Spiti is a neglected habitat where the impact of free-ranging dogs is often overlooked. The primary challenge is the "winter food gap." In summer, dogs survive on tourism waste, but in winter, they face extreme hunger. This starvation forces them to form hunting packs that prey on native wild sheep and goats and also livestock. Beyond direct predation, these packs cause significant habitat disruption by displacing Snow Leopards from their kills and driving them away from traditional corridors. This displacement directly undermines the local wildlife-tourism economy, as Snow Leopards are pushed out of reliable sighting zones. Furthermore, emergent interactions pose a hybridization risk to native canids like the Red Fox and Himalayan Wolves. This project complements regional conservation by addressing the root cause of conflict: seasonal starvation. By establishing managed feeding hubs in two high-conflict clusters, the project reduces the "harassment factor" for wild herbivores and restores the Snow Leopard’s hunting integrity. Crucially, this project leverages the local narrative of dogs as "Village Protectors", natural alarm systems alerting residents to the presence of wolves, to foster community stewardship. This shifts the dynamic from fear-based conflict to managed care, ensuring dogs act as a protective "shield" for villages rather than a threat to the ecosystem.
This project addresses the urgent conservation crisis surrounding the Indian wolf (Canis lupus pallipes) in the high-conflict landscape of Bahraich district, Uttar Pradesh, where recent human fatalities by wolves have triggered severe negative perceptions and retaliatory persecution of wolves. As a synanthropic and vulnerable subspecies that persists almost entirely outside protected areas, the Indian wolf’s survival depends on community-embedded conservation solutions. The project will generate evidence-led, on-ground conservation actions by integrating wolf ecology and behaviour with community engagement in Mahasi and Kaiserganj tehsils. Wolf presence will be documented using drone and sign surveys, camera trapping, participatory approaches, and remote-sensing to identify conflict-prone areas. Detailed documentation of human–wolf conflict incidents will be undertaken to understand ecological, behavioural, and land-use factors associated with escalation. A stakeholder-participation-based programme will be implemented through periodic workshops, focusing on community awareness and integrating community, administration, and governance, for wolf conservation. Community members will be trained in basic wolf monitoring and outreach, laying the foundation for a long-term community-based wolf conservation programme. The project will also assess the feasibility of managing parts of this multi-use landscape as potential Other Effective Area-based Conservation Measures (OECMs), providing a scalable pathway for conserving large carnivores beyond protected areas.
Grasslands in eastern Vidarbha, especially in Wardha and Yavatmal districts around protected areas, are important for nature and for local communities. These grasslands support many plant and animal species and provide fodder for livestock. They also act as buffer areas around forests and wildlife habitats. In recent years, grasslands have degraded due to land-use change, loss of common grazing lands, and restricted access. This has reduced fodder availability and increased pressure on nearby forests. This project builds on earlier work supported by The Habitats Trust through a Seed Grant. That work focused on understanding grass species, grazing practices, and community knowledge. The present project moves from documentation to action by supporting community-led conservation of grasslands while improving fodder security. The project will be implemented in the villages of Wardha and Yavatmal districts located near protected areas. Activities include restoring degraded grasslands and fallow lands, regenerating native grass species, and strengthening community institutions for sustainable grazing. The project aims to improve grassland health, reduce pressure on forests, and support coexistence between people, livestock, and wildlife.
Budhipat Forest in Mayurbhanj district, Odisha, India, contains sacred groves that serve as vital habitats for threatened ethno-medicinal plant species. These groves, preserved through indigenous beliefs, support rare flora such as Saraca asoca, Rauvolfia serpentina, and Gloriosa superba, which are essential for local healthcare. However, threats such as habitat degradation and climate change endanger these species. This project aims to conserve and restore selected sacred groves as habitat refuges using a community-driven, science-based approach. Key activities include ecological mapping, habitat condition assessments, and priority plant population studies. Actions will focus on natural regeneration, habitat protection, and community-defined resource management. Expected outcomes include improved habitat quality, stabilized plant populations, reduced extraction pressures, and enhanced local governance through trained youth stewards. This model can be replicated for conserving plant species in culturally significant forest areas.
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.
