nitrogen-fixing bacterial symbionts.
These are just two examples of the important roles soil microbes play in ecosystem functioning. There are many more, and they are dependent on the vast diversity of microbes found in soil. Unfortunately, this diversity is being impacted by the same factors responsible for the global decline in biodiversity that we see today, such as land use change and climate change.
Quantifying diversity
To know if organisms should have a conservation plan, we need to know a few facts. These include understanding their ecological roles and populations, and the possible impacts if there is a change in their population size. So how do we collect this information? Before the advancements in DNA sequencing technology, this task was quite challenging. To determine the variety and abundance of microbial species in a soil sample, microbiologists had to depend on isolating pure cultures of the microbes found in soil. However, it is estimated that only about 1 percent of microbes can be cultured, which means this method did not provide a complete understanding of microbial life in the soil.
Fortunately, with advances in DNA sequencing technology, it became easier to sequence genes that help identify microbes as well as their functional genes. Functional genes encode proteins that provide clues about the ecosystem functions provided by the microbial community. For example, if DNA from a soil sample reveals many copies of a gene for the protein that converts atmospheric nitrogen to ammonia, we can predict that the microbial community includes members that are part of the nitrogen cycle, thereby supplying a nitrogen source for plants.
But despite the ease of using sequencing to explore microbial species and functional diversity (traits in a community that influence how the ecosystem functions), there are several challenges. Microbial diversity in soil is incredibly high, requiring statistical models to estimate the total number of species present. A recent estimate suggests that the total number of soil bacteria, fungi, viruses, and archaea could range from the millions to trillions. With such numbers, it’s not surprising that there is still much to be explored. In fact, of the soil bacteria alone, only about 3 percent of the taxa present are estimated to have had their genome sequenced.
Diversity versus function
Scientists have found that soil microorganism communities vary based on the ecosystem they inhabit, such as deserts, tropical forests, or grasslands. This is mainly due to differences in the pH levels of these environments. In addition, there are other significant factors impacting community composition, including soil water content, organic carbon content, vegetation type, and oxygen levels.
Microorganism species diversity in soil is lowest in areas with very low or very high pH levels. Low pH soils are typically found in the tropics, the Arctic tundra, and boreal forests. In contrast, high pH soils are common in deserts, drylands, and arid grasslands. The regions known as ‘hotspots’, which contain the highest number of different microorganism species, are temperate habitats with a neutral pH level.
Unlike species diversity, the ecosystem functions performed by soil microbes vary depending on the specific ecosystem in which the community is found. For example, a survey of genes involved in nitrogen cycling showed that pH was not a reliable predictor of the diversity of these functional genes. Instead, habitat type and the amounts of carbon and nitrogen in the soil were more accurate predictors. Biomes with the highest abundance of nitrogen cycling genes include tropical forests and areas with high nitrogen inputs, such as pastures, lawns, and agricultural fields. This observation makes sense as nitrogen inputs tend to be high in human-influenced environments, and tropical forest soils generally have fewer nitrogen limitations compared to soils from other environments.
Climate impacts
So how will soil microbial communities be affected as the planet warms? A study from 2021 provided a global view to examine various scenarios of potential climate and land use changes. A key prediction is that climate change will have a greater impact on microbial communities than land use change. Perhaps this is not too surprising because climate change is happening on a global scale, while changes in land use occur locally.
The study also revealed that in over 85 percent of land-based ecosystems, the composition of soil bacterial communities will become increasingly similar. This trend is mainly due to changes in soil pH, which in turn, is linked to the changes in precipitation, temperature, and a reduction in vegetation cover that comes with a warming climate. These results are concerning because greater similarities in microbial communities can lead to reduced variability in their functional genes. And this decline in genetic diversity may cause challenges for microbial communities to adapt to a changing climate and perform essential functions needed for maintaining a healthy ecosystem.
In addition to a loss of genetic variability, the composition of soil microbial communities is predicted to be altered due to climate change. These changes will affect the functions that these communities provide. In fact, in many climate change scenarios, it is anticipated that soil microbes will release more carbon dioxide through the increased decomposition of organic matter. This will result in less healthy soils as they will lose organic carbon. To make it worse, this sets up a positive feedback loop: the release of more carbon dioxide contributes to rising temperatures, which in turn creates conditions that cause even more carbon to be lost over time.
The way forward
To conserve soil microbial communities, we must preserve the substrate they live in by establishing specific soil conservation targets when designing policies. While we have made progress in identifying soil microbial diversity and ecosystem function ‘hotspots’, there are still gaps in our understanding. Further research is needed to refine predictive models so that governments and conservation organisations have the information needed to make informed decisions.
Current studies on hotspots of soil microbial diversity and ecosystem functions indicate that these two types of hotspots do not always coincide. Therefore, both should be taken into consideration in conservation strategies. Additionally, ongoing land use change and climate change will impact microbial communities, potentially changing the locations of diversity and ecosystem service hotspots over time. This must also be considered when developing strategies.
Although there is much work to be done, we have made significant progress. We can maintain this momentum by continuing to expand our knowledge of soil microbe communities and encouraging government agencies and conservation groups to use that knowledge for incorporating soil conservation targets into their policy and conservation plans.
Further Reading
Guerra, C. A., M. Berdugo, D. J. Eldridge, N. Eisenhauer, B. K. Singh, H. Cui, S. Abades et al. 2022. Global hotspots for soil nature conservation. Nature 610(7933): 693–698. https://doi.org/10.1038/ s41586-022-05292-x.
Guerra, C. A., M. Delgado-Baquerizo, E. Duarte, O. Marigliano, C. Görgen, F. T. Maestre and N. Eisenhauer. 2021. Global projections of the soil microbiome in the Anthropocene. Global Ecology and Biogeography 30(5): 987–999. https://doi. org/10.1111/geb.13273.
Abhi looked up, watching the light shimmer through the tall canopy of the Gulmohar tree. Suddenly, something caught his attention. High up, perched on one of the branches was an owl. It was staring at him. Abhi stared back, unblinking. The owl was tiny, about the size of a Banganapalli mango, fluffy cream-coloured yarn and painted with soft brown strokes. Abhi took slow steps, eyes fixed on the small creature.. It felt like they were in a staring contest. After a minute, the owl’s body tensed and it flew away.
Who was this human with its eyes on the tree? Why would it not stop looking at me? I don’t know if the human is friendly or not.
Every day in March, Abhi walked down the lane behind his house, eyes raised looking for his owl friend. He searched online for “urban owls in South India” and learned that this one was a Spotted Owlet. He read that they are often unafraid of humans and stare boldly back. He also discovered that owls stare back when they feel threatened, so he decided to be more careful and observe his new friend from a distance.
I’m sitting on my favourite branch of the lone pine. I hear a faint swish of wings and look up—she lands on the Gulmohar, flushed with orange-red flowers. It’s mating season, and I like how she’s looking at me with big, yellow eyes. I fly up to her branch and wipe down my feathers with my beak, stretching my wings so she can get a good look. She says ‘churr-churr’. We sing a duet that fills the evening. After we mate, I fly to the next branch and continue preening.
As summer approached, Abhi often saw the owl peeking at him from a gap in the roof of a nearby house where its nest was. Is it lonely, or does it have a partner? Do owls form bonds when they mate?
After many days of rain, Owlene is sitting on the Gulmohar in the orange light of the setting sun. She stretches her wings, preening in the way that I’ve come to adore. Ever since Baby was born, Owlene has spent most of her time with her in the new nest.
Suddenly, I notice the human watching Owlene from a distance. I panicked, spreading my wings and screeching to distract it and flying to another tree. But Owlene and the human remain still. She’s calm and stares at it. After a minute, the human walks on. Owlene is brave—braver than me. But the human has seen her now. We must be careful.
Imagine Abhi’s surprise when he looked up and saw two of them. He read that November to April was mating season, so he guessed they were a pair. One of them flew up as soon as he spotted its mate. It sat on the gnarly stump of a branch above him and said ‘schree-schree’. The other owl watched him calmly. Abhi whispered, “You win, little owl,” and walked home smiling.
At night, I sit on the lower branches—mice move under the moonlight, geckos run on fences between the backyards, and worms wriggle in the soil. The jungle mynas, rose-ringed parakeets, and black kites are asleep, and I’m free to fly. I hear a sound in the grass, clear as the night. Myears are different sizes and this helps me pinpoint the source of the sound, like having a 3D map of all the sounds around me.
I swivel my head 180 degrees and spot a mouse 20 metres away. I swoop down in silence, talons outstretched. Got it. Back at the nest, Owlene tears the food into smaller pieces. Our baby gobbles it up, blind and featherless.
A few weeks later, Abhi noticed a movement on the corner of the roof where a tile was missing. He saw a fluffy grey-brown chick, a baby owl, peeking out at the world. Abhi was delighted, but he did not want to scare the baby or its parents. After a few moments, he left.
Every day, Abhi checked the missing tile and saw the baby owl looking out from its little corner. He wondered if it saw a crisscross of sun, shadows, and leaves in motion above. Could it see the grass below, full of insects and mice?
Baby is growing so fast. Soon she’ll leave the nest. Owlene and I have done our part, but I still wonder if she’ll be okay. I’m waiting for the day you spread your wings and fly, my sweet. I’ll miss you, but I know you’re ready.
One night, on a walk in the grassy field near his house, Abhi was listening to a song titled The Silent Flight of the Owl by Manu Delago. He hadn’t seen the owls in days and he was starting to worry. Suddenly, something flew right over his head. Abhi ducked on instinct, expecting to see a bat. A creature landed on a tree nearby, perched on the V-shaped trunk branching out. Abhi stepped closer, the night breeze putting a smile on his face.
It wasn’t a bat, but a Spotted Owlet. Could it be the baby? Or the mother?
Eyes wide, he inched closer. Abhi was now an arm’s length away from the owl, but it was not paying him any attention. Instead the small owl was watching the grass, closely scanning. Then suddenly, it swooped down. Landing in the grass nearby, the owl turned to look at him with its yellow eyes. They glowed with the light of the moon. The owl seemed unafraid and continued to hunt for tiny creatures in the grass.
Brimming with happiness at their brief encounter, Abhi said a silent goodbye and walked home.
