Mahseer Conservancy » BNHS

Ruth Sophia Padel

Mahseer Conservancy — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 05:21:53 +0000

A prize-winning British poet who also writes acclaimed non-fiction including the bestseller Tiger in Red Wether. There was much to be learnt from this conservation genius greatly concerned with Tiger conservation during her visit to Corbett National park and stay at Vanghat. Ruth Padel is a fellow both of the Royal Society of Literature and the Zoological Society of London, a Member both of the Royal Geographical Society and Bombay Natural History Society. She has won the UK National Poetry Competition; individual poems from her seven collections have been widely anthologized, broadcast, and short listed for all major British prizes. Her awards include First Prize in the National Poetry Competition, a Cholmeley Award from the Society of Authors and an Arts Council of England. Her poetry collection, Darwin – A Life in Poems, is a biography in poems of her great-great-grandfather Charles Darwin. Her nature book, Tigers in Red Weather, about her quest through Asian jungles to find what is going on in tiger conservation, drew on her scientific background and Darwinian descent, but also carried an appendix of poems related to her search.

About Tiger in Red Wether

Asia in the twenty-first century as China’s shadow grows, Asia poised on the edge of change – and a woman exploring its threatened jungles for the animal they call the soul of Asia. Is this the tiger’s last moment before extinction or can it be saved? Who is trying to save it, and how? Are there any tigers left, and if so, where? After ending a long relationship, award-winning poet Ruth Padel finds herself inexplicably drawn to the great animal solitary; potent, myth-laden, and now gravely endangered. She comes across an advert for a cheap trip to India and visits a tiger reserve. So begins a remarkable journey, and an obsession. With her granny’s opera glasses and a pair of cheap Tunisian trainers, asking how and where do tigers live and what are their chances, she plunges into tiger myths, tiger dreams, and leech-infested jungles.

Among the cobras, bears and golden langurs living tangled lives in the tiger’s shadow from Nepal to Siberia, Karnataka to Indonesia, and with poems in her pocket to keep her going, she meets tigers, leopards, bee-keepers, forest guards, espionage teams pitted against ruthless poachers. She kayaks through rapids, camps on rainforested mountains, but above all she travels with and questions “defenders of the wild”: the scientists and conservationists struggling to protect the forest and its denizens from armed poachers, and from the mining, logging and development mafias that threaten the world’s last remaining wilderness.

What does wild mean? Why does it matter that wilderness should continue, that wild tigers still exist, when there are thousands of tigers in zoos and always will be? How, faced with wildlife crime, poaching and the loss of forests, do you deal with despair? What about the symbols and meanings we load the tiger with, which lead us both to revere and destroy it?

There are animal books, there are travel books, there are getting over someone books, but you don’t usually find them all together. This one is about loss and survival, poetry and science; about what you find when you enter the forest. Secret remote Bhutan, the taiga of Far East Russia, vulnerable to the mafia and changing forest law; the jungles of Laos, full of landmines and rapidly being emptied by the wildlife trade; snowy forests of north-east China; equatorial Sumatran rainforest with its illegal chainsaws, landslides, and tiger shamans.

This is a wise, captivating and above all a timely study in natural history, a beautiful piece of travel literature driven by deep reverence for nature, wildlife and science, and a meticulously focussed snapshot of Asia on the edge of irreversible environmental change. It opens your eyes to wider issues of bio-diversity in all their urgency and humanity, to knife-edge moral questions about a balance between poverty and conservation.

Finally, Tigers in Red Weather is an exploration of love – a quest for generous disenchantment, for falling out of love while honouring the past. It is an inner as well as an outer journey.

To know more about Ruth and her work please log on to www.ruthpadel.com

Rishad Naoroji

Mahseer Conservancy — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 05:07:07 +0000

Few in the Indian subcontinent have done more for birds of prey conservation than Rishad. During the “Corbett Vulture Campaign” much of his work was taken as referrence. Raptor man of India Rishad is the project co-ordinator on Doongerwadi Advisory Committee for the Parsi Vulture Project, which calls for interaction with the Ministry & State Governments. Rishad has carried out exhausted researcher and field observation on raptors and worked on their conservation. Has worked closely with the BNHS as Research Associate; currently an active Executive Committee member BNHS and Chairman of the Library Sub-committee. He is on the Managing Committee of the Himalayan Club. An avid photographer, photographs published nationally and internationally. Awarded a silver medal at the Raptor Photography Contest held during the third Conference of the World Working Group on Birds of Prey. Rishad spent three years in Africa studying and photographing predators and three winters at Bharatpur studying the breeding ecology of and photographing the Pallas’s Fishing Eagle. His three years stay in Rajpipla forest studying and photographing the breeding biology and ecology of raptors successfully resulted in 500 sq kms of the area being declared as the Shoolpaneshwar Wildlife Sanctuary. Rishad studies and surveys raptors throughout the country. His articles and papers have been published in numerous magazines including eighteen papers in JBNHS. He is the author of Birds of prey of the Indian Subcontinent, published by Christopher Helm, UK & Om Books Intl., India.

Rishad is currently the director of Godrej Group of Companies. To now more about what is happening in Ornithology in India please log on to www.indianbirds.in.

Kahani Ghosh and Shivang Mehta

Mahseer Conservancy — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 07:09:43 +0000

Wildlife photographers, film-makers, this naturalists couple have adopted Corbett Tiger Reserve as their main area of work since 2004. During this period, they have worked with the park authorities to promote healthy tourism in Corbett National Park through the medium of short films and their photographs. Their film – Wild Saga of Corbett – is the most comprehensive travelogue on Corbett and showcases how tourists can come better prepared for their visits to Corbett and thus help in conservation efforts of the people of Ramnagar and the forest department. The film – marketed and distributed by the Bombay Natural History Society along with the nature shops in and around Corbett Tiger Reserve – has been receiving an excellent response from tourists.

Kahini Ghosh Mehta was featured by Femina (a leading lifestyle magazine) for her outstanding contribution in the field of wildlife conservation and photography in November 2008. While Kahini (who hails from Chhindwara in Madhya Pradesh, India) left her full time career as a media professional to pursue her passion for wildlife conservation, Shivang is working as a PR professional in New Delhi. Every year Kahini and Shivang organize workshops, photography camps and nature tours and showcase the wonderful wilderness of Corbett to tourists across India. The wild couple also write columns for Discover India magazine. To know more about their work please log on to www.naturewanderers.com.