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 recently concluded Doon Valley Spring Bird Festival 2016, Uttarakhand held at the Asan Barrage Wetlands between 11th to 14th February.

1. Conservation
Photography
Ramki Sreenivasan
Conservation India

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 about winning awards!

7. No likes!

8. Going beyond the pretty picture
Photo: Ramki Sreenivasan

9. So what is it?

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

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

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

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

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

15. Don’t need fancy equipment Photo: Canon USA

16. What you can do starting today?

17. 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.

18. 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

19. 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

20. Examples

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

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

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

24. Coal mining in prime tiger habitat outside
Tadoba tiger reserve
Photo: Greenpeace

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

26. Lakes suffer from poor protection across India and
is exploited for encroachment / development
Photo: Vishwatej Pawar

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

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

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

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

31. Road-widening projects through PAs
without clearances
Photo: Suresh G

32. Roads without proper clearances
constantly come up in PAs or ESZs
Photo: Anon

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

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

35. 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

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

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

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

39. Railway tracks also pose a significant conservation
threat.
Photo: Giri Cavale

40. Every kind of animal have been killed on Indian
tracks.
Photo: Giri Cavale

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

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

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

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

45. The dangers of feral dogs range from competing with
wild predators to spreading deadly diseases
Photo: Jayanth Sharma

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

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

48. Photo: Ponnambalam

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

50. Fragmentation affects endangered animals. This
LTM shows the plight of a once arboreal troupe
Photo: Ramki Sreenivasan

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

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

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

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

55. Pushed to the brink in human-dominated
landscapes – critically endangered Gharials on the
Chambal
Photo: Aditya Singh

56. Temples and religious festivities inside
PAs are big threats to wildlife
Photo: Suraj Kumaar

57. Human-tiger conflict – cattle-lifter tigers were
poisoned by villagers in retaliation in
Ranthambore.
Photo: Aditya Singh

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

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

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

61. An electrocuted elephant due to low
hanging powerline in Kaziranga.
Photo: Sanesh Kadur

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

63. This shocking cellphone image of a
frenzied mob setting a captured leopard on
fire
Photo: Belinda Wright

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

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

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

67. Image retrieved from an arrested poaching gang in Desert
National Park in Rajasthan showing freshly hunted
bustards
Photo: Rajasthan Forest Dept.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

75. This photographer helped bust a turtle and
terrapin trade in Raichur, Karnataka
Photo: Santosh Martin

76. Local markets are a source of illegal
bushmeat. Here a Loris is for sale for Rs.
500
Photo: Alka Vaidya

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

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

79. The daily plight of forest personnel at the
frontline of conservation
Photo: Jayanth Sharma

80. Thanks!