Conservation Photography

Ramki SreenivasanConservation India

Conservation Photography

• Understand

• Take

• Use

What is it?

What it is not

Not photography for photography’s sake

Photo: Ramki Sreenivasan

It is not about winning awards!

No likes!

Going beyond the pretty picturePhoto: Ramki Sreenivasan

So what is it?

Offshoot of nature photography but it is born out of “purpose”

Photo: Aditya Panda

Conservation photography is photography that empowers

conservation

Photo: Vimal Raj

Everyone can be a conservation photographer

Photo: Shashank Dalvi

Need to be sensitive to conservation issues

Photo: Anon

Passion to bring about change through your images

Photo: TRAFFIC-India

Don’t need fancy equipment Photo: Canon USA

What you can do starting today?

What you can do starting today?

• Document specific issues

• Clearly capture the "threat"

• Tell stories:

• Area specific

• Issue specific

• Give powerful factual captions

• Seek advice on actioning them – report / complain to forest dept, local NGOs, media, make petitions, etc.

Conservation photography examples

• Habitat destruction or fragmentation — from tree-felling to a full-blown hydroelectric project

• Any construction activity inside a protected area

• Any commercial activity in ecologically sensitive zones (ESZs)

• Tree-felling in protected areas and reserve forests

• Roads that have sprung up inside or near a protected area

• Road & railway kills

• Forest fires

Conservation photography examples

• Livestock (cattle / goats) inside protected areas

• Evidence of poaching / crime – snares, traps, killing, poachers, etc.

• Wildlife kept as pets

• Tourism and its impacts

• Encroachments

• Man-animal conflict, human threats to wildlife, domestic dogs

• Plight of endangered animals

Examples

Big tourism projects destroy habitat and block wildlife corridors

Photo: Akarsha BM / WildCat-C

Man-made linear intrusions have many detrimental ecological effects

Photo: NCF

Images of habitat destruction in protected areas is vital evidence for

illegal activity

Photo: Shekar Dattatri

Coal mining in prime tiger habitat outside Tadoba tiger reserve

Photo: Greenpeace

Sarus Cranes in the backdrop of massive construction in Delhi — losing wetland habitat

everyday

Photo: Delhibird

Lakes suffer from poor protection across India and is exploited for encroachment /

development

Photo: Vishwatej Pawar

Windmills in grasslands and plateaus have come up across India hindering

flight paths of birds

Photo: Aparna Watve

Including India’s rarest birdPhoto: Nirav Bhat

Destruction of grassland by ‘planting trees’ in Hesaraghatta. This issue is now in the Karnataka

High Court thanks to a PIL

Photo: Ramki Sreenivasan

This illegal tree cutting operation was documented by a birding group in

Namdapha Tiger Reserve

Photo: Bano Haralu

Road-widening projects through PAs without clearances

Photo: Suresh G

Roads without proper clearances constantly come up in PAs or ESZs

Photo: Anon

Roadkills are a serious conservation threat – a pregnant blackbuck killed by a speeding

vehicle in Maharashtra

Photo: Adwait Keole

The danger of urban roads – here a dead leopard killed by a speeding vehicle on NICE

road, Bangalore

Photo: Deccan Herald

An elephant calf mowed down in Bandipur. Images like these were used to lobby for

several highway closures in Karnataka and other states

Image: Deccan Herald

A dead sambhar on an Odisha highway. Roads are upgraded without need and the first victims are

usually wildlife

Photo: Bivash Pandav

Small animals die too like this Slender Loris in the Western Ghats

Photo: NCF

Shy and elusive creatures are more often seen in roadkills (and markets)

Photo: Dr. Pramod Patil

Railway tracks also pose a significant conservation threat.

Photo: Giri Cavale

Every kind of animal have been killed on Indian tracks.

Photo: Giri Cavale

Animals in human habitation – a fragile “coexistence”

Photo: M. Ananda Kumar

Olive Ridley Turtles killed in fishing nets

Photo: Bivash Pandav

Village dogs and turtles – yet another threat for nesting Olive Ridley Turtles in

the Odisha coast

Photo: Sumit Sen

The dangers of feral dogs range from competing with wild predators to spreading

deadly diseases

Photo: Vickey Chauhan

The dangers of feral dogs range from competing with wild predators to spreading

deadly diseases

Photo: Jayanth Sharma

A Wild dog with a plastic bottle demonstrates littering by tourists – a

serious fall-out of tourism

Photo: Mahesh Bhat

Critically endangered bustards hiding from tourists in Nannaj, Maharashtra

Photo: Dhritiman Mukherjee

Photo: Ponnambalam

Same story. Different location. Tourists and wildlife guides on foot in

Kaziranga

Photo: Leio D’Souza

Fragmentation affects endangered animals. This LTM shows the plight of a once arboreal

troupe

Photo: Ramki Sreenivasan

Agriculture is another significant threat to wildlife – in this case to the endangered Wild Ass in the little

Rann of Kutch

Photo: Nirav Bhat

The endangered Lesser Florican displaying in agricultural fields in Saunkhaliya grasslands,

Rajasthan

Photo: Gobind Sagar Bharadwaj

A stark contrast between protected and unprotected areas in Bandipur Tiger Reserve

separated by the park boundary

Photo: Shekar Dattatri

Full-fledged farming Inside the heart of Simlipal – one of India’s largest

tiger reserves

Photo: Ramki Sreenivasan

Pushed to the brink in human-dominated landscapes – critically endangered Gharials

on the Chambal

Photo: Aditya Singh

Temples and religious festivities inside PAs are big threats to wildlife

Photo: Suraj Kumaar

Human-tiger conflict – cattle-lifter tigers were poisoned by villagers in retaliation in

Ranthambore.

Photo: Aditya Singh

The typical end to a ‘conflict’ leopard – tranquilized and sent to a zoo or re-released to

cause ‘conflict’ elsewhere

Photo: Vidya Athreya

More conflict – crop-raiding elephants in the plains of Karnataka

Photo: Shankara

An electrocuted elephant is usually the result of conflict and habitat fragmentation due to

plantations

Photo: WCS-India

An electrocuted elephant due to low hanging powerline in Kaziranga.

Photo: Sanesh Kadur

Elephant taunting became a sport in Coimbatore forests. This photographer created a campaign

that stopped it

Photo: Sreedhar Vijayakrishnan

This shocking cellphone image of a frenzied mob setting a captured

leopard on fire

Photo: Belinda Wright

Large carnivores in human-dominated landscapes

Photo: Dharmendra Khandal

A freshly killed Grey-sided Thrush shows the sorry state of hunting in

Nagaland

Photo: Ramki Sreenivasan

A shocking image of freshly skinned Amur Falcons in Doyang, Nagaland. Lakhs were

being hunted annually

Photo: Ramki Sreenivasan

Image retrieved from an arrested poaching gang in Desert National Park in Rajasthan showing freshly

hunted bustards

Photo: Rajasthan Forest Dept.

Sometimes multiple images tell a story better. Here are images of bird trapping in

Murlen, Mizoram

Photo: Ramki Sreenivasan

Birdwatchers helped nab waterfowl poachers in Siruthavur near Chennai

Photo: Samyak Kaninde

Pelican poaching reported from Kanva dam, Channapatna

Photo: Seshadri KS

Illegally captured parakeet chicks seized in Palamau tiger reserve, Jharkhand. They were on

the way to markets

Image: Aditya Panda

This is the only record of a Blue Pitta in India – taken in a market in

Arunachal Pradesh

Photo: Rita Banerji / Dusty Foot

A pet Slow Loris in Mokakchung, Nagaland. Most villagers weren’t aware that keeping wildlife as

pets was illegal.

Photo: Nagaland Biodiversity Project

A captive giant squirrel in a coffee estate. The FD was alerted and hopefully the squirrel is now

free.

Photo: Amoghavarsha

This photographer helped bust a turtle and terrapin trade in Raichur, Karnataka

Photo: Santosh Martin

Local markets are a source of illegal bushmeat. Here a Loris is for sale for

Rs. 500

Photo: Alka Vaidya

A Clouded Leopard Skin Hangs in a Naga Kitchen

Photo: Sandesh Kadur

Cattle grazing in protected areas, Satkosia Tiger Reserve, Odisha

Photo: Aditya Panda

The daily plight of forest personnel at the frontline of conservation

Photo: Jayanth Sharma

Thanks!