Inlaks RS Small Projects Grant 2021: Camellia Biswas, Virendra Mathur and Rhea Lopez

The recipients of the 2021 Inlaks RS Small Projects Grant are Camellia Biswas, Virendra Mathur and Rhea Lopez.

Camellia will be mapping dynamics of human-nature interaction of Indian Sundarbans in the context of cyclonic disaster. Virendra will be testing adaptive crop-deterrent methods to mitigate langur crop-foraging and understanding the spatio-temporal distribution of crop-foraging in a human modified landscape in Garhwal Himalayas. And Rhea will be studying the ecological and sociological factors affecting the persistence of biodiversity in Khazan fisheries, and devising ways to promote biodiversity-friendly fisheries.

Camellia Biswas

Camellia Biswas has always believed that people's choices are shaped by the places they come from and their connection with their landscape. Being a Sundarban Native, she has grown up seeing the landscape transform due to several natural calamities and wondered how the islanders might have adapted to these changes. This curiosity of hers eventually grew and became a part of her research pursuit.

She is currently pursuing her doctoral studies in the department of Humanities & Social science, IIT Gandhinagar. Camellia’s research project is specific to the Sundarban region, where the extremities of climate change are felt by frontline troops comprising mainly the trio, i.e., humans, Bengal tigers (Panthera tigris tigris) and mangrove forest sharing the marginal archipelago. All of their voices are heard in an unsystematic and unequal manner, making them competitors, which further pushes them to a more vulnerable position for the upcoming climate complications.

This project brings forth a multidisciplinary approach to understand the dynamics of human-nature interaction in the context of cyclonic disaster. Within this paradigm, the study will explore whether this relationship is holistic and mutual between the human and non-human or a 'conflict' or socio-cultural-economic manipulation attached to it. This will further help map the degree of 'exclusion' and 'inclusion of local communities in voicing plans and policies regarding Conservation and management of Sundarbans as a landscape protected area through various factors such as resource management and displacement marginality, access, control, ownership and conflict. The project adopts a unique community integration approach where the locals will not be a mere subject but an active collaborator in the study, emphasising collective inquiry and experimentation grounded in lived experiences and oral history incorporated through Participatory-GIS and cartographic illustrations.

Virendra Mathur

John Muir wrote to her sister in 1873 “Mountains are calling and I must go, and I will work on while I can, studying incessantly.” The phrase, abbreviated to its first seven words, signifies a plethora of emotions for adventure lovers. Virendra is one of them, but he looked at the full phrase.

Virendra completed his BS-MS degree from IISER Mohali with a biology major. He has always felt a sense of belonging in the Himalayas, as he explored them while studying at IISER Mohali. Those forays were as a tourist, and only a long stay in the mountains made him realize the fragility and the beauty of this vast ecosystem. He did his masters project work on the sleeping site choice of the Himalayan langurs, which in one part is a scientific pursuit. This project also became the stepping stone for his understanding of the vital parts that regulate the nexus of human habitation, wildlife habitats, and conservation of the Himalayan ecosystem. He studied Himalayan langurs, but he also understood the realities of working in a landscape where wildlife enters the agricultural fields, and where agriculture is a mainstay of livelihood. He soon realized that he would heed to the call of the mountains many times and would like to study this nexus and suggest some useful measures from his academic pursuits. He is interested in building bottom up measures to promote wildlife-human coexistence (broadly) and human-primate coexistence (specifically). His motivation was strengthened when he studied the langur-human interactions in a high altitude agro-pastoral community in Himachal Pradesh, realizing that strict, inflexible methods do not work in the long run, nor that langurs are the only problem for many communities in Himalayas. In his interviews, he got to know about the local methods developed by villagers to keep wildlife away from crops.

His current project, supported by INLAKS Small Grants, is an amalgamation of two of his learnings. While studying the sleeping site pattern, he figured that there is a predictability in the travel patterns of langurs and the routes they choose. He will thus study their movement pattern, focusing on the spatio-temporal distribution of crop foraging events by langurs and also analyse the travel segments that often lead to langurs entering the crop fields. Using this information, it is possible to analyse canopy cover or the lack of it and travel routes used often can be replanted for establishing canopy cover. Thinking from the perspective of the animal, he also aims to test crop deterrents that are locally available and that elicit an aversive response in langurs. The results from these experiments will shape the large-scale trial of crop deterrents to understand their efficacy with langurs and other wildlife. He has learnt that such an approach might be effective as it elicits a behavioral response from the animal, and also feasible for the farmer in terms of economic and social costs that they incur while guarding their fields at odd times and seasons. Parts of this work also forms the framework for his doctoral work on the spatial cognition of Himalayan langurs, which he is pursuing from University of Toronto.

Rhea Lopez

Although Rhea grew up in Delhi, her family would come down to Goa and Bombay regularly to visit family during vacations. Her fondest memories of these visits would always centre around food – Christmas dinner at her aunt’s house, or learning to eat fish-curry and rice with her hands at her grandmother’s. Although a lot of these meals featured a variety of seafood – mussels, fish, crabs, prawns – she didn’t really question where it came from.

With time, however, she grew more curious about the source of the seafood she ate – venturing out to fish markets with her grandmother and chatting with traditional purse seine fishers she would encounter on the beach. Years later, fieldwork for her M.Sc. thesis gave her the opportunity to explore Goa’s ancient, traditional river fisheries – particularly the khazan agro-fishery system. She was moved by the tolerance, and even reverence, the fishers showed for the wildlife they shared their space and resources with – even in the face of rapid changes in management, land-use, weather and fish availability. She wondered what role this played in allowing the myriad of wildlife she saw during her fieldwork –smooth-coated otters, mugger crocodiles, and resident and migratory birds – to continue using this landscape to live.

Rhea’s project aims to delve deeper into the factors allowing biodiversity to persist in the khazan agro-fisheries – disentangling both socio-economic and ecological factors to understand what enables wild animals to continue living, feeding and breeding in these rapidly changing systems. She hopes to identify fishers along the way that show tolerance towards wildlife, and practise sensitivity towards natural habitats and wild animals, and to encourage a continuance and proliferation of such attitudes and practises by promoting these wildlife-friendly fishers amongst consumers.