Author: Greta

Fighting fire with art in Bolivia’s dry forests

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Feature image: Smoke from forest fires in Chiquitanía, eastern Bolivia, is spotted early in the morning. Photo credit: buna

Bolivia is rich in biological as well as cultural diversity. As part of a research project on the biocultural diversity of farming landscapes in the country, I have spent four years studying human-bee interactions in the dry forests of Chiquitaníain eastern Bolivia, and home to various Indigenous peoples, including the Chiquitano and the Guaraní. 

This work is done in collaboration with Fundación Tierra—a Bolivian NGO dedicated to the sustainable rural development of Indigenous and peasant communities, which has been studying the socio-environmental conflicts around land tenure in this region. But never had the conflict loomed as large and clear—or smoky—as in 2024. This was when the country lost close to 11 million hectares during the annual fire season, linked to the establishment of an agroindustrial production model that promoted deforestation and land grabbing. 

The political context in which this is taking place is complex. The fires are driven by an interest in land clearing to establish soybean monocultures and cattle ranches, and involve various actors, including medium and large companies linked to globalised markets, Mennonite communities, Indigenous people from the Andes highlands and lower valleys looking for new land to cultivate or sell.

Yet, regardless of who is responsible, millions of plants and animals have died in the fires, and countless people have fallen sick because of the terrible air quality. Moreover, the smoke from the fires hurts the eyes and lungs, and permeates hair, clothes and people’s houses. The smoke has even engulfed the main city of the Santa Cruz department where people were wearing protective masks every day.

As we visited local communities in Chiquitanía, we saw burnt plants and animals, and also observed that wild bees didn’t leave their hives as often in search of food—they seemed numb. As an agroecologist studying bees, I wondered what they were eating, with the habitat destroyed and few flowering plants as sources of pollen or nectar. The sounds of insects had almost completely disappeared—would they ever return?

It was in this grim situation that we wanted to remember, jointly with the local people, that there is still hope for a brighter future. With us was a young mural artist, Angy Saku, who likes to represent wildlife and people’s daily lives in rural areas. And so, we decided to use art to work with the community, to observe and to help them consider their strengths in contrast with the destructive forces surrounding them. 

Mural artist Angy Saku painting local wildlife. Photo credit: buna

With a persistent cloud of smoke over her head, Angy Saku started painting some of the themes of our research on the most visible walls in the community sites we visited. As she worked, many curious faces started to surround her. The children had several questions that they didn’t hesitate to ask in high-pitched voices: “What are you doing?”, “Do you like flowers and bees?”, “Is that my grandma?”. 

Over time, they became her friends and then her colleagues, as they started to ask for instructions to help with the murals. Angy Saku gladly accepted their aid and guided them on the use of a brush and the shapes of nature. She is not only an accomplished artist, but also a good teacher. The children’s parents also arrived in due course to see, comment and interpret the murals. “Can I take a picture with the corechi (southern three-banded armadillo)?”, “Why didn’t you draw my husband?” Many questions were raised amid laughs and over shared food. We almost forgot the smoke and the headache it caused us all. 

Children mixing paint colors with Angy Saku. Photo credit: buna
Mural in progress: Angy Saku with her little art colleagues. Photo credit: buna

After ten days of the smoke making us dizzy, the murals were finished. They represented biocultural diversity through colourful images of bees and humans interacting, with a constantly and rapidly changing dry forest in the background. It was not the local people’s fault that “progress” took the form of fires and deforestation, and their ravaging impacts were not always visible until it was too late. Yet, seeing children and adults identify deeply with the animals and plants in the murals, and watching people carefully observe the composition of the artwork, shows how art can be an ally in the fight to protect nature in these territories.

The first “Chiquitano” mural completed. Photo credit: Stefan Ortiz

Research is meaningless unless the results are shared—whether in the form of words or using another medium. Life’s intricate web is so vast that translating it into art reminds us of our connection to it or deepens our understanding. Either way, it can stir something within us, igniting the belief that life—human and non-human—is worth protecting.

The second “Guaraní” mural showcasing human-bee interactions, and the little artists. Photo: Angy Saku

Further reading

Benavides-Frias, C., S. Ortiz Przychodzka and T. Schaal. 2022. Nature on canvas: Narrating human-nature relationships through art-based methods in La Paz City, Bolivia. Letras Verdes 32: 67-87. https://doi.org/10.17141/letrasverdes.32.2022.5393.

Czaplicki Cabezas, S. 2024. Agronegocio sin frenos: Bolivia rumbo al desastre ecológico. Revista NÓMADAS. https://revistanomadas.com/agronegocio-sin-frenos-bolivia-rumbo-al-desastre-ecologico/. Accessed on October 29, 2024.

Fundación Tierra. 2024. Bolivia: El fuego consumió más de 10,1 millones de hectáreas; 58% corresponden a bosques. https://www.ftierra.org/index.php/tema/medio-ambiente/1258-bolivia-el-fuego-consumio-mas-de-10-1-millones-de-hectareas-58-corresponden-a-bosques. Accessed on October 20, 2024.
Camila Benavides Frias Author

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The Khokon Tree

14:30 January 12, 2025, Roing, Arunachal Pradesh

I am sitting, staring at a large tree—the Khokon tree (Duabanga grandiflora). It is perhaps 30 metres in height and it reminds me of an umbrella: a unique one where each cloth of shade cascades down, so that each layer of branch provides the requisite cover for the branches below, like a layered parasol. I can illustrate this, but my amateur rendering would make the tree look worn and naked, inaccurately shredded of any protective layer. 

These branches—dressed in a gown of splaying leaves protrude outward in a lazy droop that forms an arch. From this distance, the flowering at the tips of these branches resembles grape-green olives amid tufts of white that look like grated radish. The tree is taller than its neighbour, a solitary, gigantic stem of bamboo. In the mild wind, the branches gently sway from side to side like a ponderous elephant. The leaves—bathed in the sparkle of sunlight play with the shadows to create an effect of blinking. 

Earlier this morning, a black-throated sunbird fluttered through its foliage, and the tree conducted its own symphony of birdsong. But now, beyond the tumble and gurgle of the Eze river behind the tree, I hear the tuneless croaking of a distant voice over a karaoke soundtrack of classic Bollywood melodies. Stubbornly, my naturally tone-deaf right foot seeks to keep rhythm. 

By this tapping foot is a fern, and a clump of bamboo stems that seem to mimic the larger tree. They also droop, their bodies curving in a smooth arc reminiscent of umbrella architecture. My parasol for the afternoon is a thatched roof of straw, which the sun catches and outlines below on the grassy ground with all the geometric delicacy of a shadow. In the near distance, I see a hill that resembles a large floret of broccoli, or perhaps several florets clumped together. 

Though I continue to feel the soft touch of the wind, the clouds above are indifferent to the cajoling speech of the breeze. They instead remain, standing—or hanging—listening to the cacophony below, resolute in their decision. I, however, will hope for a more silent evening when I might recommence my admiration for the large Khokon tree whose leaves sleepily blink amid the sinking orange sun. 

Photo credits: Rohit Naniwadekar – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=67032968.
Harshad Sambamurthy Author

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Beyond the frame:  Rethinking Coral Conservation in the Maldives

Feature image: Sendi showing off the growth of a rose coral (Montipora capricornis) he ‘revived’ after securing a new piece of coral to an old one.

Coral is part of everyday life in the Maldives. On the surface, coral is found nested inside the walls of traditional homes, in the sediment and pigments used to make these walls, and the brave even add coral powder to dufun—areca nut chewed with betel leaves and spices—for a little flavour kick. Underwater, coral reefs shape the geography of Maldivian atolls and are fundamental for ocean livelihoods. They protect islands from waves and erosion caused by climate change, while coral fragments eventually become sand, allowing islands to withstand sea level rise without diminishing to smaller strips of land. In the middle of the Indian Ocean, where resilience is crucial for survival, life cannot be conceived of without coral reefs.

Coral reef biodiversity depends largely on a healthy variety of corals. Here, a giant clam attached to coral opens to show its full purple splendour.

The various forms in which Maldivians perceive and know coral reefs offer a glimpse into the islanders’ rich understanding of and coexistence with these underwater formations. In Dhivehi —the official language of the Maldives—there are over 25 different words for a reef. A thila describes a formation that is deep enough to go over it, while giri refers to a coral reef that is not connected to the main reef and can go up to shallow waters. Badhi stems from the Dhivehi word used to describe a coconut shell used to collect coconut sap and refers to arm-shaped reef formations that come out of the reef’s main wall. Muravi is a single species of coral that can grow so big as to be called a reef in itself, and the list goes on. 

Yet, coral history in the Maldives is long and complex. After the first resort opened in the country in 1972, land reclamation became a common practice for tourism development. When land is reclaimed, stretches as long as 400 hectares of reefs are covered with sand to be built on. Our land-based view of ecocide fails to explain the impact caused by the destruction of entire coral reefs and the resulting loss of marine biodiversity. In the aftermath of reef destruction, ‘coral restoration’ has become a go-to measure to attract marine life to areas where water contamination and over-exploitation have degraded reefs to the point of gloomy rocks. 

Checking on the growth of new rose coral in a formerly decaying reef. Brighter corals are alive, while the whiter, dull pieces serve as the foundations for coral revival. 

In the Maldives, coral restoration is commonly carried out with so-called ‘coral frames’. Spider-like metal frames are introduced into shallow areas, and live coral clippings are attached to the frame. Despite the seemingly good intentions, the environmental impact has to be considered in what has now become a rapidly growing underwater business industry. 

A metal frame with Acropora—one of the fastest growing corals—attached to it. If the coral dies, the frame remains on the bottom of the ocean.

Coral restoration using metal frames depends on continuous human intervention, and if frames are not properly maintained, they quickly become artificial structures remaining in the ocean. Fast-growing corals—such as those in the Acropora genus—are most commonly attached to the metal frames. The long-term success of this method and coral survival are still to be proven. Sendi, a seasoned ocean activist and professional dive instructor since 1981, describes the introduction of coral frames to ocean floors as “importing an alien species of bird and releasing it onto an island”. To this day, hundreds of metal frames have been deposited on Maldivian ocean floors, many of which have quickly become underwater metal cemeteries. 

Aesthetic concerns aside, the introduction of an artificial structure into a delicate natural marine environment can affect broader ecological dynamics. For instance, an external coral barrier made of metal frames that is placed in an olhu—a natural shallow reef bay—can have impacts on marine life and humans alike. These structures can alter tide and nutrient flows, which has knock-on effects on the foraging habits of fish. Local fisherfolk, who follow an olhu’s natural cycles, adjust fishing times according to the tide and time of the day when bigger fish enter the bay. A seemingly small change to a natural bay’s structure can have large effects on marine life and the people who rely on them. 

The ocean floor and the shape of this shallow reef are transformed by the extensive use of coral frames

Full of intricate patterns and unparalleled colours, a Maldivian coral reef can support up to 300 different coral species. Solutions to improve, conserve and promote coral growth must be locally adapted to each reef’s specific structure and species. Instead of restoration, we propose coral revival, where consideration for the entire marine ecosystem and its linkages with broader environmental factors are given priority. 

Much like endemic reforestation—where special attention is given to native spaces and ecosystem restoration—coral revival takes various forms but primarily focuses on using local coral varieties to restore dead or dying sections of the reef. This method respects the reef’s original location and involves attaching live coral to decaying or dead coral structures. Common techniques include using ropes, marine cement plugs,or low-voltage electricity* to ‘nurse’ corals before transplanting them to existing reefs. (*Studies have shown that using an electrical current can stimulate coral growth.)

Acropora growing next to an old piece of coral. Using Acropora as the go-to coral restoration variety poses many challenges to maintaining coral diversity within a reef.

Across the Maldives, different coral revival initiatives are underway, experimenting with the specific types of coral and water conditions in each location to ensure the maintenance of the reef’s delicate balance. Following the classic Maldivian mantra of “leave nothing but bubbles”, coral revival relies on local ecological knowledge, which must be integrated into research and restoration efforts.

Although coral restoration initiatives have their limitations and cannot replace the urgent need to reduce environmental stressors—such as ocean acidification due to increasing carbon dioxide emissions—a reef-by-reef approach that integrates local communities’ deep ocean knowledge will be crucial to the success of ongoing Maldivian efforts to conserve and preserve unique coral species.
María Villalpando Author & Photographer
Hussain ‘Sendi’ Rasheed Author

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The song of the bulbuls

What once was a place vibrant with life now holds a tranquil stillness, inviting us to listen closely and embrace the quiet moments that linger. Leonard Cohen’s words echo in my mind: 

“Listen to the hummingbird

Whose wings you cannot see.

Listen to the hummingbird

Don’t listen to me.”

It was my elder sister, Vidhatri, who first noticed the scouting bulbul pair. We had just moved into the house in the hot summer of May, in the bustling city of Bangalore. While the house was bare, waiting to be lived in, the terrace was a sea of green with hibiscus and white roses, a tank of water lilies with fish in it, along with other plants I have yet not learnt the names of. In the corner, as soon as you opened the door, the tall areca palm greeted you with its leaves wide open. 

One scorching afternoon, a month after we had moved in, we opened the terrace door to see a rather chirpy pair of bulbuls on the clothesline, hopping around and inspecting the plants. It was nothing we hadn’t seen before, given how common bulbuls are, and yet we were in complete awe. Over the next few days, we cautiously opened the door as soon as they broke into song and argued about which one was male and which was female, hoping to find some sort of marking that differentiated them. Neither of us were seasoned birdwatchers and thanks to recent technological advancements, we scrolled endlessly through bird identification apps and bulbul blogs and stories on the internet. Being the amateurs we were, we still couldn’t tell the red-whiskered male from the female apart. Eventually, that did not matter. 

By mid-June, the pair chose the areca beside our door to nest in. It was a spot that hid them from the exposed terrace and being under the shed, protected them from the rain. Not wanting to disturb them as they darted from one plant to another, we barely opened the door to look at them.  

Hoping to catch a glimpse, one noon, I cracked open the door just enough to peek through. The birds were not there. I walked to the areca and in their absence something new had appeared in the nest—two tiny, brown speckled eggs! I called for Vidhatri excitedly, who took it upon herself at that very moment to document the lives of this new family that had made this place our shared home. 

The bulbuls returned regularly, taking turns incubating the eggs, as the other went off in search of food. As a little experiment of our own, we left them some water but they remained doubtful of our offerings. 

About two weeks after the discovery of the eggs, on yet another occasion when the nest was unattended, I dared to peek into it and saw two tiny blobs of pinkish red. Surely they were the most odd-looking little bird babies, I thought to myself, as they moved their tiny arms around and touched each other and lay snuggled in the little nest, eyes tightly shut to the world—and that was, perhaps, the most beautiful thing that I had ever seen! Minutes later the bulbuls returned with their loud warning calls. 

Screenshot 2025-02-28 164459

The next few days were filled with their chirps and our excited whispering. We watched the parent bulbuls dart tirelessly back and forth with tiny insects and worms in their beaks. The chicks demanded a meal every few hours. We had taken to leaving fruit—grapes, jamun, anything we thought they would enjoy. The tired parents accepted the fruit to feed the ever-hungry chicks. Every morning, I could swear they had grown a tiny bit more than they had yesterday. By the end of June, they barely fit in the once spacious nest and had started sprouting feathers. They would react to the softest of footsteps, their mouths wide open and soundless, as they expected the return of the worm bringers. Trust me, the sight was hilarious!

C:\Users\shiva\Pictures\Screenshots\Screenshot 2025-02-28 164337.pngScreenshot 2025-02-28 164337

The birds would never feed the chicks while we were around. Instead, they would perch on a nearby plant, chirping loudly, urging us to back off. Only when the coast was clear, did they swoop down to feed their young. 

As July brought light rain, the bulbuls’ choice of the areca plant beside our door started making perfect sense. It was the best weather for snuggling in and enjoying the rain. The chicks slept and demanded food for most part of the day. The parents took shifts to fulfil all their demands. In their absence, we felt the strong urge to be the chicks’ guardians. They would be ready any day to flap their tiny wings and leave the nest. 

bubluls in june

The experience breathed new life into us until one morning in early July, one of the chicks went missing. Vidhatri and I searched the terrace frantically, hoping to find it. We thought it had attempted to fly and must be alone somewhere, in need of our help, but there were no signs, no chirps to indicate its presence. We told ourselves that perhaps the parents had moved it to a safer place, disturbed by our presence.

The next morning, I woke to the sound of Vidhatri’s panicked voice. “Get up!” she said, tears streaming down her face. “The other chick—it’s dead.” I scrambled out of bed and followed her out onto the terrace. There, lying among the plants was the second chick, its tiny body lifeless. Its feet were wrapped with the twigs from the nest, as if it had struggled to hold on. Ants had begun to gather around it. I stood there in shock. Surely, I must be dreaming? Perhaps I would wake up any moment and see the chick in the nest, flapping its wings. The air felt heavy all around me. 

bulbul dead

We speculated about what might have happened. Perhaps it was a crow or a black kite, both of which we had seen circling the neighbourhood. Or maybe it was one of the stray cats. The mystery remained. It is difficult to be angry and remain angry when you don’t know what you’re angry at. “It is the circle of life” we were told by family and friends. That noon, the bulbuls sat on our grilled door, so close that we could touch them and then they broke into a song, almost as if mourning their babies’ deaths. We were speechless.

But this is not a sad story. It is a story about opening our hearts and homes to the wonders of nature. In the busy city of Bangalore, where the noise often drowns out the little chirps, our terrace became a quiet refuge. I now spend my days watching the butterflies flutter from a bright flower to another. If you’re silent for a moment, you can still hear the song of the bulbuls. 
Shivangi Thakkar Author
Vidhatri Thakkar Photographer

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What’s on the menu for Tsavo lions, and what does it mean for the conservation of their prey?  

An internet search for “Tsavo lions” will inevitably yield results of infamous “man-eaters” and the story of two lions that hunted railroad workers in the late 1800s along the Kenya-Uganda Railway. This grisly story, whose origins have been adapted into novels, films, and folklore, depicts a somewhat rare tendency of human-eating among Tsavo lions, while overshadowing their typical habits. Even today, little is known about these lions’ hunting and predation ecology, despite Tsavo—a region in southern Kenya—being a stronghold for these vulnerable cats in East Africa. 

While it is home to approximately 450 lions, the Tsavo landscape also harbours two precious herbivore species introduced here in the 1960s as part of ambitious ex-situ conservation projects: the Critically Endangered hirola antelope (with fewer than 500 individuals remaining globally) and the Endangered Grevy’s zebra. Despite efforts to support their population recovery, both species have remained rare in Tsavo. Researchers have suggested that predation by lions and other carnivores might keep the somewhat localised hirola and Grevy’s zebra populations at low numbers. However, there is no conclusive evidence supporting this hypothesis.

To determine whether predation might take a toll on these two herbivores, and to gain a better understanding of lion diet and ecology in this landscape, between 2019 and 2023, we collected lion scats (aka poop) and identified undigested prey hairs in them to determine what species made up Simba’s menu. While such scat collection, curation, and sample identification is a painstaking and often smelly affair, when coupled with biomass models—a scientifically robust and widespread diet estimation technique—it can tell us not only what lions eat, but also how much! 

We found that while Tsavo’s lions primarily feast on larger, more abundant species like Cape buffalo, giraffe, and waterbuck, they show a marked preference for the rare hirola and Grevy’s zebra. Together, these endangered species comprise about 5 percent of the lions’ diet—a significant proportion considering they represent just 1 percent of available prey in the landscape. This creates what ecologists call ‘apparent competition’, where abundant prey species maintain high predator numbers, inadvertently increasing pressure on rarer species. Think of it as an ecological trap: the success of common prey species keeps lion populations healthy, but this success might be hampering the recovery of endangered herbivores who are perhaps caught in a ‘predator pit’.

A pair of Tsavo lions hunting a Cape buffalo. Photo credit: Tsavo Trust

What does this all mean for the management and conservation of these two herbivores? Our study shows that lion predation may play a role in keeping the hirola and Grevy’s zebra populations at low numbers that were small populations to begin with; however, observational research with GPS telemetry on lions and other carnivores is needed to confirm these dynamics.

The story of the man-eaters of Tsavo will persist, but we hope that our study will pave the way for more directional research in this system to better understand carnivore-prey interactions in the wake of global climate change in this critical ecosystem.

A group of hirola in the front (pale-coloured) in a mixed herd with hartebeest in the rear (darker in colour). Photo credit: Tsavo Trust

Further Reading: 

King E., S. Chakrabarti, F. Lala, S. Nyaga, G. Waiguchu, P. Chiyo, J. Kimaile et al. 2024. The Lion’s Share: Implications of a carnivore’s diet on threatened herbivores in Tsavo, Kenya. Oryx 58(4): 506–513. doi.org/10.1017/S0030605324000085.
Stotra Chakrabarti Author
 Eliza King Author
Joseph Bump Author
Fredrick Lala Author
Amolika Podder Illustrator

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A Recipe for Successful Mangrove Restoration

Mangroves comprise approximately three percent of the world’s forest cover, but store 10 times more carbon per hectare than terrestrial forests. They serve as invaluable nurseries for countless marine species, including fish—some of which are important for food security—and also mitigate coastal flooding and erosion. Consequently, mangroves receive a significant amount of international funding for their protection and restoration. However, for restoration to succeed it’s vital to select suitable restoration sites. 

What makes a site suitable for mangrove restoration? It’s usually a combination of factors. It’s infeasible to implement restoration actions, if the ecological conditions that mangrove species require aren’t met. Although they can tolerate high salt concentrations and flooded environments, too much of either can kill them. For instance, large-scale mangrove planting efforts are conducted every year, but a lot of the seedlings die because they are planted outside the species’ tolerance thresholds to flooding conditions. 

While the ecological requirements of the mangrove species need to be considered, another key aspect to take into account when undertaking restoration is the people. Imagine if you woke up one morning to find someone had installed fencing around your beloved vegetable patch, and you could no longer harvest your fruit and vegetables. This may be similar to how some communities feel when an area they live in or utilise for local livelihoods becomes the target of conservation or restoration projects. Without local support, engagement or cooperation, restoration is unlikely to succeed. 

Organic oyster farming in the Biosphere Reserve Marismas Nacionales Nayarit, Mexico.
Photo credit: Jason Houston/WWF-US

In a recent study published in Conservation Biology, researchers investigated how the likelihood of restoration success could be increased through the integration of both ecological and socioeconomic data. The team used the Biosphere Reserve Marismas Nacionales Nayarit in Mexico as a case study to trial their approach. They analysed the suitability of restoration sites using only ecological characteristics, such as the ability of mangrove seeds to grow in changing sea levels. Next, they analysed site suitability using only socioeconomic characteristics, such as how the local community uses and values mangroves. Finally, site suitability was analysed using both ecological and socioeconomic data. The researchers found that when both datasets were considered simultaneously, they were able to identify sites with a higher chance of restoration success. 

Unfortunately, it is typical for scientific information to not be incorporated into restoration projects. There are several reasons for this, including limited technical training, lack of access to information, and short delivery timelines for implementation. However, this study was conducted in collaboration with the managers of the biosphere reserve and NGOs that are working in the area. Therefore, it directly informs allocation of available resources and makes it a great example of science informing conservation decision-makers. 

If significant amounts of conservation funding continue to be allocated to mangrove restoration, we want to make sure that these efforts are successful, and that the money is used wisely. This study provides an example of how this can be done effectively. 

Further Reading:

Villarreal-Rosas, J., C. J. Brown, D. A. Andradi-Brown, R. Domínguez, P. Jacobo, A. Martínez, C. Mascote et al. 2024. Integrating socioeconomic and ecological data into restoration practice. Conservation Biology: e14286. https://doi.org/10.1111/cobi.14286. 
Alexandra White Author
Jaramar Villarreal Rosas Author
Devaki Pratap Illustrator

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WHAT IS WILD

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Does it roar, does it growl? 
Is it beast, fish or fowl?

Inhabit rainforests or snowy peaks? 
Live in deserts, or the ocean deeps?

Does it have stripes, wear armour? 
Exotic feathers or thick fur?

Is it whiskered, huge and ferocious? 
Have claws on its paws, good gracious!

Does it grow wild in forests deep? 
Tangled in branches where monkeys leap?

That’s just where we all go wrong. 
Thinking wild is a lion or gorilla strong.

What’s wild can be large: a blue whale or an elephant.
But also teeny weeny: an amoeba, a mite or an ant.

Wildlife can be insect, reptile or bird.
Living alone in a cave, or all in a herd.

It can be the trees in a jungle dark. 
It can be weeds in a garden or moss in a park.

It is the living things that we have not tamed; 
As pets in our house, or on farms retained.

That live on their own, as creatures free; 
In cracks in our homes, or up on a tree.

Lizards, spiders, weeds, rats and snails… 
Are wildlife as much as tigers or whales.

You don’t have to climb mountains or dive very deep. 
Plunge into dark jungles, or ride miles in a jeep.

There’s a wildlife safari you can take any day. 
Through home or garden or just along the way.

Just keep your eyes open and all your senses alert. 
Look out for these creatures, even in the dirt.

You’ll find the world around teeming with life. 
From tiny to enormous, you can call it all wildlife!
Mamata Pandya Author

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The Lily Trotter

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The female lily trotter on the pond
Has many broods, all cared for by their dads,
Each knowing it’s her nature to abscond,
Light-footedly across the lily pads
In search of other males, as soon as she’s
Laid eggs. Most mother birds will tend a brood,
Yet lily trotter wisdom disagrees:
Their single parenting is by the dude.
Remarkably, this dad sits on the eggs.
Once they are hatched, he rears the chicks alone,
Then totes them, under wing, on gangly legs,
Till they can better manage on their own—
Exemplary parental care … His tale
Reveals the feathered world’s most caring male!
Mike Mesterton-Gibbons Author

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Fishing for evidence: How can machine learning help?

Feature image:  A fisher retrieving his nets in the Rio Madre de Dios in Bolivia. Previously, fishers in the area reported abundant catches but nowadays it increasingly common for fishers to return home empty-handed because of impacts from dams and gold mining. (Photo credit: Gretchen Stokes)

As human impacts on the environment rapidly accelerate, so does the need to understand those impacts and develop strategies to build resilience amidst growing threats. Often, researchers can identify the larger causes of environmental degradation (‘drivers’, such as climate change or pollution), observe changes in the environment (‘impacts’, such as habitat loss or poor water quality), and notice how species respond (‘responses’, such as changes in reproduction or population declines) to these changes. 

However, it is much more challenging to link drivers, impacts, and responses as a direct cause-and-effect relationship. For example, illegal logging might cause increased soil erosion along a river and fishers may catch fewer fish, but documenting a direct link between land use change and fish mortality can be difficult. Yet, uncovering these driver-impact-response links can help identify opportunities for interventions and appropriate conservation actions. 

Untangling the links

One logical approach to understanding these links is utilising documented evidence of drivers, impacts, and responses already published in the scientific literature. There has been a surge in the number of publications about global environmental change, which is useful for providing more evidence but challenging because of the high volume of papers, and in turn requires substantial effort to sift and extract information. However, artificial intelligence tools such as machine learning—computers that learn to detect patterns and make predictions based on the data—can help overcome this challenge.

In this study, we focused on understanding driver-impact-response links across 45 river basins and large lakes with the highest freshwater fish catch. Freshwater fish comprise over half of the world’s fish species and are a vital food source for billions of people. Yet, they are some of the most threatened animals on the planet. 

We searched for relevant literature using keywords and extracted 9,336 abstracts for review. After reviewing over half of them, we realised that machine learning could help sort abstracts “with threats” and “without threats” into two categories. We trained and tested four computer models and chose the one that best detected abstracts with threats to sort the remaining abstracts. This process taught us a few things.

Lessons learned

First, we discovered that some threats are better documented than others. For example, pollution and dams were the most documented drivers and the most frequently linked to negative fish responses. Other drivers known to have substantial impacts on fish, such as climate change, were seldom documented with direct fish responses. This may be because it is difficult to link climate impacts in real-time, and because some drivers have complex interactions with other drivers. 

Second, we learned that machine learning was much better at classifying irrelevant abstracts (those without threats) than at correctly classifying those with threats. We think this may be due, in part, to the unstandardised nature of fisheries literature. For instance, defining a fishery can be variable, so it is not surprising that computers would have a hard time learning text patterns with nuanced language. This contrasts with other fields like medicine, where language is more standardised for medical reports. High performance in classifying irrelevant abstracts is still extremely useful and quickly helped us eliminate thousands of papers. 

Through this study, we were able to demonstrate a successful application of machine learning to improve efficiency—by over 50 percent—and optimise the extraction of evidence to inform conservation planning. While neither method of evidence synthesis (human or computer) could function independently, the combination of both methods proved useful. 

Since ecologists often lack the specialised training to apply complex methods in machine learning, we also created a toolkit for users to extract evidence and understand performance metrics and outputs. Overall, our study provides a transdisciplinary bridge from computer science to ecology and a useful toolkit for evidence synthesis amidst accelerating global environmental change.  

Further Reading: Stokes, G. L., A. J. Lynch, J. V. Flores, J. P. Wong, C. Morang, C. Romulo, S. Funge-Smith et al. 2024. Computational approaches improve evidence synthesis and inform broad fisheries trends. Conservation Science and Practice 6(8): e13167. https://doi.org/10.1111/csp2.13167. 
 Gretchen Stokes Author
Abigail Lynch Author
 John Flores Author
 Jesse Wong Author
 Connor Morang Author
Chelsie Romulo Author
Simon Funge-Smith Author
John Valbo‐Jørgensen Author
Sam Smidt Author

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Making biodiversity research more diverse and inclusive

As a group of young scientists who ventured from our homelands to pursue careers in biodiversity science in Europe, we found ourselves in a landscape of unparalleled research excellence. The scientific standards of this region are undeniably rigorous, and we are privileged to conduct research within countries with prosperous economies. As migrants, we bring diverse stories and backgrounds from our home of origin to the new places we live in. Several of us come from biologically and culturally mega-diverse countries. 

When we began exchanging our impressions and experiences of working in top-tier research institutes, we were soon faced with some striking contradictions. For instance, a large proportion of knowledge produced in globally recognised institutions is often disconnected from the regions under study. The primary causes for this disconnection are disparities in financial resources and limited involvement of researchers from biodiversity-rich regions—areas that are often economically disadvantaged and underrepresented in the biodiversity research landscape—in global networks and applied synthesis science. 

From our collective reflection, we identified four main challenges behind this systemic problem: (i) linguistic biases, (ii) undervalued research contributions, (iii) parachute science and extractive practices, and (iv) capacity constraints and accessibility. We decided to address this issue by publishing a set of strategies that aim to solve the problem in the journal Conservation Biology. 

Proposed actions to promote more inclusive biodiversity research

Embracing diversity and dismantling systemic barriers to equitable collaboration requires integrated actions directed toward four main stakeholders in biodiversity research: researchers, institutions, funders, and publishers. 

Researchers should reflect on their practices and encourage self-reflection among peers. This will increase awareness and promote meaningful, fair collaborations with local researchers from underrepresented regions. Additionally, researchers can improve research practices by broadening the scope of information sources, such as including literature from various languages and citing diverse authors. 

Institutions—such as universities and research centres—can establish bridges of cooperation between over and underrepresented regions, and allocate resources for initiatives that reach global audiences, particularly underrepresented researchers. 

Academic publishers could support multilingualism and improve the representation of researchers from underrepresented regions on editorial boards. Addressing financial barriers to publishing for low and middle-income countries is another action publishers can take to promote inclusivity. 

Finally, funders can impact resource allocation by supporting projects that build networks focused on local researchers and by revisiting research priorities. 

We conclude that, regardless of career stage and status, biodiversity research stakeholders can implement these actions to change the status quo and tackle the four main challenges hindering an equitable approach to biodiversity science. Collectively, these actions will have a cascading effect that positively impacts the way we do biodiversity research.

Further Reading:

Valdez, J., G. Damasceno, R. R. Oh, L. C. Quintero Uribe, M. P. Barajas Barbosa, T. Ferreira Amado, C. Schmidt et al. 2024. Advancing inclusive biodiversity research: Strategies for equitable practices and collective impact. Conservation Biology 38(6): e14325. https://doi.org/10.1111/cobi.14325. 
Martha Paola Barajas Barbosa Author & Illustrator
Gabriella Damasceno Author

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Managing cropland fragmentation for environmental and economic benefits in China

Feature image: Zhagana, Gansu Province, China. Photo credit: Ziyue Hong

The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework sets an ambitious goal: protecting 30 percent of the Earth’s land by 2030. This commitment may be at odds with the need for agricultural production, especially in regions with ‘fragmented croplands’. 

While many are familiar with forest fragmentation, the concept of cropland fragmentation is equally essential for conservation efforts. Fragmented croplands—areas smaller than 10 hectares that are not well connected to other farmlands—are often located in challenging terrain such as hills and mountains. These areas typically suffer from poor soil quality and lack of water resources. The lower productivity and economic challenges associated with fragmented croplands directly impact food security and rural livelihoods. 

In China, small-scale farmers play a dominant role in agricultural production, and fragmented croplands are widespread. This could impact the country’s ability to meet its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), specifically by posing obstacles to food security (SDG 2: Zero Hunger) and pushing rural families towards poverty (SDG 1: No Poverty). The question then becomes: How can fragmented croplands be managed to contribute towards both conservation goals and sustainable development? 

Here, I describe a new study that proposes a strategy to balance food production with environmental protection, offering potential solutions for managing fragmented croplands more effectively. This research aims to address the dual needs of agricultural productivity and ecological conservation in China’s complex agricultural landscape.

Shantou, Guangdong Province, China. Photo credit: Yanrong Chen

Ouping Deng and colleagues from Zhejiang University recently looked at how China manages its fragmented croplands. Their study, published in 2024, explored management policies that could lead to better environmental and economic results. Deng’s team used innovative simulations to predict China’s land use changes until 2050. Based on historical data, they considered factors like urban growth and shifts to large-scale farming. This approach helped forecast how different strategies might impact fragmented croplands, offering valuable insights into the country’s future agricultural landscape. 

Their study revealed an encouraging finding: 90 percent of China’s croplands are suitable for aggregation into larger farms exceeding 10 hectares. This presents a significant opportunity to address inefficiencies and environmental challenges associated with fragmented farmlands. The remaining 10 percent of croplands, which are often in remote areas, pose unique challenges. These areas contribute just 8 percent of the country’s total crop output, but consume 15 percent of nitrogen fertilisers.

So, how can these remaining fragmented croplands be improved? Deng and his team propose two potential solutions. The first involves changing the types of crops grown on these lands—a strategy known as ‘optimising crop structure’—and using some of the fragmented croplands for cattle grazing. This could reduce China’s beef imports, significantly cut nitrogen and greenhouse gas emissions, and boost animal food supply. Additionally, it could generate billions in economic benefits annually, offering a win-win solution for agriculture and the environment. 

The second strategy—‘displacement of cropland’—offers a bolder approach. It involves completely retiring these scattered farmlands. Farming would shift to more suitable areas, where large-scale agriculture is possible. This could transform China’s agricultural landscape, potentially boosting efficiency while allowing fragmented lands to recover naturally. This strategy also aligns well with the ongoing efforts in the region. It builds on the success of the Grain for Green programme, which has already retired many farms over the past two decades. This history demonstrates that large-scale land conversion is not only possible but a proven approach in the country’s agricultural policy. 

Moreover, the cropland displacement strategy could significantly boost China’s agricultural output, especially in livestock, vegetables, and fruits. It would also substantially reduce environmental impacts by cutting down nitrogen use and greenhouse gas emissions, and generate tens of billions in annual economic benefits, offering a transformative solution for agriculture.          

Sanming, Fujian Province, China. Photo credit: Ni Zhang

You might think that more intensive croplands don’t seem environmentally friendly. While counterintuitive, this approach can benefit biodiversity through a ‘land sparing’ strategy. Land sparing involves concentrating agriculture in some areas and leaving other regions to recover. It often contrasts with ‘land sharing’, where farming and nature coexist. In 2019, Andrew Balmford and colleagues conducted a comprehensive study comparing these strategies across different cultures and contexts. They found that land sparing generally outperforms land sharing for biodiversity conservation in most situations. 

While there are exceptions and nuances to consider, the 2019 study supports the idea that intensifying agriculture in some areas, as proposed for China’s fragmented croplands, can be an effective environmental strategy. Concentrating farming could free up more land for nature conservation, thereby benefiting biodiversity. Deng’s 2024 study highlights a crucial insight: croplands can play a vital role in achieving our biodiversity goals. This research reminds us that sustainable development isn’t just about nature conservation; it’s about creating harmony between human prosperity and environmental health. 

As we face global challenges like food security, climate change, and biodiversity loss, solutions must consider the interconnectedness of social and ecological systems. By rethinking our approach to agriculture, we can improve human well-being while protecting our planet. This recent study underscores the importance of collaboration between macroeconomists, environmental scientists, and policymakers to create holistic strategies that balance human needs with ecological conservation for a sustainable future.

Further Reading:

Balmford, B., R. E. Green, M. Onial, B. Phalan and A. Balmford. 2019. How imperfect can land sparing be before land sharing is more favourable for wild species? Journal of Applied Ecology 56(1): 73–84. https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2664.13282. 

Deng, O., J. Ran, S. Huang, J. Duan, S. Reis, J. Zhang and B. Gu. 2024. Managing fragmented croplands for environmental and economic benefits in China. Nature Food 5(3): 230–240. https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-024-00938-7. 

This RIT is part of a series: ‘Letters from China’, which periodically summarises new research from ecology and conservation from China. It is curated by Dr. Eben Goodale, Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, China, with editorial support from Chief RIT Editor Dr. Daniel J. Read. Click on the ‘Letters from China’ tag above the article title to read other RITs in this series. 
Xinlei Guo Author

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Me ora te Ngāhere: Visioning forest health through an Indigenous biocultural lens

Feature image: Participants from the study—representing multiple generations of the Ngāti Rangi—going out to test biocultural monitoring tools, with their sacred mountain Ruapehu in the background.

Note: The following text is described in the Ngāti Rangi mita (dialect), while concepts may be similar eg: Mouri = Mauri, the spelling reflects the tribal vernacular. 

In Aotearoa (New Zealand), the Department of Conservation’s biodiversity strategy implementation plan—Te Mana O Te Taiao—published in 2022, prioritises addressing the drivers of biodiversity loss. Importantly, this strategy identifies the need for integrated approaches that incorporate Te Ao Māori (the Māori world) knowledge and systems. 

Cultural-ecological constructs are key in relationships between Indigenous people and their environments. Biocultural approaches can contribute to reversing the current biodiversity crisis. Furthermore, the emphasis is on tools that can collect information to inform biodiversity protection with consideration for their environmental, social, cultural, and economic impacts. In our study, we developed a tool that is a step towards achieving these national goals.

We explored a biocultural monitoring tool based on mātauranga (Māori knowledge) to inform Ngāti Rangi (a central North Island Māori tribe) about the health of spatially separate but ecologically similar forests within their tribal estate. Here we report on the Ngāti Rangi example of parametrised metrics for forest health, embedded in their worldview, and how this expression supports the Ngāti Rangi’s assertion of rangatiratanga (self-determination) in their co-management aspirations.

We conducted a series of noho taiao (community workshops) and one-on-one interviews to collect values that express a Ngāti Rangi worldview, to measure the health of the ngahere (forest). Gradients and indicators were developed to apply as a measure of forest health. The interviews provided an observation of ngahere health and assessed inter-generational differences in how it’s perceived.

Rongoā (medicinal plants), manu (birds), ahua o te ngahere (nature of the forest), wai (water), and tangata (people) were themes prioritised by the Ngāti Rangi. An example of the metrics that the tribe wanted to measure was captured in Question 8: are there any significant trees present? This was related to significant roosting locations—such as that of their taonga or sacred bird species in the area—and cultural or spiritual practices that were held at these trees. This metric allowed the tribe to record the tree’s location, its name, and the use it was traditionally known for. This was recorded as either presence or absence, with the option to make notes on its significance and cultural heritage.

Another example of culturally important information was encapsulated in Question 13: what is the rongo of the wai in the ngahere? The rongo in this instance is related to the vibration or sound that the water makes, in relation to its interface within the forest. This was measured using a metric called mauri ora—the essence of healthy living—where key taonga species were abundant in quantity and diversity, receiving a ranking of ‘3’. The next rank ‘2’ reflected a reduction of the previous observations at each stage, until the metric reached ‘0’ or mouri te rongo, where the mouri was seen to be inactive or in a state of revealing or uncovering its living essence or vitality. At this stage, an absence of significant species and an overall decline in species diversity, presence, and vitality were observed. 

The above cultural tenets were considered the most relevant traits of a forest thriving from a cultural perspective. Through our study, we demonstrated a biocultural monitoring tool as one facet that the Ngāti Rangi can use to reconnect, reclaim, and build new knowledge around their forests. Biocultural approaches are an opportunity to reverse not just ecological declines but also socio-cultural impacts from colonial legacies.

These understandings exemplify what a biocultural approach can look like in place. A full sensory evaluation of forest health facilitating a deep relational connection to place, coupled with philosophies such as reciprocity and whakapapa (genealogical hierarchy highlighting connection to the environment through kinship relationships) are vital features of a biocultural conservation approach. 

Participants from the Ngāti Rangi whanau (extended family group) testing and providing feedback on the biocultural monitoring tool we developed.

Further Reading: 
Reihana, K. R., O’B. P. Lyver, A. Gormley, M. Younger, N. Harcourt, M. Cox, M. Wilcox et al. 2023. Me ora te Ngāhere: visioning forest health through an Indigenous biocultural lens. Pacific Conservation Biology 30: PC22028. https://www.publish.csiro.au/PC/PC22028.
Kiri Reihana Author

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When helping wildlife hurts

For years, I saw her come and go. She wandered the roads around my neighbourhood, at first cautiously but growing bolder each year. She raised several litters of kits in the woods nearby, finding food scraps humans left out for her, purposefully or not. My family enjoyed seeing the little grey fox family each year. The pups played through backyards and the mother brought food and taught them how to survive the dangers of cars and dogs. Then, she grew too brave, approaching humans and even accepting food from a neighbour’s hand. We didn’t see her again after that season.

Stories like this happen every day. As cities continue to grow and expand, the space for wild animals shrinks. Many of them adapt to become less and less wild. Humans provide food, through efforts to sustain wildlife and an abundance of waste. Some species, such as coyotes, are becoming braver and adapting to thrive in urban areas surrounded by humans. Urban coyotes behave differently than their rural counterparts, who live where humans are scarcer and more likely to chase them away or harm them. This difference in behaviour may lead urban coyotes to attack humans for food or simply because they do not fear them. Other species, like raccoons and squirrels, also lose their fear of humans when fed, and damage homes and yards as they come closer to find food and shelter.

We may mean well

Some well-intentioned actions, such as putting food out for wildlife, posting cute photos or bringing animals to wildlife rehabilitators, can have harmful effects.

Humans enjoy the connection they gain with wildlife they feed, not realising the dangers they create. Even bird feeders can be hazardous. They expose wild birds to disease by spreading bacteria and parasites if feeders are too crowded or not cleaned regularly. Feeding wildlife increases bold behaviours, puts humans and wildlife in risky situations, and may cause unintended selection of unnatural traits (like begging) that allow animals to gain more food.

Humans who love animals often share photos of them online. However, social media has proven dangerous for wild animals. It has encouraged humans to get too comfortable around wildlife by keeping them as pets or approaching them in the wild. Photos of individuals petting tigers and dressing monkeys in baby clothes support the illegal wildlife trade by increasing the demand for wild animals as pets. This creates dangerous situations when wild animals are obtained without the proper knowledge needed to care for them safely and appropriately.

Additionally, some humans rescue wild animals that do not need rescuing—for example, by separating babies from adults that have left momentarily or moving animals like turtles away from their homes. Deer, for instance, leave their babies alone for several hours while they forage. Fawns are sometimes picked up by well-meaning individuals who think they have been abandoned.

In many areas, keeping wildlife is illegal, though tales of humans raising raccoons and squirrels in their homes abound. Those laws protect humans from exposure to disease and injuries caused when frightened animals lash out. They also protect animals from receiving improper care. Wildlife rehabilitation centres can usually take these animals but will often caution against removing them from the wild if they are not injured.

Seemingly benevolent actions may help an individual animal for a short period of time, but ultimately, they can lead to that animal becoming dependent on humans for survival. Some do not survive. Others are released, only to become nuisances after frequently approaching humans for food. They may be killed to protect humans and pets, or placed in zoos or rescues. Efforts to relocate or haze wildlife, which involves frightening animals away from humans, may be made but often fail when humans continue to feed wild animals.

Knowledge is key

Educators can help provide knowledge and alternative actions to those engaging in dangerous activities with wildlife. They can supply them with better options to support or connect with wild animals, such as planting native plants in their gardens, providing a non-stagnant water source, or observing natural behaviours from afar. Humans are social animals. Many detrimental interactions with wildlife are caused by a desire to feel connected with them. Allowing humans to find that connection through safer avenues, while also providing information to help wild animals remain wild will—pardon the expression—kill two birds with one stone.

When educators cannot interact with other humans face to-face, the media can provide valuable links between humans, organisations and animals. When used effectively and responsibly, social media can benefit conservation by creating connections to wildlife that humans crave. It can introduce them to animals already in human care and provide their stories as sources of factual information and also help build empathy.

Tips to coexist

The coexistence of humans and wildlife means walking a thin line as we seek to help wildlife without making them dependent on us. One small action we can take to help wild animals is to leave natural areas in our backyards, including food sources, such as flowers or berries, and piles of fallen leaves, which provide invaluable habitat for pollinators, such as bees, during the winter. We can also secure trash containers to limit access for wild animals, clean bird feeders regularly, use healthy food in those feeders (such as sunflower seeds, millet and cracked corn), and keep pets indoors or supervised so they can’t harm wild animals.

On a larger scale, we can support conservation organisations like accredited zoos or nature centres, become more aware of what we put into the world that may cause harm—such as pesticides, litter and images presenting wild animals as pets—and spread the word that our world still has hope! We can all continue to learn about best practices regarding interactions with wildlife, knowing that best practices may change in the future. Just as wildlife adapt to coexist with us, we must keep adapting to coexist with them. Together, we have the power to make a positive difference!

Further Reading

Elliot, E. E., S. Vallance and L. E. Molles. 2016.Coexisting with coyotes (Canis latrans) in an urban environment. Urban Ecosystems 19(3): 1335–1350.https://doi.org/10.1007/s11252-016-0544-2.

Griffin, L. L. and S. Ciuti. 2023. Should we feed wildlife? A call for further research into this recreational activity. Conservation Science and Practice 5(7): e12958. https://doi.org/10.1111/csp2.12958

Svensson, M., T. Morcatty, V. Nijman and C. Shepherd. 2022. The next exotic pet to go viral: Is social media causing an increase in the demand of owning bushbabies as pets? Hystrix, the Italian Journal of Mammalogy 33(1):51–57. https://doi.org/10.4404/hystrix-00455-2021.
Kathleen Hankins Author
Upasana Chadha Illustrator
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2024 Dec
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Elephants and Ostrom

Feature image: Most human-elephant conflicts in northeast India are a result of crop damage by elephants, as seen here with this large bull eating ripened paddy. One such event can cause significant economic loss to farmers.

A dense fog envelops us as we sit atop a bamboo mat raised on stilts. Every few minutes, Dhan da flicks on the flashlight and tries in vain to penetrate the characteristic winter night fog of the floodplains of the Brahmaputra river in northeast India. We are guarding his paddy fields from elephants that use the cover of darkness to forage on the delicious crop.

Human-elephant conflict in this region claims the lives of a hundred people and tens of elephants every year. Massive deforestation coupled with nutritious paddy grown on the same land that elephants had historically used has led to these clashes becoming more serious each year. In order to understand how better to keep elephants and human beings safe from each other, I chose to study the two species in the floodplains of the Brahmaputra.

One of the most widespread consequences of human-elephant conflict on people is the constant fear that people live in, with the dread of losing their livelihoods or lives at any moment in the night. In order to remedy this, a simple solution in the form of a non-lethal fence was put into practice by the state of Assam and NGO partners. This fence delivers a sharp but non-lethal jolt to animals that come in contact with it, creating a psychological barrier and effectively securing the area it encloses. However, in order for this to work, it has to be maintained—the technical machinery needs to be checked regularly and undergrowth around the fence needs to be cleared. This is low-intensity, easy and quick work. Since these fences typically enclose villages, the households within the benefitting village are entrusted with the task of this maintenance.

Unexpectedly, and despite the high effectiveness of this solution, 65 percent of the fences in the landscape were not maintained. This was primarily due to the individuals in the community failing to come together and work collectively. I wanted to understand why this was the case for my Masters’ thesis. What were we missing that led to such a suboptimal, counter-intuitive and dangerous outcome?

On this journey, I came across the work of Elinor Ostrom, who dedicated her academic life to understanding how people avert the ‘tragedy of the commons’ in different contexts across the globe. She formulated a framework for social-ecological systems (SES) and wrote extensively on the factors that predicted their sustainable use over time. Not having worked on such problems previously, I was skeptical of whether I would be able to put this wide framework into practice during my fieldwork.

The author (second from the right) trying to understand the barriers to collective action by talking to local residents

However, within the first few days of being in the field, I was amazed at the power of this system. It proved to be a strong guide to identify factors that influence collective action in these complex, chaotic systems where society and ecology exert such strong influences on each other. For instance, right out of Ostrom’s principles, we found that the predictability of the system was of critical importance. There was the incentive to maintain fences when elephant raids were either very frequent or infrequent but unpredictable, as opposed to the cumulative damage incurred by a community (in the form of crop/ house damage and human injury or death). This was a novel insight for practitioners who generally went by the yardstick of the total damage to gauge the level of conflict.

We kept refining our provisional models with newer insights from the data being collected. This iterative process was a departure from conventional ecological studies where all the data is collected in one go and then analysed, to prevent one from getting biased by the data. Through this approach, we were able to explore the causal mechanisms driving the outcome of the fences in great detail. In particular, this helped us understand the non-material costs and benefits that people consider.

For instance, all the farmers in a village where a fence had failed due to poor maintenance mentioned that when duly maintained, the fence was 95 percent effective in deterring elephants and they reported a reduction in damage to their crops by at least half. In a purely economic sense, this saved orders of magnitude of crops. However, the fence had fallen into disarray after a tiny minority of households that lived in the center of the village refused to partake in maintenance efforts (which involves walking the perimeter of the fence, about 3 km/30 mins, once a month). This led the other individuals, including those for whom the material benefits greatly outweighed the costs, to voluntarily disengage from maintenance.

Ostrom has aptly termed this the ‘sucker effect’, where collective action fails because people do not want to feel like ‘suckers’ for keeping a promise that others are breaking. Over the course of our study, we found that non-material costs and benefits like these played a critical role in securing collective action.

Being an iterative process, we would collect data, analyse it back at the field base with my guides and then return to the field to pick on threads. On one of my visits, just as I made myself comfortable on the mud beside his fishing pond, Dhan da saw me, beamed a bright smile and said, “I love it when you come and speak with me — you keep asking the real questions—the most meaningful ones!” which I felt was a compliment to Ostrom’s SES and not really to me!

A large part of elephants’ ranges are outside protected forests, and include areas such as tea estates where they interact closely with humans

In another village, on discussing the monitoring and governance of these fences with a State Forest Department official, he said: “Actually, I just thought of this now—when we are establishing these fences, we largely think about how good it is, and that it is so much better than staying up all night and chasing elephants. But this is food for thought, we do not actively consider the length of the village, the number of people, and coordination amongst them, which is just as important—and makes or breaks a fence. I am definitely going to think about this next time.” This is identical to the layered governance systems aspect of the SES, which recommends looking at the geographic range and size of the system at scale.

We are currently implementing the findings of this study on the ground to create more robust community institutions to further human-elephant coexistence in uman-dominated areas. The results so far have been encouraging, with the State actors and community members actively drawing on these results in practice. Other studies from across the Indian subcontinent have used the SES successfully to explore the governance of urban lakes, forests, fisheries and drinking water. Established diagnostic tools like the SES can be of great help when working on interdisciplinary problems, especially in the conservation space.
Arjun Kamdar Author & Photographer
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2024 Dec
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How African penguins recognise each other

Penguins are fascinating creatures. Between their inability to fly and their unique vocalisations, is it any wonder that scientists find them a compelling subject of study?

More specifically, one group of scientists sought to understand how African penguins (Spheniscus demersus) recognised their partners among all the other penguins who lived nearby. These penguins are one of 18 species found globally and the only one to inhabit southern Africa.

Penguins have a sophisticated identification process based on vocalisations. In other words, they are able to recognise each other based on the sound of their calls—an impressive ability when you consider how loud and crowded penguin colonies can be. In addition to auditory cues, their sharp eyesight may also be important for recognising individuals. However, we still didn’t know much about how they use visual cues to identify other members of their species.

This was the question that scientists hoped to answer. Before continuing with our story, there are a few things to know about African penguins. First of all, they have monogamous, life-long partners, meaning that they will only nest with one other penguin throughout their lives. It is, therefore, essential for them to be able to quickly and accurately recognise their mate within the colony. Second, African penguins have a pattern of little dots on their bellies. Each penguin has a different pattern, making them unique to the individual. These are very useful to zookeepers and other humans who need to identify individual penguins.

Our scientists came up with a hypothesis: perhaps African penguins use these ventral dots to recognise their mates. If zookeepers can use these markings to tell penguins apart, isn’t it likely that the penguins might do the same?

Using a captive colony of African penguins in Rome, the researchers set up a range of tests. Each adult penguin, who already had a partner, was shown a pair of life-size pictures of two different individuals. Numerous variations of these pictures were presented to the test penguins, but the key variations were as follows:

Test 1 showed full-body pictures of their partner and a non-partner.

Test 2 had full-body pictures of their partner, and their partner but with the little dots removed.

Test 3 had full-body pictures of their partner and a non-partner, both without the dots.

Test 4 showed only the heads of their partner and a non-partner.

Test 5 showed only the bodies of their partner and a non-partner.

The penguins were shown these life-size pictures side by side, and the scientists measured the time they spent looking at each picture. The idea was that they would look at their partner longer than at a non partner, because their partner would be more interesting to them than a neighbour with whom they had no particular attachment. The scientists also hypothesised that if the little belly dots were missing, the penguins wouldn’t be able to distinguish their partner from a non-partner, and would pay equal attention to both pictures.

And that’s pretty much what ended up happening—when given the choice between their partner and a non-partner, they spent more time looking at their partner. But when the dots were removed, they didn’t exhibit any preference towards either of the pictures.

While this experiment doesn’t show that penguins depend exclusively on the dots to recognise their partners, it does demonstrate that these dots are an important visual cue and a feature that African penguins use to recognise each other.

This may seem like a small and insignificant conclusion, but in fact it is very useful for conservation biology.African penguins are unfortunately endangered, and anything we learn about them can inform conservation efforts. The possibility of understanding individual recognition—which is important for their breeding strategy—is essential for us. By connecting the dots between various studies, we can piece together a broader picture that will hopefully lead us to reversing the endangered status of African penguins.

Further Reading

Baciadonna, L., C. Solvi, F. Terranova, C. Godi, C. Pilenga and L. Favaro. 2024. African penguins utilise their ventral dot patterns for individual recognition. Animal Behaviour 207: 13–21. doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2023.10.005.
Viola H. Ruzzier Author
Shrobontika Dasgupta Illustrator
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2024 Dec
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The path to community-led conservation: The Amur falcon story

“Falcon hunters become fervent preservationists” declared the New York Times in 2015. Just three years earlier, reports of thousands of Amur falcons being hunted in northeastern India shook environmentalists across the world. Today, the Amur falcon story is a well-known example of conservation delivering change. The rapid shift of the local community from hunters to protectors has been widely celebrated. But how was this change negotiated? How was such urgent and long-term change achieved?

The Amur falcon (Falco amurensis) is known for its journey from breeding grounds in northeastern China, Mongolia and eastern Russia (Amurland) to wintering grounds in Africa. During their migration, the birds stop in northeastern India and Myanmar and then the Indian subcontinent, before flying nonstop over 4000 km across the Arabian Sea to Africa—the longest continuous ocean crossing among birds of prey. A significant stopover site in northeastern India is the Doyang reservoir in the state of Nagaland. Amidst hills covered in swidden agriculture, millions of falcons come together and feed on insects over the large artificial reservoir.

This stopover site became famous in November 2012 when a group of conservationists discovered widespread hunting of the migrating falcons. The environmental portal Conservation India launched a media campaign against falcon hunting at the Doyang reservoir. Activists estimated that 120,000 to 140,000 birds were caught in 10 days, about 10% of the global population of adult birds. The media campaign and associated video titled ‘The Amur Falcon Massacre’ drew national and global criticism. India is a signatory to the Convention on Migratory Species; the government was obliged to protect the species.

Following the campaign, the Nagaland state government warned that they would stop funding development projects unless villagers stopped hunting falcons. Most hunters were said to be from the village of Pangti, so it was closely monitored. The Pangti Village Council—the apex governing body in the village—gave in to the pressure. Village leaders banned falcon hunting two months before the 2013 falcon migration season. The hunting and sale of falcons had been highly profitable because hunters would earn up to 10 times their monthly incomes in a single season.

Unsurprisingly, the ban on trapping and hunting falcons was deeply unpopular. Yet, the hunting ban has since been widely praised.

What can the Amur falcon story teach us?

The Pangti case study raises questions about whether and how a conservation initiative starts can shape future outcomes. At Pangti, Amur falcon conservation began with the government forcing villagers to stop hunting. Over time, villagers took over conservation efforts. How did Pangti shift towards community-led conservation? What changes can empower community leaders to protect biodiversity?

Environmental groups often use emotional wildlife imagery in media campaigns to pressure governments into action. Like in Pangti, these campaigns can lead to quick law enforcement. But they may also isolate and vilify local people, and create enmity within stakeholders. It can be challenging to meaningfully engage with the local community after such campaigns. Even harder is helping people feel pride and ownership towards biodiversity. To achieve such change, conservationists need to identify opportunities and gaps in local governance practices that can support environment-friendly rules.

Governance transitions for sustainability have been explored across various fields. So far, science has focused on efforts started and managed by local people or those started by governments. What makes Pangti unique is that conservation rapidly evolved from a government-pressured ban to a community based conservation programme. Thus, Pangti can offer a unique perspective on how conservation can shift towards bottom-up community-led models.

We recently published a paper that studies how governance evolved at Pangti since the first reports of falcon hunting in the journal Conservation Science and Practice. We interviewed 17 key stakeholders who shaped falcon conservation in Pangti village from 2012–19. These stakeholders included local and national NGO representatives, village leaders and government officers. The study provides an in-depth perspective into how the decisions that shaped one of the most wellknown conservation programmes in the world were made. A complete picture of conservation governance at Pangti can emerge by examining changes across time and complexity.

Lessons for Conservation Practitioners

Pangti has come a long way since the first reports of falcon hunting, but challenges still exist. Villagers have often felt disappointed because their hopes for development remain unfulfilled. Road infrastructure remains poor, limiting tourism. Equity issues may persist if those who lost seasonal incomes after the ban cannot benefit from tourism. The lack of alternative livelihoods and untapped tourism potential in a region with high deforestation and water scarcity are a missed opportunity for conservation. However, the falcons offer a promising chance to turn things around—not only in Pangti, but also at roosting sites across Nagaland, Manipur and Mizoram.

The case study of Pangti makes it clear that community support can be built even when conservation begins with criticism and threats. But this transition needs an open dialogue with local stakeholders. Outside actors, such NGOs and government officers, must respect the legitimacy of existing local institutions and the rights of local actors. While negotiating for conservation, it is important to be fair and transparent.

Further, rapid shifts towards conservation will often create losers and winners. Hence, managers should identify people who were negatively impacted by conservation. Minimising economic losses is critical to win broad popular support. Recognise local demands (e.g. development) that may be at odds with conservation, and design approaches to meet these demands in a clear, equitable manner. Equally important is fostering leaders who can cut through the red tape, share information and build institutional memory for future generations.

Further Reading

Herrfahrdt-Pähle, E., M. Schlüter, P. Olsson, C. Folke, S.Gelcich and C. Pahl-Wostl. 2020. Sustainability transformations: Socio-political shocks as opportunities for governance transitions. Global Environmental Change 63: 102097. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2020.102097.

Kudalkar, S. and D. Veríssimo. 2024. From media campaign to local governance transition: Lessons for community-based conservation from an Amur falcon hunting ban in Nagaland, India. Conservation Science and Practice 6(8): e13191. https://doi.org/10.1111/csp2.13191.

Salerno, J., C. Romulo, K. A. Galvin, J. Brooks, P. Mupeta-Muyamwa and L. Glew. 2021. Adaptation and evolution of institutions and governance in communitybased conservation. Conservation Science and Practice 3(1): e355. https://doi.org/10.1111/csp2.355.
Sahila Kudalkar Author
Diogo Veríssimo Author
Manvi Vakharia Illustrator
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Exploring fungal relationships: Lessons from ethnomycology

Note: This is an artistic rendering of fungi and their habitats, and is not intended to represent any specific species or habitats.

The blazing sun beat down on our backs as we knelt over a dry mound of earth in the village of Sadolpara, nestled in the heart of Meghalaya’s West Garo Hills. Nikre, a diminutive woman whose frame belied her powerful presence, dragged her sickle across the top layers of the mound to reveal indents. She bowed her head, speaking with barely concealed anguish. “This is where we find the dambongg (mushrooms)—gifts from our Creator. But this year, there is no rain. The dambongg are rotting underneath the earth.” With those words, she walked on with her bamboo foraging basket, as large as her and conspicuously empty.

We—Malavika and Prithvi—were staying in Sadolpara, graciously hosted by village elders Nikre and her husband Sotging. With a population of around 800, Sadolpara is one of the last remaining bastions of Songsarek, the local religion. As a part of the Fungi Foundation’s Elders Programme, we were there to learn about their relationships with fungi—from traditional foraging practices, recipes handed down over generations, and even their use of yeasts to brew bitchi, a fermented rice beer central to their spiritual and cultural practices.

The Elders Programme strives to bridge the gap between generations and preserve the ecological knowledge that is passed down through the ages. The continuation of this knowledge, concerning the relationships between human beings and fungal species, is at risk as social and environmental changes erode generational traditions.

The preservation of this ethnomycological knowledge is more than a cultural endeavour; it’s a vital strategy for climate resilience. This ancestral knowledge serves as a living map, guiding communities through changing environments with time-tested practices. As climate shifts alter familiar landscapes, the insights passed down through generations become invaluable tools for adaptation. Moreover, this knowledge embodies a profound connection to the land, teaching sustainable harvesting methods that maintain ecological balance. By safeguarding and passing on ethnomycological traditions, we aim not only to preserve the past, but also to equip future generations with the skills to navigate an uncertain climate future, rooted in ancestral wisdom.

Observation through absence

When we had first visited Sadolpara the previous winter to introduce ourselves and our work, Sotging and Nikre excitedly told us about different mushrooms they eat, such as dambongg. In A·chikku, the local language, dambongg is the word most commonly used for mushrooms belonging to the genus Termitomyces—a unique genus of fungi that are cultivated by termites, in elaborate subterranean fungal combs. The termites cultivate this fungus to help them digest plant matter, and have no use for the mushrooms that it produces. Those mushrooms, the dambongg, are instead harvested by people like Nikre and her family. Though Termitomyces species are the most prized edibles in the region, they are far from being the only ones consumed. They also told us about bol nachal (which translates to ‘wood ear’), a species from the Auricularia genus, and wa·gambal, an edible species from the Lentinus genus.

During this visit, however, the region was experiencing an extreme heatwave. Ordinarily, May would bring regular pre-monsoon showers to soak the earth and enable mushrooms from the Termitomyces genus to emerge. But as we walked the regular foraging routes with our guides, their faces reflected the bleak landscape.

“The dambongg would have been here,” Nikre muttered, the crack in her voice mirroring the cracks in the parched earth. Deeper in the jungle, she gathered roselle leaves and banana flowers, describing how she would cook them with mushrooms—if any were found.

Back in the nok-A·chik, the traditional thatched grass house, we listened to Nikre and Sotging talk about how the forests had changed since their childhoods. “The gods are angry with us, because we don’t practise Songsarek the way we used to,” Nikre lamented.

“When our ancestors came, they took care to preserve the traditions and not a single seed was lost, but no more,” the pain in Sotging’s voice is evident. He narrated the Songsarek creation myth for us once again. Nuru Mande, the first human, followed divinities as they rose through seven layers of the earth. He mimicked their songs and their dances, learning their ways to honour the land. In a community so deeply rooted in the cycles of the land, it stands to reason that the changing of culture is seen as inextricably linked to the changing of forests.

As Nikre passed us a gourd of bitchi, we were reminded that our aim is to understand the multiplicity of relationships between native communities and their landscapes, ensuring they have a voice in the larger conversations around fungal conservation.

Sustaining generational practices

The following week, we watched the landscape transition as we travelled from the Garo Hills to the Khasi Hills. In contrast to the former’s subtropical to tropical climate, the Khasi Hills experience a more temperate climate in higher altitudes and a subtropical climate in lower regions, fostering lush evergreen forests, montane grasslands and subtropical pine forests. Areas such as Mawsynram and Sohra in the Khasi Hills have long held the title of ‘wettest place on earth’, but here too, heatwaves have become more frequent.

In a young forest near Miarang in the Khasi Hills, we walked through Pinus kesiya trees with Kong Queency Thiangkhew and her group of elder foragers. Kong Queency is worlds apart from Nikre—a devout Christian woman and a retired horticulturist, she forages not for subsistence but for the pleasure of the act itself. Over the years, she has gathered a group of nearly 20 women, who collect only enough mushrooms for their own kitchens and to share with their friends, keeping this traditional practice alive.

The Khasi name of each of the species refers to its shape. For example, tit thnat syiar means ‘chicken foot mushroom’ and refers to the chicken-foot shape of the Clavulina species. The prized Turbinellus floccosus is called tit tyndong, referring to its funnel-like shape. The foragers rattled off a dozen different names, as we scrambled to note them down.

Picking up a massive specimen of Neolentinus lepideus, Kong Queency beckoned us over for a lesson. “You see, before the monsoon, the mushrooms are full of poison, even the edible ones,” she explained. “When the rain is intermittent, the ground is full of snakes and insects, who bite the mushroom and leave their poison in it. That’s why we wait for the storms—the thunder and lightning imbue the mushrooms with vitality, and the rain washes out the poison.”

Kong Mem, another forager explained that when they were children, such lessons about identifying edible and poisonous mushrooms were a part of daily life in the monsoon, especially for the women of the home. They went into the forests with their mothers and grandmothers, learning how to identify around 30 different edible species. But with the changing economic landscapes, younger generations are no longer able to learn and practise these traditions. Without the wisdom of generations, many fall into the trap of misidentifying poisonous species as edible ones.

A recent spate of poisonings was one of the reasons we had come to learn more about the traditional methods of mushroom identification. In the face of climate catastrophes that can leave communities isolated and cut off supply chains, traditional knowledge of wild foods is a lifeline. Yet, it is in those desperate times that people are most vulnerable to misidentification and subsequent poisoning. That’s why the preservation and continuation of such oral traditions are so important.

On our drive back to Shillong, Kong Queency gazed wistfully at the pines that rushed past us. “Every year, the forest shrinks…” her voice was barely above a whisper. “Logging is ruining our traditions.” With these words, the joy that usually emanates from Kong Queency took on a poignant tinge. Illegal logging, particularly for charcoal production, has become a severe threat to the forest cover and environment in the West Khasi Hills district. The region is a hotbed for the illegal charcoal mafia, producing and transporting over 6000 tons of charcoal annually. This rampant felling of trees, including pine, for charcoal-making has led to a reduction in forest cover, loss of biodiversity and habitat fragmentation.

Though she has cultivated a foraging practice steeped in leisure, the grief of losing the landscapes that sustained the generational tradition of foraging is clear in her voice. To Kong Queency, the felling of trees is more than the degradation of biodiversity—it’s the destruction of a multi-species relationship between the pines, the mushrooms, and the communities that rely on them.

“These days, young people don’t have time to learn foraging. Even my children don’t have time—they are busy with their jobs. That’s why I keep going, keep teaching others,” Kong Queency tells us. Despite the changes all around her, she is determined to protect the practices of her ancestors, and we are privileged to be allies in her efforts.

Indigenous wisdom influences scientific inquiry

Reflecting on our experiences in the Khasi and Garo Hills, we are humbled by Kong Queency’s unwavering passion and the resilience of the residents of Sadolpara. They both serve as poignant reminders of the importance of integrating indigenous perspectives into scientific inquiries. After all, the depths of the inter-species relationships cultivated by cultures like the Garo and Khasi place India in a unique position. Unlike the West, where ethnomycological practices are being revived after being nearly lost, cultures around India are at a transition phase where these traditions need to be sustained rather than rediscovered.

Documenting and preserving this indigenous knowledge is therefore not only an academic exercise, but also an attempt to cultivate new perspectives on conservation that shape our future actions. Given that mycology is a relatively young science, an interdisciplinary approach such as this one may offer us a path to better comprehend the intricacies of fungal relationships with other species.

By integrating ancient wisdom with modern academic knowledge, we can ensure these invaluable traditions continue to thrive, enriching our understanding and guiding our conservation efforts. In doing so, we aim not only to preserve the past but also to equip future generations with the skills to navigate an uncertain climate future, rooted in ancestral wisdom.

Further Reading

Gogoi I, A. Borthakur and B. Neog. 2023. Ethnomycological knowledge, nutritional and nutraceutical potential of wild edible macrofungi of Northeast India. Studies in Fungi 8:12.

Karlsson, B. G. 2011. Unruly Hills: A Political Ecology of India’s Northeast. Oxford: Berghahn Books.

Villani M., C. Moreno and G. Furci. 2023. Ethnomycology Ethical Guidelines. Fungi Foundation.
Malavika Bhatia Author
Prithvi Kini Author
Athulya Pillai Illustrator
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Stop! Don’t post that wildlife selfie

More than 5 billion people across the world use social media, including many wildlife scientists, conservation practitioners, and zoo and aquarium professionals. There are many reasons for a wildlife professional to be on social media—it can be a great platform for science communication, fundraising and educating the public about conservation threats to species.

But there is also a downside to it. Posts showing people interacting directly with wildlife can inadvertently set a bad example for the public about how to behave around wild animals. These include “wildlife selfies”—photos wildlife professionals intentionally take and post with the goal of sharing their work. Such selfies are often posted with captions stating the professionals’ qualifications to interact with wildlife as a disclaimer for the public that they should not do the same.

Images and videos depicting people interacting with primates are particularly risky. For example, a 2013 study examined the comments of a YouTube video of a pygmy slow loris (a CITES-I listed species) being “tickled”. The video went viral because the loris’ natural threat response behaviours were perceived by the audience as being cute and funny. It accumulated over 12,000 comments, with more than 11 percent of commenters stating without prompting that they would like one as a pet.

Social media facilitates the primate pet trade, by connecting sellers and buyers and by fuelling demand for animal photo opportunities. Previous research has demonstrated that simply seeing images of humans interacting with endangered primates has negative effects on their conservation by decreasing viewers’ perception that these animals are endangered and increasing their desire to physically interact with the animals, including keeping them as pets. Primates, like other wild animals, should never be kept as pets: primates sold in the pet trade are often taken directly from their mothers in the wild, a traumatic experience. Not only are they deprived of their natural existence, but they can also pass diseases back and forth with their human owners. Larger primates, such as chimpanzees, are extremely strong and can seriously injure people.

To investigate whether wildlife professionals can responsibly post images of themselves with primates on social media, we designed an experiment to test whether “disclaimer” captions are effective in mitigating the potentially harmful perceptions generated by these images. We created two sets of mock Instagram posts, one set showing an image of a person near a mountain gorilla and the other an image of a person holding a slender loris. Each set of posts, designed to appear as if they were posted by a generic user, ‘mark545’, was identical except for the captions. One set had a very simple caption introducing the animal in the image. The other had a longer caption introducing the animal and stating that the “poster” was a researcher who had proper permits and training to interact with the animal. Then, using an online survey platform, we presented one of these four mock Instagram posts to each of 2,977 survey respondents, asking them questions about their perceptions of the animal in the image.

We discovered that disclaimer captions do not mitigate the potential harm of posting images of people alongside primates. Respondents who saw one of the mock Instagram posts with a disclaimer caption were 9.5 percent more likely to strongly agree that the image depicted wildlife research, so we know they read the captions. However, these respondents were just as likely to report they would seek out an opportunity to interact with the gorilla or loris—around 70 percent of survey respondents agreed or strongly agreed with this statement. Around 57 percent of survey-takers who were shown the gorilla image responded they would like it as a pet, with about 62 percent of respondents who saw the loris image stating the same.

Another striking result was that about 60 percent of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that they would like to have a gorilla or loris as a pet. While this doesn’t mean all those people are actively trying to obtain a primate pet, the prevalence of that sentiment is much higher than we expected.

The real-world implication of our findings is clear: wildlife professionals—particularly those who work with primates—should refrain from posting selfies with their study animals on social media. While we cannot say for sure whether our findings extend to images of other animals, in the absence of evidence that they do not, we highly recommend they act with the animals’ best interests in mind. The conservation and animal welfare risks simply do not outweigh the science communication benefits.

Further Reading

Freund, C. A., K. A. Cronin, M. Huang, N. J. Robinson, B. Yoo and A. L. DiGiorgio. 2023. Effects of captions on viewers’ perceptions of images depicting human-primate interaction. Conservation Biology: e14199. https://doi.org/10.1111/cobi.14199.

Nekaris, K. A. I, N. Campbell, T. G. Coggins, E.J. Rode and V. Nijman. 2013. Tickled to death: Analysing public perceptions of ‘cute’ videos of threatened species (Slow lorises – Nycticebus spp.) on Web 2.0 sites. PLOS ONE 8(7): e69215.https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0069215.

Norconk, M. A., S. Atsalis, G. Tully, A. M. Santillán, S. Waters, C. D. Knott, S. R. Ross et al. 2020. Reducing the primate pet trade: Actions for primatologists. American Journal of Primatology 82: e23079. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajp.23079.
Cassie Freund Author
Karunya Baskar Illustrator
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How to ask and answer sensitive questions

Imagine going about your day, when a researcher approaches and asks if they can ask you a few questions about your life. You agree. However, the questions aren’t quite what you were expecting.

“Have you had a child die? Or have you lost a family member in traumatic circumstances?” “Have you ever done something illegal?” “Have you ever lost livestock to predators?”

Perhaps you feel a bit affronted at being asked these questions, or you don’t feel like answering. Perhaps you have complex feelings such as distress, shame or grief associated with your ‘true’ answer. You might be worried about the consequences of sharing information and try to avoid further questions or potential repercussions by evading the question. Or perhaps you tell the researcher what you think they want to hear, so that they will leave you alone sooner.

These are all examples of questions asked by conservationists interested in understanding human behaviour. Child mortality is often used as a measure of household poverty; there is an increased interest in understanding people’s compliance with conservation rules, meanwhile extreme climatic events and interactions between wildlife and people are increasing, sometimes resulting in the loss of livelihoods, property and even life.

Failing to consider how questions make people feel can affect participants negatively and cause psychological distress. In turn, such a lack of consideration can raise ethical questions, result in poor quality data, and harm both the research process and the success of conservation outcomes. It is therefore important that as conservationists we first consider whether such questions are necessary to ask, we ensure our questions are appropriately phrased, and we consider how asking these questions may affect participants.

So, what makes a topic sensitive?

Social scientists recognise that while any topic has the potential to become sensitive, some are more likely than others, particularly if they present some kind of threat to participants. For example, if topics ask about breaking of rules, people may fear legal or social repercussions, or if providing information potentially impinges on the interests of powerful elites, people may have concerns about their safety. In many contexts, discussing logging, mining or land ownership can be risky. Alternatively, topics that include deeply personal experiences, such as violence, loss of life or property, may be sensitive because they evoke strong emotional responses. Finally, some topics may be sacred and simply not discussable with strangers.

To be safe, we may err on the side of caution, and assume a topic is sensitive. In recent years, this has led to an increase in the use of specialised questioning techniques in conservation. While these methods may offer participants more protection, they may also mean that we use more complex methods than necessary. Yet, there is relatively little guidance for formally assessing sensitivity in advance of asking questions. Recognising the need for guidance in this area, we, members of the Conservation and Human Behaviour Research Group based at Bangor University (UK), wanted to develop and test tools to help researchers assess topic sensitivity.

To do so, we used a case study of rule breaking around protected areas and assessed several different approaches. First, we developed five questions that could be asked of individuals about specific behaviours. These questions aimed to capture information about things such as prevailing social norms, personal morals as well as general comfort discussing specific topics. For example, we asked individuals whether they thought specific behaviours were ‘good’ or ‘bad’, and whether important people in their lives, such as their friends and family, would approve of these behaviours. We then combined answers from these questions to create a Sensitivity Index for each behaviour, where higher scores represented more sensitive topics.

We also developed two group exercises. The first involved asking groups of people to list all the reasons they went to protected areas, and all the challenges they faced from living alongside them. Here, we wanted to generate discussion to see whether people mentioned forbidden activities of their own accord, and to assess any costs of living alongside protected areas. The second group exercise consisted of a pilesort: here participants were provided with cards showing a range of different livelihood activities (including some prohibited ones, such as killing certain wildlife species). Collectively, groups were asked to discuss each card and sort them into piles depending on how willing they thought people in their community would be to discuss the topic.

We tested these methods in two locations: the Leuser Ecosystem in northern Sumatra, Indonesia, and the Ruaha-Rungwa ecosystem in central-southern Tanzania. Both landscapes are of global importance for biodiversity. Gunung Leuser is the last place on Earth where Sumatran rhinos, elephants, tigers and orangutans coexist. Ruaha-Rungwa is home to some of the largest remaining populations of carnivores found in Africa, including lions, leopards and hunting dogs. Each landscape comprises multiple protected areas, each with different regulations. Importantly, both landscapes are culturally diverse and are home to thousands of people, many of whom use natural resources from within the protected areas to support their households.

What did we find?

Overall, we found topics to be much more sensitive in Tanzania than Indonesia. All four behaviours investigated using our Sensitivity Index in Tanzania (hunting wildlife, grazing livestock, eating bushmeat and entering the protected area without a permit) were considered more sensitive than the most sensitive behaviour, logging, in Indonesia. Similarly, the pile-sort revealed that groups in Tanzania categorised a higher proportion of topics as very sensitive or sensitive, compared to groups in Indonesia.

Varying perceptions of sensitivity could be attributed to several factors including differences in legislation, communities’ awareness of laws, their experiences of law enforcement, as well as varying cultural perspectives and norms regarding these behaviours. For example, in general, knowledge of conservation rules was higher amongst participants in Tanzania than Indonesia.

During group exercises, Tanzanian participants often cited laws that outlined how all wild life belongs to the state and described rules which prohibit entering National Parks or Game Reserves for any reason. They also believed that if they did so, it was highly likely they would incur sanctions. For example, one participant outlined that if they killed elephants for their ivory they would “stay in jail until the bars broke”. In other groups, sensitivity became apparent through silence. For example, participants were reticent to engage in the exercise, looked uncomfortable, or cautioned others from speaking.

In Indonesia, rules were generally not as well known, but talking about activities that were known to be prohibited was generally considered sensitive. Interestingly, in Indonesia, some behaviours which were illegal (e.g., hunting sambar (Rusa unicolor)) were openly discussed, possibly because of poor knowledge of rules, but also perhaps because low levels of enforcement meant participants associated less risk with discussing the behaviour.

Importantly, participants in Tanzania reported various challenges with living alongside protected areas, which might explain some of why people there may find it difficult to discuss topics such as hunting wildlife openly. For example, communities living near Game Reserves reported more challenges coexisting alongside wildlife, with crop damage, livestock depredation and human fatalities listed. Discussions often became emotive, with participants describing the grief, trauma and anxiety theyexperienced from living alongside large and dangerous species.

In contrast, participants near Ruaha National Park focussed more on how the park was managed, including negative interactions with park rangers and uncertainty associated with changes to the park boundary. Such topics were sensitive because participants were suspicious of our research motives, and conservation actors more broadly. While participants in Indonesia also reported challenges associated with living alongside wildlife and protected areas, these were not reported as often by participants, and conversations did not evoke such strong emotional responses. While this may reflect cultural differences in how emotion is portrayed, it may also be an artefact of our sampling strategy and unequal coverage across the landscape.

Which method worked best?

It depends on what you want to learn! All three of the methods that we tried elicited useful information, but the type of information differed. The Sensitivity Index provided a quantitative assessment per person for specific behaviours. While this data can be modelled against predictors, and direct comparisons can be made across behaviours and study sites, it requires larger sample sizes (>200) than group exercises and doesn’t reveal why specific topics are sensitive. In contrast, the group exercises are more flexible, require fewer participants and provide much richer insights about what people think.

Importantly, who asks questions really matters. When we enter communities as researchers, people often have preconceptions about who we are, what we want and the power we hold. These ideas can influence their willingness both to engage in research, but also to share information. Equally, we also have our own preconceptions about how topics will be construed, and why. As individuals we belong to and identify with a range of different groups (e.g., depending on our gender, age, class, religion, ethnicity, nationality, etc), and our experiences in these groups inform our norms and values, and therefore our conceptualisations of sensitivity.

To recognise these biases, it is important to take a step back and critically assess our own assumptions, to inwardly reflect on our own identity, and to assess how these factors may affect the research process and outcomes. Known as reflexivity, this process is increasingly promoted in conservation, alongside practices that require researchers to consider their positionality, and the power-relations between themselves and participants.

Perhaps your next piece of research will focus on understanding what people do, and why. It may involve some topics that you think could be perceived as sensitive. What should you do? First, make sure you include enough time and money in your research project so that you can spend time in the research context first, learn what people think and feel about different topics. Not only will this help you to decide which methods to use, but it will also help to identify any specific ethical issues and risks that may emerge. Also spend time thinking carefully about who is most appropriate to collect the data, is it you? Or might someone else be better placed? Doing so could help produce more informed, more accountable and more accurate findings. To this end, we encourage others to engage with the tools we developed and tested when making decisions about how to research potentially sensitive topics.

Further Reading

Ibbett, H., J. P. G. Jones, L. Dorward, E. M.Kohi, A. A. Dwiyahreni, K. Prayitno, S.Sankeni et al. 2023. A mixed methods approach for measuring topic sensitivity in conservation. People and Nature 5(4): 1245–1261. https://doi.org/10.1002/pan3.10501.
Harriet Ibbett Author
Freya St John Author
Karunya Baskar Illustrator
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Painfully delicious: Discovering natural history knowledge through angling

Feature image: The maze rabbitfish (Siganus vermiculatus) is named for the intricate maze-like patterns that adorn its body.

My red and white float vanished beneath the laterite-orange waters of the Mandovi River, not with the usual bobbing of small fish but with a steady pull—I had hooked something! Instead of jerking the line, with a firm grip I guided the rod towards the steps, carefully hauling the fish out in a long single drag. The rabbitfish thrashed on the steps at Reis Magos, where my son Noam and I, along with three other anglers, had been fishing. Its venomous spines fanned out as it fluttered. I stopped it with a gentle step on its head, gripping it by the gills to safely remove the hook without being pricked.

I held up the fish, admiring its beautiful maze pattern of golden-brown lines. Aptly called the maze rabbitfish (Siganus vermiculatus), locally escrivão, the Portuguese name for clerk/writer attributed to the same maze script.

The fish jerked and fluttered, making me loosen my grip. It fell on the steps and began bouncing its way down the stairs once again. I made the mistake of sticking out my hand to prevent it from falling back into the river—which I successfully did, but one of its erect spines jabbed my little finger, a sting that I felt instantly. Similar to a hypodermic needle, each spine of the rabbitfish has a groove that runs along its edge which delivers a toxic venom. My finger was bleeding, andthe pain got worse with every passing minute. Its Konkani name baanoshi is attributed to its toxic spines—where baan refers to an arrow.

An angler standing nearby said that the pain can get so intense that some even wet their pants, giving the rabbitfish its other name: muthri in Konkani, pisser in English.

Rabbitfish venom is similar in its makeup to that of the highly venomous stonefish, which is often considered the most dangerous fish in the sea, sometimes causing lethal stings. While rabbitfish venom isn’t as severe, that sting will be difficult to forget.

Aaron displays a freshly caught rabbitfish, which raises its venomous spines in a defensive response.

A fish of the monsoon

The best time to fish for rabbitfish in Goa is soon after the onset of the monsoon. In 2023, they arrived unusually late, but when they did it poured incessantly—so much so that the state received half its average annual rainfall in less than a month (by the end of July). The monsoons in Goa have traditionally always been a time for anglers because the seas are just too rough for commercial fisheries to be venturing out to sea, besides being a great “time pass”.

Most coastal states in India have a two-month monsoon fishing ban, which was put in place to prevent the industrial (mechanised) fishing sector—including trawlers and purse seiners—from overfishing resources during this period. This ban excludes the traditional fishers who use passive and less destructive techniques. Goa has six major rivers/backwaters and a large network of waterways which come alive with both fish and anglers during the monsoons.

In this season, high levels of nutrients washed by the rains are carried down by the rivers, all the way from the hills to the ocean. While there are a large number of marine algae species in Goa, particularly luxuriant is the growth of a long, stringy, bright green algae which can be seen growing on and coating the intertidal rocky shores of Goa. This seaweed Ulva intestinalis, locally called shelo in Konkani, is an ephemeral resource, abundant only for a short period during the monsoon. A diversity of herbivorous fish including rabbitfish, surgeonfish and rudderfish arrive in mixed shoals to graze on the tender blooms of marine algae.

Ingenious anglers have figured out the value of this fast-dwindling seaweed resource. Fattened on the seaweed, these fish venture up the estuary where they deposit thousands of eggs among the tangle of mangrove roots upriver, which provide the young refuge and food. The trick used by the anglers is to follow the baanoshi as they migrate up the river. In the muddy backwaters, the seasonal shelo which thrives on the rocky shoreline becomes a scarce commodity and using it upriver invites bites in rapid succession.

Fresh blooms of filamentous seaweed, known locally as shelo, flourish on Goa’s rocky shores during monsoons, fuelled by nutrient-rich runoff from land to sea.

In search of shelo

Noam and I had spent the previous evening stripping shelo off exposed rocks that had not yet been discovered by other anglers. We managed to collect two fistfuls, which we stored in a small plastic box with a little water collected from the vicinity to prevent it from drying up. As divine fate would have it, the skies opened up the following afternoon, which unsurprisingly brought out a large number of anglers from their homes. Our rig setup was relatively simple—a bamboo rod with line float, a small lead shot weight and a small treble hook attached to each line. A treble hook looks like an anchor with three evenly spaced barbed prongs extending from a single shaft. The hair-like seaweed bait is wrapped along all three prongs to disguise the hook and increase the chances of catching a rabbitfish during angling.

However, for reasons I am unsure of, using shelo as bait only works in the early half of the monsoon. Anglers who know their rabbitfish switch to using small pieces of fish or shrimp as bait, because they won’t take to shelo when the monsoon begins to wane. I don’t know the ecological basis, but it could just be because the algal blooms at the onset of the monsoons are tender and possibly more nutritious and digestible, as compared to the more mature patches. Another reason is that the algal resource tends to dwindle as the season progresses.

Successful fish

There are approximately 30 species of rabbitfish that are distributed in the Indo-Pacific and the Eastern Mediterranean. They are important to fisheries in most of their range, particularly artisanal fisheries, and constitute an important source of food to many coastal communities.

Being herbivores and the fact that seaweed is ubiquitous, rabbitfish occur in a range of environments from brackish estuaries like the Mandovi to marine environments, including clear coral reefs, and are even found in very degraded marine habitats. There are also other aspects of their biology such as their high fecundities (they lay a large number of eggs) that allow them to withstand even heavy fishing pressures. Rabbitfish are also known to be highly adaptable, moulding their behaviour and biology to adapt to a new environment, making them “phenotypically plastic”.

In fact, these species have been so successful that they’ve colonised regions where they were once non native. When the Suez Canal opened in 1869, connecting the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, it drastically shortened travel time and reduced shipping costs between Europe and Asia. However, few considered the long-term ecological consequences. Over the years, hundreds of species migrated from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean—a process known as the Lessepsian migration, named after Ferdinand de Lesseps, who oversaw the canal’s construction. Many of these species have outcompeted the native Mediterranean fish, becoming dominant in local ecosystems. Today, they form a significant part of regional fisheries and have even become integral to local cuisine.

Among the Lessepsian migrants are two species of rabbitfish—the marbled rabbitfish (Siganus rivulatus) and the dusky rabbitfish (Siganus luridus), both native to the Red Sea. These species entered the Mediterranean via the Suez Canal, first recorded in 1924 and 1956, respectively. Since then, they’ve established large populations in the Eastern Mediterranean, outcompeting native herbivorous fish by the early 2000s. In Lebanon’s coastal lagoons, for example, they make up 80 percent of the herbivorous fish population. Marbled rabbitfish have even been recorded as far west as Malta, and in parts of Turkey and Crete, they’ve overgrazed marine algae, creating barren areas. They now constitute a significant portion of fish catches in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Climate change is also driving the movement of the tropical rabbitfish to temperate parts of the world which they have now happily made their homes.

Eating the rabbitfish

We took our rabbitfish home. Noam, like he typically does, insisted he wanted it cooked the same evening. I steamed it as is done in many parts of Southeast Asia—in a colander with finely chopped ginger and garlic in soy sauce. He decided to use chopsticks, deftly peeling back the skin to reveal the steaming white flesh. I always found the skin of rabbitfish bitter. It was cooked to perfection, the flesh tender yet firm.

While I have eaten rabbitfish for some years now, they are among a few species whose consumption during a particular season can cause what is called hallucinogenic fish inebriation or ichthyoallyeinotoxism. I haven’t yet heard of cases such as these from Goa yet. We slept well that night.

Aaron and his son Noam on one of their regular fishing trips

Further Reading

Mebs, D. 2017. Biology and distribution of venomous marine animals. In: Handbook of Clinical Toxicology of Animal Venoms and Poisons. (eds. White, J. and J. Meier). Pp 85-88. Boca Raton: CRC Press.

Metar, S. Y., V. H. Nirmale, U. Gurjar, M. M. Shirdhankar, V. R. Sadawarte, N. D. Chogale, A. N. Sawant et al. 2023. Feeding habits and reproductive biology of the rabbitfish, Siganus vermiculatus, along the central west coast of India. Journal of the Marine Biological Association of India: 65(1): 91–96.

Sala, E., Z. Kizilkaya, D. Yildirim and E. Ballesteros.2011.Alien marine fishes deplete algal biomass in the eastern Mediterranean. PLOS ONE 6(2): e17356.
Aaron Savio Lobo Author & Photographer
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2024 Dec
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Reconciling Conservation Paradigms: Biodiversity, People and Tigers

India is unique among the populous tropics in having a high population density, while still retaining a large amount of unique biodiversity. However, as in many other parts of the world, this biodiversity faces considerable pressures and is rapidly declining in many areas of the country. Madhav Gadgil and Ullas Karanth are among a handful of internationally-known conservation biologists who, along with their many students and associates, have dominated the conservation scene in India for more than the last three decades. Their respective memoirs offer unique, and somewhat contrasting, insights into the world of nature, indigenous people, and everything in between. These insights can help us save not only the extant biodiversity, but also much more, once we start reversing current trends and restoring nature in India and elsewhere.

In the 1940s as a child, Gadgil grew up in a home with a well-stocked library under the wings of a scholarly father and an aunt, immersing himself not only in the natural world, but in the ways farmers farmed land and fisher folk fished. In the mid to late 1960s, his forays into a diverse range of disciplines in science, such as ecology, genetics and mathematics, continued while he pursued doctoral studies at Harvard. There, he had an opportunity to rub shoulders with the likes of Ed Wilson, Ernst Mayr, William Bossert and Robert Trivers. It’s no wonder that following his return to India, his contributions to conservation biology encompassed a wide range from work on the social behaviour of animals to peoples’ protection of sacred groves, from the evolution of life history traits in animals and plants to citizen documentation of biodiversity in biodiversity registers, and from studies of local ecosystems to policies for conserving entire biodiversity hotspots.

Karanth similarly developed an early interest in wildlife and acquired a diverse background which enabled him to offer unique insights to the conservation of biodiversity. With a foundation in in engineering, he became interested in tagging tigers with radio collars to understand the movements and behaviour of this ultimate icon of biodiversity in the land of tigers itself. An encounter with Mel Sunquist, a pioneer in radio tracking for tigers, in 1983 led to a stint at the University of Florida, where Karanth earned a doctoral degree. His passion for wildlife and his keen desire to continue working on tigers led him to pioneer methods, based on rigorous science, to better estimate tiger numbers at a time when government agencies all over India used crude estimates based on pugmarks. 

The fundamental issue that concerns both Gadgil and Karanth— and remains crucial in global conservation today—is the coexistence of people and biodiversity, particularly in the regions of the world where wildlands, rivers and seascapes are the sources of livelihoods and the homes of local communities, including indigenous people. 

Concerned about shrinking habitats for large carnivores such as tigers, Karanth has spent a lifetime advocating for the voluntary relocation of local people to settlements outside protected areas, where they do not have to constantly respond to the vagaries of the environment, including serious injuries and deaths from large carnivores and elephants, and where they have access to education, public health, government sponsored programmes, and a diversity of livelihoods. In his book, he cites examples of successful relocation efforts he has led. Karanth concedes the potential for coexistence of people and tigers in very large landscapes. 

Gadgil has a broader and more expansive view of biodiversity. Having served on a government task force to review the declining number of tigers in the early 2000s, he recognises the importance of flagship species holding ecosystems together and requiring adequate habitats. However, he argues, in the long run, the conservation of biodiversity requires appropriate policies and their implementation through congruous governance regimes in which local farmers, herders and fisherfolk play a central role. For him, people are not a part of the problem, but rather the solution. Gadgil cites cases where, with the use of existing policies such as the Forest Rights Act, indigenous groups are developing plans for sustainable management of biodiversity in their habitats. 

Ironically, both Gadgil and Karanth are deeply concerned about wildlife and biodiversity; both have spent a lifetime working in the same landscape, in the southern Western Ghats of India; both have integrated their science into policy making at the highest levels; both have founded, nurtured, and sustained highly impactful conservation centres in the same city, Bengaluru; and both cite inspiration from the same people including, for example, George Schaller. Yet, their sweeping accounts of conservation of biodiversity in one of the world’s most populous countries are highly personal, without any reference to each other’s work. Perhaps their own individual journeys are so rich that they have no room for those of others. 

Their two contrasting approaches to conservation also highlight the complexity of the world we live in. Human pressures on biodiversity, exacerbated by climate change, will continue to intensify. Such pressures, Gadgil argues, stem from relatively affluent “biosphere people” who consume and access resources from a much broader base than the “ecosystem people” who rely on local resources for their livelihoods. For Karnath, in ever shrinking natural habitats, the coexistence of big cats and “ecosystem people” is not feasible. Most would agree that regardless of the sources of pressure, conservation in an open society will remain elusive without the active engagement of people.

Conservation biology as a scientific discipline emerged only in the mid-1980s. Forty years later, the field, having recognised the importance of local community perspectives, other  social, economic and political factors, and emerging technologies, has become much more nuanced. Despite these advances, the decline of biodiversity has intensified. Sustaining biodiversity in a rapidly changing world, Gadgil concludes, will require a commitment to equity, social justice, decentralised governance and an end to perverse subsidies to industry. Adhering to these principles, he hopes, the new “welcome generation” will lead the way. 

Indeed, both Gadgil and Karanth demonstrate to this new generation that thinking beyond one’s discipline and confronting social and political realities are necessary for protecting the natural world in a large and complex country such as India. For the new generations, they leave  not only their stories about how things work, but also well-endowed centres to learn and practise the art of conservation—a monumental legacy that will generate capable stewards of India’s vast and diverse natural landscapes.

Further Reading

Gadgil, M. 2023. A Walk Up the Hill: Living with People and Nature. Penguin Random House India.
Karanth, K. U. 2023. Among Tigers: Fighting to Bring Back Asia’s Big Cats. Chicago Review Press.
Kamaljit Singh Bawa Author

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Bridging the Forest

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The Mata Atlântica is known as the Brazilian Atlantic Forest, and growing up it had always been Elena’s happy place. Mata Atlântica is a place of beauty and nature, filled with creatures of all colours and plants unlike anywhere else. In her 11 years, Elena had come to know every fern and every moss and had smelled every air plant that clung to the trees and vines. Elena had climbed each Pau-Brasil redwood tree and had made friends with nearly every animal and bug that crawled, climbed or flew across the terrain.

This morning, as she did every morning, Elena was walking along the small dirt path which led from her house to school. It was the first day back from summer break, and this year Elena would be joining Room 9 in the schoolhouse.

Skipping through the trees, Elena soaked in the sounds and smells of the forest around her. The Mata Atlântica was magical in the mornings as the birds began to chirp and the early pollinators began spreading the sweet smell of flower pollen and nectar.

Lost in her thoughts, Elena was jolted back to reality when she came across a new feature of her forest. It was a road. A two-lane road for cars. Elena stopped and stared at the fresh-laid tar. It had not been there two months ago on the last day of school.

When she made it to her tiny schoolhouse, Elena made sure to ask about the road.

The teacher Miss Martins explained, “That road was built over the summer, so that people do not have to drive all the way around the large forest to get between cities anymore. Unfortunately, some of the trees had to be cut down to make room for the new road.”

With her question answered, the rest of the day passed quickly. Pretty soon, Elena was waving goodbye to her friends outside.

As she made her way home after school, Elena listened to the sounds of the forest. That’s when she heard a new sound. It was a high-pitched chirping, similar to that of a small bird’s call. Curious, Elena followed the sound down the road and away from the schoolhouse. She walked until her little legs were nearly tired. At last, she found the source.

It was perched on a branch far above Elena’s head. The critter was smaller than a cat, had a tail longer than its body and bright orange fur the colour of fire. Elena was a curious girl who was not afraid of the strange animal. She kept her distance and observed.

“Are you stuck?” she asked.

The colourful creature looked down at her from its branch. “Yes,” it said, “I can’t get across.”

The orange ball of fur scurried down the tree branches and closer to Elena. “I’m a golden lion tamarin; I live in the trees. The problem is I cannot get across whatever this is,” the critter gestured at the dark tar.

“That’s a road,” Elena said. “It was built so that humans could travel through the forest.”

The golden lion tamarin looked sad. “But now I can’t travel through the forest.” “Can I help?” Elena asked. “I don’t think so.”

Disappointed she couldn’t help, Elena continued on her way home. The golden lion tamarin behind her skittered through the trees, continuing to look for a way across the road.

The next day, as Elena was once again heading home from school, she heard the call of the golden lion tamarin in the trees. This time, she found it closer to the schoolhouse. She decided to introduce herself. “I’m Elena.”

“I’m Mico,” the golden lion tamarin said.

“Where did you come from?” Elena asked.

Mico replied, “I live much deeper in the forest with my family. We live in a group.”

“Where are you going?”

“There are more groups of families like me that live all over the forest and in the other fragments. I’m trying to visit them, as well as my friend Preguiça, the maned sloth. I have not seen him in a while and wanted to visit, but now I can’t get across and have been looking for a new path.”

Elena was surprised. She had never seen a golden lion tamarin before, and now to know there were more of them was surprising. This was one of the many reasons why she loved the forest, she learned something about the environment and animals each time she went outside. But she did not understand; Elena could get across the road, why couldn’t Mico? “I’m arboreal,” Mico explained, “and my species likes to travel through the forest using the tree branches and vines. We don’t like to walk on the ground. It is slow and exposes us to predators like snakes and ocelot cats. Plus those big scary animals that people ride move much faster than I can. I’m afraid to cross.”

Mico retreated back into the forest to continue his search for a safe place to cross the road. Over the next few days, Elena continued to think about Mico’s plight, and soon she saw more creatures gathered with Mico who could not get across. Marmosets, capuchin monkeys, opossums and other species of lion tamarins all struggled to cross the road. Mico and Preguiça, still separated by the road, sat on tree branches across from each other to wave hello.

One day, Elena’s kind heart could not take it any longer. When the class was looking for their yearly conservation project, she saw her chance and raised her hand.

“Miss Martins,” Elena said, “I have noticed there are a lot of animals that cannot get across the new road. Perhaps we could help them.”

“Great idea!” Miss Martins said. “Does anyone know how we could do this?”

One classmate suggested carrying the animals across. Miss Martin said that wild animals like those in the forest should not be handled by humans. Another classmate suggested a crosswalk and crossing guard. Someone else suggested a miniature helicopter that could be remotely controlled from the schoolhouse. Miss Martins said that both ideas would be distracting from regular class time. The last idea came from Elena’s friend Lalo. Lalo suggested stringing a rope across the road, from one tree to another, that the animals could climb across.

“That’s a good start, Lalo,” Miss Martins said. Lalo smiled with pride. “How can we expand on that idea?” Miss Martins wondered.

Elena raised her hand, “What if we made bridges?” she asked. “Ones that could hang from the trees above the road?” The suggestion felt wild, but Elena imagined it so clearly, she knew it would work.

And so began Room 9’s yearly conservation project: building bridges across the new road. The students of Room 9 avoided using any more of the precious forest’s resources by collecting twigs from the forest floor and from their backyards. They also collected rope and string from their homes and neighbourhoods that could be recycled. Very quickly the kids had collected enough recycled materials to construct the first bridge. They worked together to design a strong bridge that looked natural so that all the different animal species would feel comfortable using it. The first of Elena’s forest friends to use the bridge was the primate who started it all—Mico the golden lion tamarin.

“Thank you, Elena,” Mico said. He was perched on a low branch, having crossed the bridge successfully. His friend, Preguiça the maned sloth, was at last sitting beside him. “Now Preguiça and I can visit each other again, all thanks to you and your classmates.”

Elena looked up at the bridge. Many animals were already flowing across in both directions. Her classmates were standing on either side of the road, studying which species were using the bridge. Their next project was going to be how to improve the future bridges based on what species were using them.

Elena smiled at Mico and Preguiça. “I am so happy to be able to help,” she replied. “I did not realise before how something like a road could affect so many species. Our class is going to make a bunch more bridges to go along the whole road. Then you do not have to travel too far to a bridge. We’re going to do it using recycled materials so we don’t take away any more of the resources that you and your friends rely on.”

Just then, Elena heard a sound behind her. More of Mico’s friends had arrived, along with his family group, who had travelled from deep within the forest. They were carrying a variety of fruits and flowers from native plants within the forest. They were thank you gifts for Elena and her fellow students.

“We can never thank you enough,” Mico said, “for reuniting and bridging our forest.”

Wildlife bridge crossing the four-lane BR-101 highway in Brazil. The bridge connects the Poço das Antas Biological Reserve to the Igarapé Farm that is being reforested by Associação Mico-Leão-Dourado and their partners. (Photo: Christy Frank)

MEET THE CHARACTERS

Mico the golden lion tamarinMico is a golden lion tamarin (mico-leão-dourado in Portuguese). His species name is
Leontopithecus rosalia. Other species of tamarin in Brazil include golden-headed lion tamarin black lion tamarin and black-faced lion tamarin. All are very small monkeys that are endemic to the Mata Atlântica (meaning they can only be found there). All four species of lion tamarin are critically endangered due to deforestation and habitat fragmentation.
Preguiça the maned slothPreguiça is a maned sloth (preguiça-de-coleira in Portuguese). His species name is Bradypus
torquatus. Maned sloths are endemic to the Mata Atlântica and are the most threatened species of sloth in the world due to deforestation and habitat fragmentation.
Snakes of the Mata AtlânticaMany different snake species live in the Mata Atlântica, and some are known to feed on
golden lion tamarins, including anacondas, rainbow boas and pit vipers. Snakes aren’t all
bad though! They help disperse seeds and are part of nature’s pest control.
Ocelot catsOcelots, Leopardus pardalis, are a carnivorous species of cat that hunt at night. They
are found throughout the southwestern United States, Mexico, Central and South
America, and in various climates.
MarmosetsThe common marmoset, Callithix jacchus, also called the white-tufted or white-tufted-ear
marmoset, are small monkeys that live throughout Brazil. They have become invasive in
some states like Rio de Janeiro and are often targeted in the illegal pet trade.
Capuchin MonkeyMany different species of capuchin monkeys can be found throughout Brazil and in the
Mata Atlântica. Capuchin monkeys are primarily arboreal primates that are omnivores,
snacking on fruits, leaves and insects.
OpossumOpossums are members of the marsupial order, along with animals such as kangaroos
and koalas. Several species of opossum can be found in the Mata Atlântica including
Wildlife bridge crossing the Brazilian slender opossums, white-eared opossums and Brazilian gracile opossums.
Tiffany Hamilton Author
Abigael Molsee Illustrator
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2024 Nov
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How to become an everyday bird conservationist

Did you know that birds are one of nature’s gardeners? They spread seeds and pollinate plants wherever they go. On top of this, their great variety, different colours and melodic songs can improve our happiness and health.

However, birds face many dangers every day, which are often caused by our actions. For example, to produce lots of crops as quickly as possible, farmers often rely on spraying crops with chemicals and pesticides that are harmful not only to insects, but also to the birds that feed on these insects. Modern buildings often remove the nesting places found in older buildings, while their large glass windows can also cause bird collisions. One of the biggest threats to birds are pets, because cats and dogs can attack birds and can scare them away from their nests.

As a result, around 12 percent of bird species worldwide face extinction, which means that they are at risk of disappearing forever. This may sound a little scary—and we need to act fast to save as many species as possible— but there is something everyone can do to help protect our winged friends: become an everyday bird conservationist.

Whilst some actions to protect birds require lots of special training, there are many activities we can all easily do to help them. Depending on what you enjoy doing, there is an everyday bird conservationist role for you, such as an ambassador, a detective or a hotelier. Let us introduce you to these roles.

How can you become a bird ambassador?

A bird ambassador is someone who actively encourages bird conservation. Their main goal is to raise awareness about birds and the threats they face. Are you a sociable person who enjoys talking to others? If so, then becoming a bird ambassador could be a great way for you to help!

Talking to your family, friends and classmates about why birds are important and how we can protect them is a great starting point. You could discover interesting bird facts and share what you have learned with your friends, your school or online. You could even send this article to others! You never know, you might inspire them to become a conservationist too!

You can become an even more active ambassador by supporting an environmental organisation that helps birds. These organisations aim to educate people about the importance of birds for the environment, and they often run events and awareness campaigns for both children and adults. With lots of support, these organisations can influence important government decisions that affect birds.

Go online and find out how you can get involved. A great organisation helping birds is BirdLife International, which has lots of information about them and provides advice on ways to help support conservation locally.

How can you become a bird detective?

A bird detective is someone who is especially curious about birds. A detective’s tasks include watching and recording different bird species and their behaviours, such as feeding, mating, and nesting. Becoming a bird detective helps you learn a lot about nature while also contributing to avian conservation. If you like being outside and watching birds, this could be the right conservation role for you!

As a bird detective, you will need to learn the behaviours, markings, and sounds of various species so that you can accurately identify them. Binoculars or a spotting scope are useful tools for this. Scientists can then compare your discoveries to the findings of others from previous years, which will help them to identify changes in bird populations. If bird populations are being threatened or birds are seen in new locations, conservation actions can then be put in place to help protect them.

To be a bird detective, simply head outdoors to your nearest park, woodland or field, and count the different types of birds you see. Keep a record and report your findings to a local environmental organisation. They will also be able to provide more advice on how best to record what you see.

How can you become a bird hotelier?

A bird hotelier is someone who provides birds with food and nesting opportunities. Would you like to welcome birds to your home, watch them up-close and play an important part in their conservation? In that case, the role of bird hotelier might be perfect for you!

The best way to help birds at home is to have a diverse garden with lots of different native trees, flowers and weeds. Of course, this is not always possible, but there are still lots of things a bird hotelier can do. Hanging up bird feeders can help them find enough food, especially in winter, when other food sources are scarce.

Importantly, like us humans, different bird species like different types of food, so make sure you provide insects or seeds that the birds native to your area like to eat. In summer, you can put out a bird bath, which helps birds to keep cool in hot weather and gives them an important source of drinking water.

Being a hotelier also means giving birds a place to nest. Choose a nest box that is suitable for your local bird species and install it out of reach of predators, soon you will have your first guests to stay!

There are many ways you can join the mission to protect birds. You can raise awareness of the importance of birds, study birds outside and create bird-friendly spaces. Whether you become a bird ambassador, detective, hotelier, or anything else, your actions can help support the conservation of birds. Now that you have discovered several ways to help, which role will you choose?

This Day in the Life story is based on a research project of the biology didactics lab at Osnabrück University, Germany. The aim of this study was to identify the best and most effective bird conservation behaviours. You can find the full article under the following citation: Büscher, M., Lange, F., Bröckel, M., Höfer, S., Stemberg, E., Folsche, E. Eylering, A., & Fiebelkorn, F. (submitted). Quantifying behavioural impact and plasticity to prioritise bird conservation efforts.
Milan Büscher Author
Annike Eylering Author
Ambika Karandikar Illustrator
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2024 Nov
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Shorelines and Sea Slugs: A Slippery Adventure!

Armed with a flimsy macro lens and waterproof trainers, Nara was ready to take on the tide pools of Mumbai. While most kids enjoy a break from waking up early in the morning during the summer holidays, Nara delighted at the thought of trekking towards the shoreline and venturing on a search for marine creatures as dawn enveloped the city.

In Mumbai, people gather along the sea face from Marine Lines all the way to Bandstand Promenade to enjoy the sea breeze and watch the waves crash against the city. But, as the tide recedes, this stretch of coastline unveils patches of rocks that are home to numerous marine creatures. 

Mornings spent tide-pooling along the coast of Mumbai had introduced Nara to a myriad of creatures—corals, sea anemones, crabs and barnacles, to name a few—but today she was on a mission to find the most intriguing of all: the sea slug. 

Rocky coastlines give rise to unique microhabitats, such as tide pools. Tide pools are formed as seawater gets trapped between the rocks, once the tide recedes. Contrary to popular belief, these pools brim with life, inhabited by curious creatures that have adapted to live in a continuously changing environment. 

Sea slugs are marine invertebrates, related to snails, that have lost their external shell. These soft-bodied creatures are found globally, but are most abundant in shallow tropical waters. Some are dull-coloured which allows them to easily blend with their surroundings, while others are brightly coloured and boast mesmerising patterns. These vivid hues are not just for show, they serve as a warning message to predators: “We are toxic. Do not consume us!”

Sea slugs are marine invertebrates, related to snails, that have lost their external shell. These soft-bodied creatures are found globally, but are most abundant in shallow tropical waters. Some are dull-coloured which allows them to easily blend with their surroundings, while others are brightly coloured and boast mesmerising patterns. These vivid hues are not just for show, they serve as a warning message to predators: “We are toxic. Do not consume us!”

Skipping from one rock pool to another, Nara observed hermit crabs scrambling across the surface. Zoanthids—a type of soft coral—clumped together, forming irregularly shaped carpets on the rocks. Peering into tide pools, she occasionally spotted a sea anemone, its tentacles resembling the petals of a flower. As she skipped and hopped and quite regularly slipped in a hurry to reach the next pool, her trainers protected her feet from both the rocky surface and the sharp protective shells of barnacles. Nara knew that she would have to spend a long time scanning each tide pool in search of any movement that indicated a sea slug’s presence. Given its small size and ability to conceal itself, finding a sea slug was nearly impossible. 

Her first spotting came in the form of a tiny leaf-like slug: Elysia hirasei. A closer look at a patch of rock covered with marine algae revealed a large group of Elysia chomping through the algae. They obtain their green colour from feeding on the algae, which helps them camouflage effortlessly with their feeding grounds. The mildest of water currents would cause their frills to gently ripple. To Nara, they looked like cattle grazing across a lush green field while she, a giant, peered at them from above. Although to any passerby, Nara too would look weird, laying on her belly atop a rock, gazing into a shallow stretch of water. 

After spending a long while watching the sea slugs go on with their business, Nara dusted herself off and continued on her search for more sea slugs. Time flew by as she scuttled from one pool to another. Nara knew that she would soon have to give up her search and return home. But her determination to find more sea slugs drove her across the expanse of the rocky shoreline.

And then, she spotted something that stole her breath away: nestled between a sea sponge and a rock lay the splendid Goniobranchus bombayanus. The Bombay sea slug gets its name from the city. First described in 1949, it remained hidden from the residents of its namesake for decades due to the relative lack of interest in sea slugs among people. Only recently has the slug come back into the spotlight. What started as a motley group of naturalists exploring Mumbai’s coastal flora and fauna, slowly budded into gatherings of nature enthusiasts and city dwellers seeking a break from their daily mundane routine. The subsequent excitement surrounding these largely unknown marine animals brought the city’s shoreline to the forefront, and along with it the ‘rediscovery’ of the Bombay sea slug, its vivid colours and name catching the attention of everyone. 

The bright yellow border and dots of rich purple scattered across its milky-white body instantly caught Nara’s attention and wonder. Approximately the size of a paper clip, the mostly flat slug remained stationary in its little nook. Two rod-like structures rose from its head while the other end held a cluster of feather-like structures arranged like the petals of a flower that glistened in the sunlight. She recalled a guided shore walk that she had attended, during which the accompanying marine biologist informed her that these structures allowed the animal to breathe and sense its surroundings. At present, she watched the sea slug with delight in her heart. Her hard work and determination had paid off in the most wonderful way. Coming across a Bombay sea slug in the city’s tide pools was a rare occurrence, so Nara couldn’t believe her luck with sighting one. 

As the sun began beating down its harsh rays, Nara gathered her things and began her walk back home. A part of her understood that the city’s shoreline would drastically change over time due to construction projects that were slowly reclaiming land from the sea, climate change and rising sea levels. Her grandfather had once shown her black-and-white pictures of Mumbai’s shoreline, but it looked nothing like the seafront today. For now, she couldn’t wait to share her exciting sea slug adventure with anyone who would care to listen and show them the countless blurry pictures she had taken of these fascinating creatures. 

For more information on Mumbai’s marine life, visit www.inaturalist.org/projects/marine-life-of-mumbai. If you’re in Mumbai, you can join a guided shore walk with Marine Life of Mumbai (MLOM). See www.coastalconservation.in/marine-life-of-mumbai or follow @marinelifeofmumbai on Instagram for updates. 
Clarita Iona Mendes Author
Siddhi Vartak Illustrator
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CC Kids 18

2024 Nov
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Kungfu Aunty vs. The Garbage Monsters

I sit on my balcony each morning to soak in some sun and do a little reading. It overlooks a street corner inhabited by generous piles of rotting waste from almost every house in the neighbourhood. I’m routinely greeted by the stench. Flies, mosquitoes, rats and cockroaches are mundane. 

Actually, that’s just what I’m reading about in Shweta Taneja’s new book— but it’s beginning to feel all too real to be called fiction. Kungfu Aunty vs. The Garbage Monsters is the story of Kabir and his sister Leela, who battle the tyrannical rule of Trash Rajah, with the help of their mother’s crazy invention—a fantastical cleaning bot named Kungfu Aunty. 

Kabir and Leela live in what’s called a dystopian society. A dystopia is an imaginary world marked with great suffering and injustice, a setting that science fiction writers absolutely love. ‘Pretty city’ is under the control of an all-powerful garbage-eating monster, Trash Rajah, who forces its inhabitants to produce enormous amounts of trash to satisfy his insatiable appetite. Living in filth is now the norm, and everyone has to pretend they love it all. What’s a tiny bit frightening about most dystopian literature is that it doesn’t seem that far off from reality. Just like Kabir and Leela, we live in a world ruled by powerful businesses that encourage us to keep buying more, hence we produce more waste. They’re the Trash Rajahs of our Pretty Cities.

This book falls into an interesting genre called eco-punk fiction, which explores environmental themes and ecological issues in a dystopian future. These stories also feature a lot of fun, imaginative tech, such as holograms, hoverboards and, of course, robots like Kungfu Aunty. 

Most dystopian tales are quite grim, but thanks to the author’s wacky sense of humour, this one’s too entertaining to ruin your mood. I especially enjoyed the fun names she’s given the places and people. Trash Rajah is only one of many. As you move through the story, you’ll meet Mayor Junkfan, discover Lethal Lake and scale Puke Peak! 

Even the ‘pests’ that we’re familiar with in our world—flies, rats and cockroaches—have undergone a fictional reincarnation to have mutated into monstrously large creatures: fatflies, bloat-rats, monsterquitoes and dog-roaches—the Trash Rajah’s minions who enforce his rule over Pretty City. Similar to the little minions in our cities, they thrive on improperly disposed rubbish. They are his loyal disease-carrying army, his garbage monsters. Though their portraits are quite frightening to imagine, they’re hilariously dim-witted, which makes most of their appearances in the story a comical delight. When it comes to action for change, there are the doers who are ready to light the way, and then there are those of us who need a little nudge (or sometimes even a shove) from the doer folks. 

Kabir, like many of us, is frozen in inaction. He sticks to the Rajah’s tyrannical rules and avoids upsetting anybody. Who’d blame him? Taking on an army of garbage monsters can be a tad overwhelming. Sometimes, doing the right thing for the planet can mean standing up to our leaders, our schools, and sometimes, even our parents—which can feel just as difficult as fighting an army. 

It takes unbridled, unafraid spirits like Leela and her mother to inspire the Kabir in all of us to come together and fight to protect what we love.

Is there someone out there who inspires you? Or makes you wonder about things you’d never thought about before? They could be your favourite writer, artist, or even a loved one— the Leela to your Kabir.
Karunya Baskar Author
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CC Kids 18

2024 Nov
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Planet Dance

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Section 1: Joy

In a world so rich, where oceans meet the shore,
Lived lives galore, whom we couldn’t ignore.
The sun-kissed sky, as it set and it rose,
A rhythmic dance, full of ebbs and flows.

Beneath the waves, where the corals sway,
Schools of fish play, and practice ballet.
The rhythm of the tides, the song upbeat,
A watery waltz, sweet and complete.

On land so wide, the meadows our guide,
Animals glide, in a joyous stride
Hooves and paws in a lively prance,
Nature’s rhythm, a harmonious dance.

Streams full of frogs, get in for a soak
starting to croak and rhythm awoke
Mountain deserts the cool airs bring
Shadows dance swing, and lizards sing

In the skies and the light, where the birds take flight,
Feathers dance till night, a spectacular sight.
With melodies sung by the feathery choir,
A dance in the air, that never would tire.

Section 2: Struggle

But, alas, change was spreading in the air,
A whisper of worry, the need for care.
The rhythm of nature began to wane,
The world faced a challenge, a growing pain.

Pollution caused by humans alone
Infecting the world with a new tone
Once beautiful now tied in a knot
Coated in smog the Earth got hot

The oceans wept, as the tide lost its song,
The coral ballet, a memory so strong.
Animals hesitated in their lively race,
As pollution spread, leaving a gloomy trace.

Amphibians, sit in their puddles dry,
Earth is shy and begins to cry.
Life in the desert begins to erase,
Pollution’s touch a strong embrace

Birds in the sky, their chorus grew weak,
A silent dance, a world turned bleak.
The trees stood still, leaves barely swayed,
The once vibrant colours started to fade.

Section 3: Hope

But hope wasn’t lost, for the children arose,
With dreams of a planet where nature still glows.
They joined hands together, a determined band,
To bring back the rhythm, their beloved land.

They planted new trees, in the meadows they played,
Picked up the litter that humans had laid.
Reduced, reused, recycled with glee,
A pledge to the planet, a dance for the free.

With each green step, the rhythm returned,
The sun brightly burned, and lessons were learned.
The beat as one, through changes so drastic
Life more fantastic with each piece of plastic

Waltz, ballet, a croak, and a choir
Rekindled fire, the world a supplier
The beat now in a new kind of song
Of how it went wrong and came back so strong

Singing with swing, tap and the tide
Humans in stride, nature allied
New kinds of dance a future so bright
Where beats unite, a perfect light

And so, in this tale of a planet’s chance,
A reminder to all in a rhythmic trance.
To cherish the Earth with every glance,
For together we sway, in the planet’s dance.
Evan Radivoyevitch Author
Princy Rawat Illustrator
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2024 Nov
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The Great Apes 

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Gorillas 

Crash!!! The sound of breaking branches and rustling bushes can be heard throughout this national park in Uganda. The source of the noise is a 200-kg silverback gorilla and his family. They call this mountain forest their home. A gorilla troop like this one usually has around 10 members, but the largest troop ever recorded, in Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, had a staggering 65 individuals. That’s a pretty big family!

An adult male mountain gorilla can grow to be over five feet tall when standing on all fours, not quite the size of King Kong but still pretty impressive. They have thick black hair covering their bodies and as they mature the hair on their backs acquires a silver sheen, earning them their names as silverbacks. 

Gorillas eat leaves, shoots, roots and bark from a variety of plants. As their food is fairly low in nutrients, they need to consume up to 45 pounds or 20 kg of food, equivalent to eating 125 apples every day! Adult gorillas usually will need to rest for the better part of the day, after eating all that food, while younger gorillas spend the day playing and exploring. 

Gorillas are a peaceful, social ape. But occasionally, silverbacks are known to show aggression when defending their families. At these times, silverbacks will beat their chests, bare their impressive set of canine teeth to threaten rival male gorillas or even charge at intruders when sensing danger. A fully grown gorilla can be six times as strong as a human. 

Apart from the mountain gorilla (Gorilla beringei beringei), there are three other subspecies of gorilla, including the eastern (Gorilla beringei graueri) and western lowland gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) and the extremely rare cross river gorilla (Gorilla gorilla diehli). Researchers say there are fewer than 300 cross river gorillas left in the wild due to loss of habitat and hunting. 

Did you know? A gorilla will sing when eating their favourite food. A combination of hums and groans to show they have found a treat too good to share. 

Chimpanzees 

In the same forests as the gorillas, are an even larger and noisier family of apes: the chimpanzees. This family contains many males, females and young ones of all ages.

These apes are percussive in their communication. Chimpanzees drum on tree roots to grab the attention of other chimpanzees, and perform impressive displays of their strength by ripping up plants and breaking branches to show their neighbours who’s in charge. One can often hear this display as distant drumming echoing through the forest. 

Chimpanzees are loud, energetic and mischievous. The dominant male in a troop of chimpanzees forms a close bond with his brothers, uncles, cousins and sons and protects this family fiercely as this band of brothers will remain in the group for the rest of their lives. The females are much freer—they often leave their natal group after reaching sexual maturity and find a new community when they are ready to start their own families. 

Chimpanzees eat fruits, nuts and seeds like the gorillas, but also seek out ants, termites, lizards and even hunt a monkey occasionally as a tasty treat. These apes are extremely intelligent and are known to use tools for a variety of reasons, such as using sticks for extractive foraging in termite mounds and rivers and using rocks for weapons during disputes with other chimpanzees. 

Did you know? Chimpanzees cannot swim but love to splash around in shallow water and fish for water plants and algae to eat in the dry season. 

Bonobos 

Further east in the Congo River basin lives the smallest of the great apes: the bonobos. Bonobos were once known as pygmy chimpanzees because they look very similar to chimpanzees, but ancestors of this species actually split from the chimpanzee line around two million years ago. Bonobos were only discovered as a separate species in 1928 and it is thought that the natural formation of the Congo river separated them from chimpanzees. This separation was so long that they are now a distinct species. 

Even though chimpanzees and bonobos look alike, their behaviour could not be more different. Unlike the chimpanzees or the gorillas, the bonobos do not show off their size and strength to intimidate others but instead use alliances and affiliations to settle disputes. Here, the females are in charge of the family, deciding where the group will sleep, travel and forage for food. 

A bonobo group will often befriend neighbouring troops and individuals will move more freely between groups than the gorillas and chimpanzees. Multiple groups may also come together to form large gatherings of up to 70 animals and will talk to each other using hoots, barks, screeches and screams. 

These apes have a tell-tale feature: a rather impressive hairdo. Bonobos characteristic centre parting is one of the easiest ways to distinguish them from their chimpanzee cousins. 

Did you know? Chimpanzees and bonobos share over 98 percent of their DNA with humans. 

Orangutans 

In Asia, in the dwindling forests of Borneo and Sumatra, we find the only ape who prefers to live alone: the orangutan. Known as the red ape for their orange hair, these apes are long-armed tree dwellers who spend much of their time high up in the treetop canopy rather than on lower branches or on the forest floor like their African cousins. They spend their days feeding on fruit, seeds and leaves, and make nests out of branches to rest in throughout the day.

Even though orangutans are the least social of all the great apes, they regularly interact with each other. Young ones engage in play, adolescent males often follow other adults to learn the ways of the forest, young females may travel together or feed in the same tree as other females, and mothers will remain with their infants for up to 10 years, teaching them what they need to know to survive in the wild. Even after young females have reached maturity, they will visit their mothers often and may even share the same area of forest for many years after. 

Orangutans are very clever, just like the other apes, but unlike gorillas, chimpanzees and bonobos, orangutans also have a lot of patience. They spend a long time figuring out solutions to problems and have been known to use a variety of homemade tools to collect food and water, extend their reach and make themselves more comfortable. Orangutans have been reported to have used leaves to make umbrellas to keep dry and cups which they fold and fill with water. They have been observed using sticks for fishing rods, stones for hammers and branches as weapons. 

Did you know? Researchers recently discovered that orangutans use herbal remedies that they find in the forest to treat illnesses and injuries. 

Humans 

This brings us to our fifth and final ape: humans. These apes are far less hairy and can be found all over the world. Humans are just as diverse in shape, colour, preference and foraging and mating behaviours as seen in the other great apes. Some are short and some are tall, some are large and some are small. Some are shy and quiet, while others are loud and bold. Some have black hair and some have red hair and some may not have any hair at all! Some eat meat and some only eat vegetables. Some have large extended families and some live alone. 

As a species, humans are biologically very similar to other great apes in our broader anatomy and physiology, but what makes us unique are the individual differences between us in appearance, behaviour and lifestyle, which can be largely attributed to culture. 

Like other great apes, different populations of our species found in different geographical locations often have distinct cultures. The products of cultures, such as what we eat, how we communicate, our behaviours, our priorities and how we spend our time are passed down from generation to generation. All of the great apes exhibit some form of varying cultures which makes us all connected but wonderfully unique. 
Lorraine Miller Author
Boski Jain Illustrator
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CC Kids 18

2024 Nov
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Exploring the Arctic Tundra with Lumi

Hello! My name is Lumi, and I’m an Arctic fox. My name means snow in Finnish, or at least that’s what some humans said. I don’t think we’ve met. I cannot wait to tell you all about where I live and what I do every day. 

Life with Lumi

I live in the frigid Arctic tundra. This habitat stretches across countries like Russia and Canada. You might be wondering, what’s a tundra? The humans call this area a tundra because of its freezing temperatures and for the lack of trees. There aren’t many forests around here! When I look out of my den, the land is flat practically everywhere. 

It is cold for most of the year, but I don’t worry much about it. I have thick white fur for the winter months. It keeps me warm and helps me blend into the snow. I also have extra layers of fat under my skin that keep me nice and toasty in my coat. When it is warmer out, I shed my thick white coat and grow thinner brown fur. That helps me blend in better with the dirt on the ground and around my den. 

Right now, it’s winter, so my fur is white and shiny. This morning, as it is many mornings in winter, the snow seems to turn orange and yellow as the sun rises higher in the sky. It’s lucky that today we have some sun. Many days in the winter, there are clouds. The sky and everything else turn pale grey. 

Lumi’s morning routine

I climb out of my den and stretch my neck up and up. I imagine that my nose could touch the sun if I reach high enough. I take a deep breath in and smell the whole tundra around me. I have a keen sense of smell—I’ll catch your scent before laying eyes on you! Especially with the wind blowing all the time, another trait of the tundra. 

Every Arctic fox has its own territory in which to live. I know my boundaries with my neighbours and stay in my space. I am a carnivore or a meat eater. I must hunt for food in my territory. I am pretty hungry, so I’ll hunt for small animals like mice and voles today. Mice and voles are practically cousin species! 

I can’t wait for summer. That’s when food is the best! When it’s warmer, there are many plants around. I eat berries and fruits, too. If I ever explore near the ocean, I’ll even try seafood, like urchins and shellfish. I’ll stick to what I can find now that it’s cold. I use my sense of smell to find the prey first. The humans have a name for this, too! They say I’m an opportunistic feeder. That must mean that I look for good opportunities to find food, no matter what that is. 

There! 

I smell a vole! Luckily for me, I have furry, padded feet that help me keep quiet as I march through the snow and ice. I inch closer and closer to where I smell the vole burrowing in the snow. You may not know this, but I have a unique trick when hunting burrowing voles. 

Three,

Two,

One,

POUNCE! 

I leap into the air and slam my nose into the snow! Gotcha! I pull my nose out of the ground with a juicy vole for me to eat. This is my first time seeing it since I had just smelled it under the snow. This one is round with brown fur, like a rabbit, and fits perfectly in my mouth. I’ll take it to my den, where I can eat without worrying about predators or the icy winds.

Home is where the den is 

My den is the most important part of my life in the Arctic tundra. That’s where I sleep, where I eat, where I hide from predators, and where I will one day raise my pups. Growing up, I had 13 brothers and sisters, so I think that’s a good number of pups to have as an Arctic fox. I’ve worked extremely hard on my den. It took a long time to dig out and shape to my liking. I built it all by myself. I tried to copy the cosy den that my own mother raised me in when I was just a pup. That was long before I was out on my own. 

I remember my mother’s den being snug, warm and safe. In the winter, it was covered in snow. When the sun shone exactly right, the snow outside the den would sparkle like stars in the night sky. That’s why I worked so hard on my den. I wanted to make it as safe and cosy as my mother’s den. Now, in the wintertime, snow covers my den’s entrance, and the sun shines on it perfectly, too. I get to see the light sparkle through the snow, just like when I was a pup. 

Why my den is best

Now that I’ve lived in my den for a while, I’ve noticed some curious things about it. Many more plants are near my den than in other areas of the tundra! There are lots of grasses and some plants that grow flowers in the spring. I bring many snacks into my den to eat without any interruptions. I leave my leftovers outside my den if I bring too much, and then after a while, if no one gets to it first, the bugs and worms eat the rest, and it breaks down into the dirt. That’s how all the pretty plants grow! 

The humans call me an ecosystem engineer. It took some time to think about this, but I think I finally figured out what that means. An engineer is someone who builds or creates something. An ecosystem is a place where lots of animals and plants live together. So, the humans have named me a builder in the Arctic tundra ecosystem. They said that I’m a keystone species, too. I guess I am also a key part of this ecosystem, another name humans use to describe a place where lots of plants and animals live together. The humans gave me good names because I do have a den that gets visitors. 

That must be why caribou visit my den so often. I have some of their favourite snacks growing right outside my front door! Caribou aren’t the only ones. I get all kinds of visitors. I’ve seen big animals like polar bears, grizzly bears, geese, eagles and even snowy owls! Those are always a little scary to see so close to my home, but usually, they just come for the leftovers I leave behind. Either way, I’ll stay in my favourite corner of my den until they are gone. It’s best to give big predators their space. 

Now that I have lived in my den for some time, I have noticed the caribou herds travelling closer to my den, but not too close. They really like the plants that grow near my den, so now they’ve chosen a new route that puts them closer to me. That makes me an ecosystem engineer, too! Thanks to my den, I’ve changed where the caribou herds move in the tundra. When the caribou herds move, other predators like wolves and other foxes will follow them to hunt. 

I had no idea a little fox like me could make such an enormous difference in this vast, snowy habitat. I shape the Arctic tundra and where the animals here move to. I never realised just how important foxes are until I heard some humans talk about them. I’ll definitely have to teach that to my pups! I learned so much by listening to them and discovering things on my own. The humans I’ve heard from far away called themselves scientists, explorers and teachers. Humans should listen to them more—they know a lot. I hope humans teach their pups to learn and explore too!
Viviana Moreno Author
Reechik Banerjee Illustrator
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CC Kids 18

2024 Nov
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Focusing on saltwater crocodile habitats and connectivity to safeguard Myanmar’s coastal biodiversity

Species with wide ranges often require extensive habitat patches to enable populations to remain viable. Furthermore, if species are to remain viable over extended periods, there is a need to mitigate habitat-fragmentation driven loss of population connectivity and gene flow. As a case in point, saltwater crocodiles (Crocodylus porosus) have experienced significant habitat loss in certain parts of their territory in Myanmar. Within Myanmar, the species is currently only found in a single protected area—the Meinmahla Kyun Wildlife Sanctuary, an island in the Ayeyarwady Delta. Its population in the Ayeyarwady region was estimated to be no more than 80 individuals in 2019, and this number continues to decline under unprecedented socioeconomic pressures on their mangrove habitats. 

Yet, despite the decline in population over recent decades and inadequate habitat protection in the Ayeyarwady region, no recent assessments have investigated the range-wide habitat patterns, occupancy conditions and population status of saltwater crocodiles in Myanmar. Therefore, there is an urgent need to obtain such critical information to effectively manage and conserve its populations.

Through a comprehensive analysis using 20 years of data, we identified suitable habitats, range-wide corridors and regional pathways that facilitate saltwater crocodile dispersal, thereby enhancing connectivity between habitat patches. The optimal dispersal corridors were identified based on expert-driven landscape resistance surface modelling. This method reflects the level of difficulty saltwater crocodiles face while moving through different geographical landscape features, allowing for the mapping of the most efficient routes to reconnect fragmented habitats.

The study identified extensive habitat patches in the Rakhine, Ayeyarwady, Yangon, Mon and Tanintharyi regions—approximately 1247 km2 along the coastline, with only 12 percent aligning with the IUCN-defined extent of occurrence of saltwater crocodiles in Myanmar. The Ayeyarwady Delta boasts more extensive and suitable habitat coverage compared to the Rakhine and Tanintharyi regions, where marginal habitats are highly fragmented and largely unprotected. We also identified bottleneck areas where the movement of saltwater crocodiles will be constrained due to high landscape resistance and few alternative routes. Notably, while several suitable patches of habitat exist, many are currently unconnected, and dispersal may not be possible between such habitats.

Myanmar currently designates less than one percent of the country’s total area as marine and coastal protected areas, which includes two internationally important wetland sites—Nanthar Island and Mayyu Estuary, and Meinmahla Kyun Wildlife Sanctuary. Expanding legally designated protected areas to include important wetland sites, such as the Gulf of Mottama (GOM), identified habitat corridors and dispersal bottlenecks, is vital for increasing this percentage and boosting conservation efforts of the saltwater crocodile ecosystem. To this end, we identified five key priority areas for protection, restoration and monitoring. These five areas align with the Key Biodiversity Areas within four coastal zones, namely Ramree Island and Kyeintali (Rakhine), Ngapudaw-Phone Taw, Dedaye-Kungyangon (Ayeyarwady Delta), GOM-Bilugyin-Kyaikkhami (Mon) and Myeik Archipelagos (Tanintharyi). 

Mangrove restoration and biodiversity monitoring programmes along those habitat corridors and dispersal pathways could enable population recovery, and in turn, improve population resilience to future environmental changes. Our study emphasises the pivotal role of habitat connectivity, particularly in Myanmar’s overlooked coastal wetlands, and provides a complement to the 30×30 global biodiversity target. This habitat connectivity framework offers valuable insights for conservation practitioners and scientists seeking effective measures to safeguard biodiversity through facilitating conservation planning to better reflect connectivity. 

Our study lays the groundwork for establishing a protected areas network in Myanmar’s coastal regions, utilising saltwater crocodiles as an umbrella species to facilitate comprehensive conservation planning and connectivity efforts for the region’s’ biodiversity and ecosystems.

Further Reading:

Than, K. Z., Z. Zaw, R. C. Quan and A. C. Hughes. 2024. Biodiversity conservation in Myanmar’s coastal wetlands: Focusing on saltwater crocodile habitats and connectivity. Biological Conservation 289: 110396.
Alice C. Hughes Author
Kay Zin Than Author

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Why democratic efforts matter in managing forests and our health

Feature image: A conceptual illustration arguing a multifaceted, and democratic approach in managing forest-, and human-health. Design by V. Jithin; Icon credits to Pixabay.

In 2023, the theme for the UN’s International Day of Forests was ‘Forests and Health’. Although not new to a lot of us, recent pandemics and the rise of emerging infectious diseases made this theme more relevant than ever before. While global schemes like One Health conceptually embrace the multifacetedness of the forest-human health relationship, local implementation of such projects face a lack of participatory approaches and awareness at the individual level. Hence, we argue here for a fresher, more democratic approach to managing forests and our health.

What is a forest?

For each of us, the definition of a forest can be different. Is it merely a large patch of trees, a verdant valley, our primary home or something else entirely? From being a source of timber to producing oxygen, can forests exist beyond the services they offer humankind? Typically, our schools and society illustrate forests as a collection of trees. This often leaves out many elements of nature that are critical in shaping forests. Can forests be seen as ecosystems, where plants, animals and other organisms interact with each other to form a lively network? Or a landscape that serves as a vital lifeline for diverse forms of life including us? An entity that transcends political and social boundaries? 

It might feel as if modern humans have come a long way from being hunter-gatherers, but in reality, we are always interacting with forests—directly or indirectly—irrespective of our location in an ‘urban jungle’ or near an actual forest. Except for a few indigenous communities, forests are often considered a separate entity from humans. Consequently, we forget to acknowledge that forests influence our lives and we influence their existence. Nevertheless, at certain points, we realise the power of these invisible connections. This is especially true when we consider human health—a key value in our lives. 

Forests are crucial for human health

Health encompasses more than the basic functioning of organs or clinical vitals. It includes our physical, mental and social well-being, often closely associated with our surroundings. An IPBES report published in 2019 classified several human health-related benefits from forests, such as nutritional availability, prevention or buffering the impact of natural hazards, prevention of communicable and non-communicable diseases, improved mental health and medicines of forest origin. 

Cardiopulmonary diseases, diabetes and cancer are known to cause 71 percent of global deaths, of which 77 percent occur in low and middle income nations. Although there are no direct studies that trace exactly how forests protect us from such diseases, several studies have indirectly shown that forest-related activities (walking, running, climbing, swimming, etc.) enhance our bodily functions by improving our immune system, as well as reducing blood pressure, mental stress and anxiety. Other studies have shown how exposure to forests supports the growth of healthy children, and their importance in reducing pollution-associated mortality—a major issue in developing countries. 

Another important health-related benefit is the production of synthetic medicines as a result of intensive scientific research in forests. Many of these medicines have their origins in our traditional knowledge and the bioactive compounds that are serendipitously discovered from various organisms in our forests. For example, Himalayan Yew (known locally as ‘thuner’) is a source of taxol, which is used to treat cancer; ‘Arogyapacha’ (Trichopus zeylanicus), a plant endemic to the southern tip of the Western Ghats and used by the nomadic Kani tribes, resulted in an anti-fatigue formulation; and the Cinchona tree gave us the antimalarial drug quinine.

Hence, forests are often described as “repositories of medicines that can make pivotal changes in our health and scientific field”. However, it is regrettable that many undiscovered organisms with potential benefits are disappearing from these repositories before scientists can study and document them. This loss is particularly concerning because these organisms may hold valuable insights into ecological processes, provide new sources of medicine or contribute to agricultural productivity. 

Emerging diseases and increasing fear of forests

Forests are invaluable. However, the recent emergence of zoonotic diseases like MXPV (monkeypox) across the globe and re-occurrences of regional diseases like the Kyasanur Forest Disease in the Western Ghats, have contributed to the multi-layered fear of forests among common people. Increasing human-wildlife interactions without precautionary measures often lead to disease transmission from animals to humans. For example, monkeypox occurs when humans come in contact with or consume infected animals, such as rats and squirrels. It has been shown that MXPV spreads due to land use changes associated with forest disturbance in the Democratic Republic of Congo. 

The spread of novel diseases due to forest degradation has become a serious concern globally. When we reflect on recent events such as the COVID-19 pandemic, it is clear that such diseases have affected everyone, regardless of race, gender and nationality. Half of infectious diseases have been known to originate from animals or spread through them as intermediate agents—scientifically known as zoonotic diseases—and a third of these are triggered due to deforestation, and increased human activities in the interior forests, usually associated with land use change. Human-made changes in forest landscapes increase the chances of disease-causing organisms crossing species barriers, as often the pathogens are hosted by a specific group of host organisms and reach humans eventually. To prevent these spillovers due to increased human-wildlife interactions, we need to discourage the alarming rates of forest land conversion and degradation. 

This underscores the need for more data on disease transmission, host species, their habitats and interactions with humans in order to take action at the root level. Unfortunately, we do not have much of this information, due to a lack of in-depth research and ignorance of this critical subject. The helplessness arising from this makes us fear forests and see them as reservoirs of unknown diseases. This view often results in alienating ourselves from forests or developing a tendency to destroy them in an attempt to prevent diseases.

One Health, a holistic approach

In 2023, a Nipah virus outbreak rattled Kerala—a small state on the western coast of India, nestled within the Western Ghats landscape. People’s opinions were divided by WhatsApp messages, with some arguing against the killing of bats and others fearing that bats could spread viral infections through fruits. But thanks to awareness campaigns by ecologists and the healthcare system, people as well as bats were saved. 

It is important to consider the role of each stakeholder in developing preventive measures in the face of a public health emergency. People working in various fields, with strong scientific and sociological foundations and with experience in managing people on the ground have to work together. These include forest guards who identify and communicate potential human-wildlife interactions, health care workers, village council members, wildlife researchers, NGOs, virus research centres and various tiers of the government. 

The One Health approach has recently gained global attention among public health and science professionals. The founding principle of One Health is to maintain the holistic and individual health of human society by conserving the health of natural ecosystems and their components. The success stories of this initiative from several nations underscore the importance of a broad, multi-dimensional approach.

Consider how Papua New Guinea, where 85 percent of the population lives in remote areas, welcomed the One Health approach. In association with the Tree Kangaroo Conservation Programme in the region, they implemented the “Healthy Village, Healthy Forest” programme, by recognising that sustainable environmental and public health management is only possible through practical solutions. The project focused on public health by ensuring basic government health facilities, enhancing village infrastructure and conducting peer group gatherings to make people aware of forest-health relationships, along with research activities. At present, the community is successfully producing sustainable coffee, while a dedicated, locally-owned area is reserved for conserving tree kangaroos by controlling the hunting pressure. This example demonstrates why our health cannot be viewed in isolation, nor that of wildlife or an ecosystem.

Are we ready on the ground?

What would your response be if a virus such as Nipah is increasingly reported in your locality? Would that response change if you were near the source of the disease? What if you were a health professional or a wildlife researcher? What if you were a forest watcher or the head of the Forest Department or the Minister of Forests, a police officer or the representative of a local body? Many people from different sections of society will be required to act during these situations, directly or indirectly. 

Learning how to respond in such circumstances can help us grasp the intricacies of managing difficult situations. For example, insufficient and unreliable socio-scientific anecdotes become a major hindrance in tackling miscommunication and the spread of pseudoscientific news on zoonotic diseases. This is exacerbated by our limited capacity to communicate the scientific underpinnings of these issues efficiently. This can be only addressed by getting information directly from public health and ecology experts, and effectively communicating this to media specialists through science communicators, in consultation with other relevant stakeholders. In addition to this, the spread of false information can be prevented by a dedicated community of fact checkers at the regional levels. 

Similarly, other aspects also need cooperation from people of various backgrounds across professional and social strata to tackle critical issues such as research funding, adoption of certain policies and management practices. While the international community is shifting its focus to these aspects, we have to ensure that the diverse dimensions of programmes like One Health, its different perspectives, possibilities and challenges need to be discussed with the public at the local scale. If these programmes confine themselves to the top of the social hierarchy and are technically difficult for common people to comprehend and participate in its functioning, it will not reach full potential at the bottom level.

Top-down or bottom-up?

As human health and forest health are tightly interconnected and their disconnectedness will result in cascading effects on us, we have to think about how we can ensure their intactness. One crucial point is to understand that we need a broad network of people and processes. This can only be achieved through brainstorming, research and policy making at multiple levels, starting from the local governments and other stakeholders who interact with forests and public health. In order to ensure bottom-level information is used in the health monitoring of local forests, animals and people, we will need the democratic involvement of people in the process, similar to the People’s Biodiversity Register Programme in India. 

In this proposed process, we imagine people assessing their neighbourhood forests and human health using appropriate indices, such as biodiversity intactness, frequency of human-animal interactions, disease spillover chances and livestock-wild animal health to generate zoonoses probability maps. This can be facilitated by a spatial data collection system implemented at the state or regional levels, to which data is gathered at the finest level through people’s participation. This will help implement appropriate preventive measures at multiple levels, from local residential societies to the national level, with inputs of all stakeholders. We believe that such parallel top-down and bottom-up efforts can add momentum to global healthcare schemes like One Health, by linking some of the missing elements such as local-level information and participatory involvement of people from all strata.

In parallel, we also need a collective effort from all stakeholders to prevent interior forest degradation and to ensure the needs and rights of forest-dependent communities. Basic and applied research, supported and carried out by these stakeholders, will help us understand the deeper connections between forests and us. There must be scope for scientists, journalists and the public to talk to each other. That way, research findings can be effectively shared with the common people. 

We need grassroot-level intervention and interactions where both decision-makers and common people can mutually benefit. Current discussions about nature and humanity often frame them as opposing forces, leading to binary thinking like forest vs. development or forest vs. urban dwellers. However, when we recognise that these dimensions can coexist only through trade-offs, we begin to understand just how deeply interconnected forests and humans truly are.

Further Reading:

Berrian A. M., M. Wilkes, K. Gilardi, W. Smith, P. A. Conrad, P. Z. Crook, J. Cullor et al. 2020. Developing a global One Health workforce: the “Rx One Health Summer Institute” approach. Ecohealth 17(2):222-232. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10393-020-01481-0.

S. Díaz, J. Settele, E. S. Brondízio, H. T. Ngo, M. Guèze, J. Agard, A. Arneth et al. 2019. Summary for policymakers of the global assessment report on biodiversity and ecosystem services of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. IPBES secretariat, Bonn, Germany. 

Gadgil, M., P. R. Seshagiri Rao, G. Utkarsh, P. Pramod and A. Chhatre. 2000. New meanings for old knowledge: The people’s biodiversity registers program. Ecological Applications 10(5): 1307-1317.
Jithin Vijayan Author & Illustrator
Ashiq PP Author

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