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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!
