The Wildlife Trade Monitoring Program aims to enhance the capacity of enforcement agencies across India to detect, intercept, and prevent illegal wildlife trade through intelligence-driven operations and hands-on training. This programme will provide specialised training to officers from customs, police, forest departments, and other enforcement agencies, equipping them with the skills to tackle wildlife crime effectively. The key focus areas include intelligence gathering, trade pattern analysis, crime scene investigation, evidence handling, and legal enforcement. The training will cover interception techniques at key transit points, including airports, ports, and border crossings, ensuring rapid response and prosecution of offenders under the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, and CITES regulations. Designed by experts with decades of experience in wildlife crime control, the program will feature live training exercises, case study analysis, and forensic investigations. Participants will engage in real-world simulations, improving their ability to identify and track illegal wildlife products and networks. In response to increasing threats from organised wildlife trafficking, this initiative aims to strengthen India’s enforcement mechanisms, foster inter-agency collaboration, and reduce illegal wildlife trade. The programme also seeks to develop sustainable training modules, build enforcement networks, and contribute to long-term wildlife conservation and legal enforcement efforts.
This project will contribute to the conservation of the critically endangered Chinese pangolin and build upon ATREE’s ongoing efforts within the Kanchenjunga Landscape in India. The initiative addresses several identified concerns, including (i) low conservation priority and a lack of data on species distribution, (ii) challenges in pangolin research and capacity, which affect applicable findings for pangolin conservation across the region, and (iii) insufficient public awareness. The project aims to assess the distribution, extinction risks, and threats facing the Chinese pangolin in this region. Additionally, the project looks to enhance the capacity of regional pangolin researchers and engage with the public to foster broader stewardship. For the first time, through this initiative, knowledge will be generated on the occurrence, distribution, and conservation status of pangolins in the Himalayan state of Sikkim. By enhancing the capacity of regional pangolin researchers, the project will enable region-specific field methodologies and achieve consistent findings from across the region. Reaching out to diverse segments of the community will build awareness and highlight the species' critical status. Documenting anthropogenic activities will help link potential threats to the species and habitats, allowing the formulation of strategies to collaborate with stakeholders in mitigating threats in key pangolin habitats.
The striped hyena (Hyaena hyaena), classified as Near Threatened by the IUCN, has a global population of fewer than 10,000 mature individuals. Its population is in decline due to habitat loss, persecution, and prey depletion. Despite its ecological role as a scavenger, the species remains understudied, particularly in India’s semi-arid forests—its prime habitat. This project focuses on the striped hyena population in the Aravalli Hills of southern Haryana, a critical yet overlooked habitat spanning over 250 square kilometres between Delhi and Haryana. This region serves as a key wildlife corridor but faces growing threats from urban expansion, real estate development, illegal mining, and road construction. While previous camera-trap studies suggest a relatively high hyena density, systematic assessments are lacking. This project will conduct a grid-based population assessment using paired camera traps and an occupancy framework to quantify habitat use. They will also monitor breeding sites and conduct interviews with local communities in high-occupancy areas to understand human-hyena interactions and conservation challenges. The findings will provide crucial data for conservation planning and contribute to strategies aimed at ensuring the long-term survival of this elusive carnivore in the Aravalli landscape.
The Himalayan Salamander (Tylototriton verrucosus) is a rare and threatened amphibian facing habitat loss, pollution, and climate change. This project aims to assess the population status of the species, restore critical habitats, and engage local communities in conservation efforts. By conducting field surveys, habitat restoration and awareness programmes, they seek to mitigate threats and ensure the species' long-term survival. Key challenges include habitat degradation, lack of public awareness, and weak policy enforcement. To address these, they will work closely with local authorities, implement restoration activities, and advocate for stronger legal protections. Expected outcomes include the identification of critical habitats, increased community participation, strengthened conservation policies, and a sustainable monitoring framework. This initiative aims to provide a scalable model for amphibian conservation in the region, ensuring the protection of the Himalayan Salamander and its ecosystem.
The wide-nose and sharp-nose guitarfish are both Critically Endangered and extremely understudied rhino rays. They occupy shallow coastal waters, making them vulnerable to human activities and threats. Building on previous research, which identified important aggregation sites and potential nursery grounds of juvenile guitarfish in South Goa, this project will assess guitarfish abundance and identify their critical habitats across two states along India’s east and west coasts. The team will use walking transect surveys—developed during the earlier phases of their work—and adapt them to different conditions to develop a simple, low-cost method to monitor guitarfish. A long-term monitoring system, with local stakeholders, will be set up in Goa—the first of its kind in India—to continue monitoring guitarfish beyond this project’s duration. This will help understand population trends over time, especially in nursery grounds crucial for the species’ conservation. In Tamil Nadu, outreach programmes with relevant stakeholders, including education programmes in schools, will be implemented to increase awareness and build positive attitudes towards guitarfish and ocean conservation. Conservation interventions will be co-created with local communities, building on successful models from their previous work, to promote conservation and the live release of guitarfish caught as bycatch.
The north Bengal landscape is home to five species of hornbills: The Great Hornbill, Wreathed Hornbill, Rufous-necked hornbill, Oriental Pied Hornbill and the Indian Grey Hornbill. The first three species are listed as Vulnerable in the IUCN Red List.
Research done by Nature Mates Nature Club in the region since 2017 has identified key threats to hornbills and their habitat at Buxa Tiger Reserve: poaching at nests, habitat degradation and fragmentation. Habitat loss is a major concern for hornbills as they require specific food plants and nesting trees for successful breeding. It’s also important to note that tourism is an important source of livelihood at Buxa. Increasing nature tourism and demand of birders and bird photographers exert pressure on local guides who have not received formal training on nature tourism. Increasing their skills and knowledge as nature guides with some guidelines would promote regulated nature tourism and improve their scope of livelihoods.
Nature Mates proposes to establish an alliance with the Forest Department to restore degraded habitats through scientific-based forest restoration practices. They aim to provide scientific and technical assistance to the Department and build capacities at the ground level. They also propose to continue their ongoing research to understand long-term patterns of hornbill breeding, roosting and tree phenology to improve ecological understanding of hornbills from this region. Additionally, via the project, they also propose focused programmes with nature guides and local schools to increase support and conservation awareness. The project aims to improve hornbill research and establish a conservation network with key stakeholders at Buxa.
Ratnagiri district in the Western Ghats is an eco-sensitive region and with crucial landscape linkage, exhibits a wide range of floral and faunal diversity including housing three species of threatened hornbills. It is a conservation priority area being an important wildlife corridor connecting to Reserved Forests and Protected Areas. More than 50% of the geographic area of Ratnagiri district is forested, but only 0.8% is government-owned, with no Protected Area coverage. These private forests are degraded due to periodical (8-10 years) clearing. Additionally, these forests are being converted to agroforestry monoculture plantations. Three species of threatened hornbills viz. Great Hornbill, Malabar Pied Hornbill and Malabar Grey Hornbill nest in these forests.
Hornbills play a significant role as seed-dispersers to maintain forest ecology. They are dependent on the continued existence of primary rainforests so that they can find mature trees which provide suitable nest cavities for nesting. Forest loss has detrimental impact on the population of hornbills throughout its range, particularly as they show a preference for forest areas with large trees that may be targeted by loggers. Forests in Ratnagiri are lost mainly due to the anthropogenic pressures. Hornbills are unable to persist in areas where low elevation forest have been reduced to small fragments resulted in their declining population.
The outcome of the proposed project by Srushtidnyan is identification and protection of nest sites of hornbills, habitat protection and enhancement by creating hornbill food plant nursery, providing nesting opportunities by installing artificial nest boxes, and local community-based outreach programs for long term species survival. The also aim to garner larger support for hornbills and their habitats, conduct outreach and public engagement activities focusing on children in schools and colleges through the ‘Friends of Hornbill’ initiative.
Bycatch (unintentional capture) caused by non-selective fishing gear is a serious issue resulting in unsustainable fisheries. Hammerhead sharks are heavily threatened; they are caught as bycatch and are utilised for consumption and export, the former being on the rise, but is also unchecked, unregulated and unorganised.
India is in fact, one of the top three contributors to shark-catch in the world, but bycatch off Indian coasts is not always documented or monitored in a systematic manner that is useful to inform conservation and management.
The Zoo Outreach Organisation (ZOO) is trying to conserve threatened shark species, focusing on the Scalloped Hammerhead, off the coast of Tamil Nadu. The organisation aims to conduct outreach activities and understand livelihood dependence in Tamil Nadu. This will help develop conservation strategies and to conduct national Red List assessments of sharks of India. The group aims to create social media campaigns about shark and ray species and encourage volunteers to join in and conduct training workshops at the two sites for interested individuals from relevant stakeholders. Education and the involvement of local communities will allow people from the communities to bolster efforts towards the creation of a conservation plan for these threatened sharks.
Tholpetty Range is part of the Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary in Western Ghats part of Kerala. It is the connecting corridor for large number of elephants from Nagarhole National Park in adjacent Karnataka to reach Kabini reservoir during peak summer months. These east sloping, moist deciduous forests and its grasslands are home to species including elephants, tigers, gaurs, spotted deer and critically endangered White-rumped and Red-headed Vultures.
The spread of alien exotic Senna spectabilis is a serious conservation and management challenge in Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary particularly due to the allelopathic traits of the species that prevent native plants including grass from growing under it. Tholpetty range has some of the oldest Senna trees, and approximately 40% of the Tholpetty range has been affected by invasive Senna spectabilis and Lantana camara. Dense invasion of Senna spectabilis is fast turning forest lands into “Green deserts”. This has also reduced fodder availability for wildlife. Kerala Forest Department is actively involved in girdling Senna spectabilis in the region. While fruiting and flowering is affected by girdling, the tree is found to coppice from the lateral roots thus reducing the potential for native grass and other flora to thrive.
Forest First Samithi has worked on this landscape since 2020 and works on an alternate approach of manually uprooting the Senna spectabilis tree completely thus restoring grass and native flora. Their technique of Senna spectabilis and Lantana camara removal is already restoring large areas of grasslands and establishing naturally regenerated tree saplings, and their work has received accolades from the Kerala Forest Department for its effectiveness.
With their project, Forest First Samithi aims to eradicate invasive species through handheld tools to improve efficiency thus mitigating human-animal conflicts. Additionally, they want to improve native floral species diversity by planting carefully selected local pollinator species, wild edible fruits, RET, riverine and medicinal plants to support wildlife and restore degraded habitats and enable invasive suppression, as well as set up native species nurseries for communities. Lastly, they want to build social capital and enable local livelihoods by encouraging traditional ecological knowledge and providing livelihood to forest fringe villages, for they have aimed for every activity to be done by a team of restorers from forest fringe communities within Thirunelly panchayat near Tholpetty range.
