There are probably more amateur nature photographers in India than in any other developing country in the world. India has tens of thousands of wildlife photographers, some of who routinely produce the kind of jaw-dropping images that were once the exclusive preserve of magazines like National Geographic or Geo. While this is something to be proud of, the question we are asking today is, “is it time for India’s wildlife photographers to look beyond the pretty picture?” This is a presentation I gave at the Karnataka Bird Festival in Ranganathitu on 28th March 2015.

1. Conservation Photography
Ramki Sreenivasan
info@conservationindia.org

2. Conservation Photography
• Understand
• Take
• Use

3. What is it?

4. What it is not

5. Not photography for photography’s sake
Photo: Ramki Sreenivasan

6. It is not going to win awards!

7. No likes!

8. Going beyond the pretty picture
Photo: Ramki Sreenivasan

9. Offshoot of nature photography but it is
born out of “purpose”
Photo: Aditya Panda

10. Conservation photography is photography
that empowers conservation
Photo: Vimal Raj

11. Everyone can be a conservation
photographer
Photo: Shashank Dalvi

12. You don’t need fancy equipment! Photo: Canon USA

13. Need to be sensitive to conservation issues
Photo: Anon

14. Passion to bring about change through
your images
Photo: TRAFFIC-India

15. What you can do starting today?

16. What you can do starting today?
• Document specific issues
• Tell stories in 5-10 pictures:
• Area or protected area specific
• Issue specific
• Give powerful factual captions
• Seek advice on actioning them – work with local NGOs,
report to local authorities, media, petitions, etc.

17. Conservation photography examples
• Any destruction / construction activity inside a protected area
• Any commercial activity in ecologically sensitive zones (ESZs)
• Habitat destruction or fragmentation — from tree-felling to a full-
blown hydroelectric project
• Tree-felling in protected areas and reserve forests
• Roads that have sprung up inside or near a protected area
• Road & railway kills
• Forest fires

18. Conservation photography examples
• 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

19. Examples

20. Big tourism projects destroy habitat and
block wildlife corridors
Photo: Akarsha BM / WildCat-C

21. Man-made linear intrusions have many
detrimental ecological effects
Photo: NCF

22. Images of habitat destruction in protected
areas is important evidence for illegal activity
Photo: Shekar Dattatri

23. Mining in prime tiger habitat outside Tadoba
tiger reserve
Photo: Greenpeace

24. Roads without proper clearances
constantly come up in PAs or ESZs
Photo: Ramki Sreenivasan

25. Road-widening projects without clearances
frequently come up in highways through PAs
Photo: Suresh G

26. Sarus Cranes in the backdrop of massive construction
in Delhi — losing wetland habitat everyday
Photo: Delhibird

27. Lakes suffer from poor protection across India. Forest dept.
is helpless and usually bullied by other forces for
encroachment / development
Photo: Vishwatej Pawar

28. Windmills in grasslands and plateaus have come
up across India hindering flight paths of birds
Photo: Aparna Watve

29. Including India’s rarest bird
Photo: Nirav Bhat

30. Destruction of grassland habitat by ‘planting trees’ in
Hesaraghatta. This issue is now in the Karnataka High Court
thanks to a PIL
Photo: Ramki Sreenivasan

31. This illegal tree cutting operation was documented
by a birding group in Namdapha Tiger Reserve
Photo: Bano Haralu

32. Roadkills are a serious conservation threat – a pregnant
blackbuck killed by a speeding vehicle in Maharashtra
Photo: Adwait Keole

33. The danger of urban roads – here a dead leopard
killed by a speeding vehicle on NICE road, Bangalore
Photo: Deccan Herald

34. Tragic– 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

35. A sambhar lays dead on an Odisha highway. Roads are
sometimes upgraded without need and the first victims are
usually wildlife
Photo: Bivash Pandav

36. Small animals die too like this Slender Loris
in the Western Ghats
Photo: NCF

37. Shy and elusive creatures are more often
seen in markets and roadkills
Photo: Dr. Pramod Patil

38. Railway tracks pose a significant conservation threat. Every
kind of animal – elephant, tiger, lion – have been killed on
Indian tracks.
Photo: Giri Cavale

39. Animals in human habitation – a fragile
“coexistence”
Photo: M. Ananda Kumar

40. Olive Ridley Turtles killed in fishing nets
Photo: Bivash Pandav

41. Village dogs and turtles – yet another threat for
nesting Olive Ridley Turtles in the Odisha coast
Photo: Sumit Sen

42. The dangers of village / feral dogs range from competing
with wild predators to spreading deadly diseases
Photo: Vickey Chauhan

43. Village / feral dogs harbour several diseases that can be
deadly not only to humans (such as rabies) but to wild
carnivore species as well.
Photo: Jayanth Sharma

44. A Wild dog with a plastic bottle demonstrates
littering by tourists – a serious fall-out of tourism.
Photo: Mahesh Bhat

45. Critically endangered bustards hiding from
tourists in Nannaj, Maharashtra
Photo: Dhritiman Mukherjee

46. No caption required!
Photo: Ponnambalam

47. Same story. Different location. Tourists and
wildlife guides on foot in Kaziranga
Photo: Leio D’Souza

48. Fragmentation affects endangered animals. This lion-tailed
macaque begging for food on a Valparai roadside shows the
plight of a once completely arboreal troupe
Photo: Ramki Sreenivasan

49. Agriculture is another significant threat to wildlife – in this
case to the endangered Wild Ass in the little Rann of Kutch
Photo: Nirav Bhat

50. The endangered Lesser Florican displaying in
agricultural fields in Saunkhaliya grasslands, Rajasthan
Photo: Gobind Sagar Bharadwaj

51. A stark contrast between protected and unprotected areas
in Bandipur Tiger Reserve separated by the park boundary
Photo: Shekar Dattatri

52. Full-fledged farming Inside the heart of
Simlipal – one of India’s largest tiger reserves
Photo: Ramki Sreenivasan

53. Pushed to the brink in human-dominated landscapes –
critically endangered Gangetic Gharials in the fragile
Chambal river habitat
Photo: Aditya Singh

54. Temples and religious festivities inside PAs are big threats to
wildlife. In Sathyamangalam, lakhs of visitors in over 700
buses visit two temples
Photo: Suraj Kumaar

55. This Image highlights human-tiger conflict after two cattle-
lifter tigers were poisoned by villagers in retaliation in
Ranthambore.
Photo: Aditya Singh

56. The typical end to a ‘conflict’ leopard – tranquilized and
sent to a zoo or re-released to cause ‘conflict’ elsewhere
Photo: Vidya Athreya

57. More conflict – crop-raiding elephants in the
plains of Karnataka
Photo: Shankara

58. An electrocuted elephant is usually the result of
conflict and habitat fragmentation due to plantations
Photo: WCS-India

59. Elephant taunting became a sport in Coimbatore forests.
This photographer created a campaign that stopped this
Photo: Sreedhar Vijayakrishnan

60. This shocking cellphone image of a frenzied mob setting a
captured leopard on fire highlights the height of human-
leopard conflict
Photo: Belinda Wright

61. Large carnivores in human-dominated
landscapes
Photo: Dharmendra Khandal

62. A freshly killed Grey-sided Thrush shows
the sorry state of hunting in Nagaland
Photo: Ramki Sreenivasan

63. A shocking image of freshly skinned Amur Falcons in
Doyang, Nagaland. Lakhs were being hunted annually
Photo: Ramki Sreenivasan

64. Sometimes multiple images tell a story better. Here
are images of bird trapping in Murlen, Mizoram
Photo: Ramki Sreenivasan

65. Birdwatchers helped nab waterfowl
poachers in Siruthavur near Chennai
Photo: Samyak Kaninde

66. Pelican poaching reported from Kanva
dam, Channapatna
Photo: Seshadri KS

67. Illegally captured parakeet chicks were seized in Palamau
tiger reserve in Jharkhand. They were on the way to markets
Image: Aditya Panda

68. This is the only record of a Blue Pitta in India
– taken in a market in Arunachal Pradesh
Photo: Rita Banerji / Dusty Foot

69. A pet Slow Loris in Mokakchung, Nagaland. Most villagers
weren’t aware that keeping wildlife as pets was illegal.
Photo: Nagaland Biodiversity Project

70. A captive giant squirrel in a coffee estate. The forest
department was alerted and hopefully the squirrel is now
free.
Photo: Amoghavarsha

71. This photographer helped bust a turtle and terrapin
trade in Bengali camp market, Raichur, Karnataka
Photo: Santosh Martin

72. Local markets are a source of illegal bushmeat especially
in the Northeast. Here a Slow Loris is for sale for Rs. 500
Photo: Alka Vaidya

73. A Clouded Leopard Skin Hangs in a Naga
Kitchen
Photo: Sandesh Kadur

74. Cattle grazing in protected areas, Satkosia
Tiger Reserve, Odisha
Photo: Aditya Panda

75. This image depicts the daily plight of forest guards
and watchers who are at the frontline of conservation
Photo: Jayanth Sharma

76. Thanks!