Inlaks Ravi Sankaran Small Grants 2023
Arjun Kamdar, Garima Bora, Ishika Ramakrishna, Nayantara Siruguri and Shraddha Kumari K are the 2023 Inlaks Ravi Sankaran Small Grantees.
From Northeast India, along the Malvan shores to the caves of Karnataka, this year’s grantees will approach wildlife conservation not only scientifically, but also through the lens of behavioural economics, cultural ecology and anthropology.
Arjun Kamdar is a wildlife scientist who has worked in a range of different habitats across India. He specialises in drawing tools from a repository of subject areas such as ecology, anthropology, and behavioural economics to architect safe and shared spaces for humans and animals alike. Within these complex ecosystems, he has experience working with various stakeholders, such as NGOs and academic institutions such as the Seed Lab, the National Centre for Biological Sciences and the El-Erian Institute, University of Cambridge.
At the El-Erian Institute, he created NOSTRIL – applyiNg behaviOural inSights To dRive envIronmentaL impacts. NOSTRIL is a framework for applying behavioural insights to drive environmental change. Together with Harini Nagendra and Lucia Reisch, he will apply this project to redesign mandatory outreach material for stoking behaviour change towards human-elephant coexistence and environmental protection in the tea estates of Assam. This will involve conducting ethnographic work with tea estate residents in Assam, and combining these insights with behavioural science principles to formulate outreach material. The iterative and participatory method will help design how to get the right message to the right people at the right time and place. By partnering with tea estates companies, NOSTRIL aims to reach about three hundred thousand people in the floodplains of Assam.
Arjun has an MSc in Wildlife Biology and Conservation from National Centre for Biological Sciences, Tata Institute for Fundamental Research and a BCom in Commerce from HR College, Mumbai University.
During her master’s programme, Garima Bora was introduced to the captivating world of elasmobranchs, which proved to be a transformative moment in her career. This pivotal experience ignited her passion and steered her towards dedicating her efforts to the conservation and study of sharks, rays, and skates.
As she delved deeper into the subject, she recognized a significant knowledge gap pertaining to the identification and understanding of critical habitats used by elasmobranchs for pupping, foraging, and shelter. This realization propelled her to embark on a mission to fill this void and contribute to the broader understanding of these elusive creatures. She strongly believes that it is crucial to move beyond relying solely on fisheries-dependent techniques and adopt fisheries-independent methods. Garima’s project focuses on merging both survey techniques to gain a clearer understanding of the extent of these habitats along the Malvan coast. Specifically, she is targeting estuarine waters where neonate and juvenile elasmobranchs are known to inhabit. By conducting longline surveys, she aims to assess their abundance, species composition, and the factors influencing the selection of nursery habitats by elasmobranchs. Through her research, she aspires to bridge the knowledge gap and contribute valuable insights into the conservation and management of elasmobranch populations.
Garima has an MSc in Biodiversity and Conservation at the Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University and a BSc in Life Sciences from Delhi University.
Ishika Ramakrishna is a Doctoral Fellow at the Centre for Wildlife Studies, Bangalore, India, and has completed her Masters in Wildlife Biology and Conservation from the National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bangalore. Her academic and applied interests lie in an interdisciplinary space across ethnoprimatology, social sciences, behavioural ecology and citizen science. Outside of research, Ishika is a part of collaborative groups like Café Oikos, the Association of Indian Primatologists and the Organising Committee of the Student Conference on Conservation Science – Bengaluru. In the spirit of storytelling and non-academic communication, she also hosts a podcast, The Thing About Wildlife.
Following her recent work on human-nonhuman primate interactions in the Nicobar Islands, she is currently studying the underlying mechanisms that drive a range of interactions between local communities and nonhuman primates in the north-eastern states of India. This interdisciplinary project studies the myriad natures and extent of human—nonhuman primate relationships in Upper Assam through multispecies ethnographies. By looking into species that represent four major taxonomic groups of primates – apes (people and gibbons), langurs, macaques and lorises, she hopes to understand how these species influence each other’s lives to help nurture positive relationships and tolerance, and minimise negative interactions, moving closer to coexistence.
Nayantara Siruguri is drawn to discourses on cultural ecology, about human-nature relationships and the world of conservation psychology. She is always in search of indigenous folk stories born from years of lived experience in nature and around non-human beings – stories about reciprocal relationships between people and wildlife, diverse ideas of place and eco-cultural landscapes, and traditional ecological wisdom. Her journey of exploring culture-nature relations led her to Dibang Valley, where she worked with a local team of Idu Mishmi conservation practitioners to help link cultural storytelling with nature education. This experience deeply inspired her to think of ways to explore place-conscious learning and integrate nature education with cultural learning, especially in North-East India.
Nayantara has a BA in Philosophy from the Ramnarain Ruia Autonomous College, Mumbai and recently completed her MSc in Wildlife Conservation from Institute of Environment Education and Research, Bharati Vidyapeeth University. Currently, she works with the Green Hub Project and Seed Lab to coordinate nature education projects in Northeast India.
Nayantara’s project aims to establish a rooted and place-conscious experimental nature education program to be designed collaboratively with creative practitioners and field leaders in Changlangshu village in Mon district, Nagaland. This will involve designing site-specific nature education activities and resources founded upon a comprehensive understanding of Konyak Naga culture, stories, beliefs, and institutions and the local ecology of Changlangshu.
Shraddha Kumari K is a research assistant at the Bat Conservation India Research Trust (BCIT) as she pursues her PhD in Zoology from JAIN (Deemed-to-be University), Bengaluru, Karnataka. For the last three years she has been researching the ecology of bats especially focusing on their diversity, behaviour, breeding cycle, movement, dietary preferences, effects of anthropogenic disturbances, as a means to use this knowledge to drive conservation action.
Her current project focuses on conservation of a critically endangered bat, Kolar Leaf-Nosed Bat (Hipposideros hypophyllus) which is found only in one subterranean cave located in Kolar district, Karnataka. It was first described in 1994 from two type localities, Hanumanahalli and Therahalli, Kolar. Unfortunately, in 2014 it was found locally extinct in Therahalli. It is estimated that their present population is only around 200 individuals, leading to an urgent need to initiate an effective conservation plan.
Shraddha’s research aims to assess the quality of genetics to determine if the population is inbreeding or if they are breeding with another population outside the last known cave roost. This will help understand the quality of the gene pool and design appropriate conservation plans to save the bats from extinction.
