Human-Wildlife Coexistence: Lantana Elephants Send a Message

Humans and Nature Sharing Space

Biodiversity is one of our main areas of interest and we are proactively looking to engage in this topic. The Coexistence exhibition is in line with the Triggered by Motion exhibits that can currently be seen at the Science Gallery Bengaluru as part of the ‘Carbon’ initiative.

Human-wildlife coexistence is a phenomenon that exists irrespective of our attention to it. And this is what the ‘lantana elephants’ represent. Lantana is an invasive species of plant that is plaguing many wild places of India, including the most popular national parks very close to Bengaluru – Nagarahole and Bandipura. The elephants we are referring to are made from the lantana wood, created by local community artists who inhabit the fringes of Indian forests, coexisting with wildlife every day, sharing space with large mammals such as elephants, tigers, leopards, gaurs and boars among other species. India is an outlier in the way people and wildlife live side by side, despite it being the most populous country in the world. Coexistence is a negotiation in the shared space, ensuring a balance of the needs of humans and all forms of wildlife.

To inspire more humans across the world to understand the significance of coexistence with wildlife, hundreds of lantana elephants are migrating from Karnataka to Cochin, London, and will be soon reaching parts of the USA, too! Every lantana elephant is modelled on a real wild elephant, based on the research studying individual elephant personalities from the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve. They are taking their stories of coexistence to the world, and raising funds for their forest counterparts.

Not to forget that some of these lantana pachyderms will find home in different parts of Bengaluru. They will serve as artistic testaments to the fact that human-wildlife coexistence in India can set an example to various parts of the world where human-wildlife interactions lead to conflict. The lantana elephants are part of the bigger ‘Coexistence: The Great Elephant Migration’ project, which also includes talks from and discussions with India’s foremost wildlife scientists and conservationists, street plays and screenings of wildlife films. Some of these talks and screenings are held in the event space of our Bengaluru office. We welcome you to register for all the talks that strike a chord with you and hope to see you soon!

Speakers

Karthikeyan S.

Urban Wildlife (5 Feb)

Karthikeyan S., known to most as 'Karthik', has nurtured a deep love for wildlife for almost 40 years. He is an avid birdwatcher with an equally keen interest in butterflies.

Karthik creates awareness among the young and old alike on natural history through nature camps, talks, slide shows and nature-based activities. He has walked and worked in the forests of BiligiriRanga Tiger Reserve and Bannerghatta, and also studied the little-known Indian tree shrew. He is widely published and was honoured with the Carl Zeiss Wildlife Conservation Award in March 2013.

He worked with WWF-India for over 13 years and is currently the chief naturalist at the Jungle Lodges and Resorts Ltd.

Pranav Chanchani

Tigers Amidst People, People Amidst Tigers: Making Conservation Work in Multi-Use Landscapes (6 Feb)

Pranav leads the species conservation portfolio at the World Wide Fund for Nature-India, which focuses on species recovery, connectivity conservation, human-wildlife conflict and coexistence, habitat management, community-based conservation, and protection and law enforcement.

He works on science, policy and program development for the former four elements. In addition to this, he also helps steer WWF-India's Coexistence Initiative. His academic training has been in ecology and conservation biology.

Currently, Pranav has a growing interest in designing and evaluating conservation programs in socio-ecological
systems.

Avinash Krishnan

Mega Mammals in Metropolitan Landscapes (8 Feb)

Avinash has 18 years of professional experience, and a passion for conservation that has taken him to work in diverse environments across India, Southeast Asia and Africa. He is a large-mammal ecologist, currently studying human-animal interactions in southern India.

Since 2006, Avinash has been instrumental in establishing baseline research and conservation practices in the Bannerghatta-Hosur landscape (his focal study site), addressing key aspects of elephant management and conservation through studies related to population, behaviour, conflict, habitat connectivity and community outreach.

Seshadri K. S.

Can We Let Frogs Hop Closer to Our Hearts? (12 Feb)

Seshadri K. S., is DST-INSPIRE Faculty at the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment. He has studied several ecosystems and taxa — from dragonflies to epiphytes — in the tall forest canopies of the Western Ghats.

During his PhD at the National University of Singapore, Seshadri discovered new species and new reproductive behaviour of frogs, and examined the evolutionary ecology of such behaviour. He was the research director at the Agumbe Rainforest Research Station and later, a postdoctoral fellow at the Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru.

He is a recipient of the 'Future Conservationist' Award, Prof. Navjot Sodhi Conservation Scholarship and is recognised by Deccan Herald as a 'Changemaker'.

Iravatee Majgaonkar

Sharing Marginalised Lands: Open Natural Ecosystems, Pastoralism and Indian Wolves (15 Feb)

Iravatee is a researcher trained in wildlife ecology and human-environment relations as part of her Masters and ongoing PhD degree. She is currently with the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment, Bengaluru, where she studies how landscape changes in Pune district’s Open Natural Ecosystems (ONEs) impact land sharing between pastoralism and large carnivores like wolves.

Iravatee's long-term interests are in studying how ONEs can be managed as shared landscapes for natural resource-based livelihoods and biodiversity.

Sanjeev Pednekar

Living With Snakes (16 Feb)

Sanjeev Pednekar is the founder of Prani — The Pet Sanctuary, an outdoor education centre with a passionate vision to restore the connection between humans and nature. Driven by a profound belief in the transformative power of experiential learning, Sanjeev advocates for a paradigm shift from conventional indoor classrooms to the boundless outdoors.

With domain expertise in reptiles, captive management, and snakebite mitigation, he brings a unique blend of knowledge and practical insight into the conservation movement. Whether sharing riveting tales of reptilian encounters or life-saving strategies for snakebite prevention, his mission is to promote a deeper understanding and appreciation for the natural world.

Nitesh Kaushik and Sunil Harsana

Story of Mangar Village: Know Its Past to Preserve Its Future (26 Feb)

Sunil Harsana, a homegrown conservationist from Mangar Bani, has dedicated over 10 years of his life to protect the rich biodiversity of the National Capital Region (NCR)-Aravallis area, which is home to the region's last surviving natural forest. His dedicated passion to conserving the Aravallis has revealed to us the evidence of a palaeolithic age civilisation.

Nitesh Kaushik is a conservationist who has a Master's degree in Biodiversity and Conservation. Since completing her dissertation, she has been working in and exploring the Aravalli region of southern Haryana. Her main interest is to understand how humans and natural world interact with each other.

Sunil and Nitesh are working in the Aravallis of southern Haryana, an important leopard corridor, between the Sariska Wildlife Sanctuary, Rajasthan, and the Asola Bhatti Wildlife Sanctuary, Delhi. Their project focusses on understanding leopard ecology and enhancing human-leopard coexistence in the area.

Avantika Thapa and Chandramaya Sharma

Components of Human-Wildlife Coexistence in Darjeeling and Sikkim: How They Work in Tandem (28 Feb)

Avantika Thapa hails from Darjeeling and is a final year PhD scholar who is studying the ecology of wildlife in the Himalayas. During her four years of field work she realised that humans are an integral part of any wildlife species’ ecology. She aims to undertake inclusive and inter-disciplinary research to understand and facilitate human wildlife coexistence.

Chandramaya Sharma is a final year PhD scholar who has worked as a wildlife researcher for a decade now. She has worked in the field of conservation and monitoring of mammals and human-wildlife interaction in the Indian Himalayan region. She has a strong interest in biodiversity and wildlife conservation involving the local communities, human-wildlife interaction and their coexistence in the Himalayan region.

Rigzen Dorjay and Sherab Lobzang

Facilitating Coexistence Through a Barley Initiative (29 Feb)

Rigzen Dorjay is from a small village in Ladakh called Saspochey. Driven to explore an alternative career, he joined the Nature Conservation Foundation (NCF) in 2014 as a six month volunteer helping PhD students with their field work. During this time, he learnted about wildlife conservation and the expanse of Ladakh’s biodiversity. Rigzen has been with NCF for over eight years and has learnt how to have meaningful engagements with communities and conduct field surveys across the terrain. He is currently a Coexistence
Fellow.

Sherab Lobzang is from Kumdok village in Leh, eastern part of Ladakh near China's border. She post-graduated from Jammu University in political science, but was attached to wildlife since her childhood as her family is into farming. She is now a Coexistence Fellow and is
interested in community-based conservation, and she thinks wildlife conservation is essential to regulate wildlife populations, help balance the ecosystem and maintain the natural beauty for future generations. Sherab's work involves engaging with different communities, school children and conducting field surveys. She enjoys sharing conversations with elder people of villages and collecting stories about their day-to-day life, wildlife and historical places.

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Mateo Diettes

Academic Engagement Associate

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