INDIA-WIDE
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WILD CANIDS–INDIA PROJECT
Check out the Wild Canids–India Project website for details on our citizen-science based efforts to map and monitor dholes, jackals, wolves, foxes, and striped hyenas across India.
CARNIVORES OF INDIA
In 2020–2021, we undertook an extensive review of all carnivore studies conducted in independent India (1947–2020). Our analysis of ~1800 studies revealed that studies were biased towards the big cats, that several lesser-known carnivores and their habitats remain woefully under-studied, conservation policies did not adequately draw from scientific evidence (except for the tiger, which influenced most of the litigations and policies), and a lack of interdisciplinary, long-term approaches to carnivore science. The paper based on this study can be accessed from here.
PRIORITIZING LANDSCAPES FOR CONSERVATION
As part of the Government of India's National Mission for Biodiversity and Human Well-Being, we brought together conservation stakeholders from research and policy-oriented NGOs and academic institutions. Using a spatial prioritization framework, we assessed the conservation value of India's landscapes incorporating attributes pertaining to threatened habitats, biodiversity and ecosystem services, together with proximate and long-term anthropogenic pressures. Our results highlight the importance of regional expertise in prioritization assessments that explicitly consider administrative jurisdictions and country-level legislations. We also integrated these results with existing political and policy frameworks in India that can help catalyze efforts towards meeting global and national targets for sustainable development. The paper based on this study can be accessed here.
