Dakshin Foundation is a not-for-profit, charitable, non-governmental organisation committed to environmental sustainability and social justice.
Our mission is to inform and advocate for conservation and natural resource management, while promoting and supporting sustainable livelihoods, social development and environmental justice. We adopt interdisciplinary and trans-disciplinary approaches in our research and interventions, drawing from the fields of ecology, conservation biology, sociology, economics, and law. By strengthening networks at local and national levels and supporting advocacy campaigns, we work to build grassroots’ capacities to secure ecosystems and rights and engage in conservation and environmental decision-making. Our goal is to promote ecologically and socially appropriate approaches to conservation and natural resource management in coastal, marine and mountain ecosystems in India.
Dakshin aims to leverage simultaneous environmental and community-wellbeing benefits through stand-alone and intersectoral interventions. Our approach is based on an integrated philosophy that combines our research expertise from multiple fields to address environmental and livelihood concerns through appropriate models that are flexible across scales and implemented in partnership with local communities, government departments and other civil society organisations.
Our Programmes
Improving governance and management of fisheries by decentralising knowledge to empower stakeholder communities and to ensure their direct involvement in decision-making.
Filling critical gaps in our current knowledge of the oceans through long-term and collaborative monitoring of select ecosystems and marine species.
Supporting a range of research and policy analyses that aim at a critical appraisal of legislations and their implications for specific communities and ecosystems.
Improving the wellbeing of coastal communities while empowering them to build resilient communities and ecosystems.
Addressing contemporary emerging crises such as conflict that can be classified under the label of ‘wicked’, ‘messy’ problems.
Our Field Stations
Blog
The second cohort of Coastal Grassroots Fellowship (CGF) for women from coastal communities of the Palk Bay region of Tamil Nadu started last March with a wonderful group of twelve women. They were excited about this fellowship opportunity and the learning platform that it offered them. Together we developed the…
“What are ‘commons’?” I posed the question to a room of fourteen women participants. One of them had a quick and ready answer. “They are resources everyone can use. Like the roads; the seas; the beaches.” “Do you really mean ‘everyone’? Will my boat get a space on the beach…
The world of coral reefs has always fascinated me. Did you know that the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, the largest coral reef system in the world, covers more than two thousand square kilometres?! What really got me thinking is how these massive and stunning reefs are built by such…
By E. Haripriya and Meghana Teerthala | After an intensive and insightful fieldwork at Mangalore, we set sail to Palk Bay this September to initiate reduction fisheries work in Tamil Nadu. Palk Bay is a shallow stretch of sea between India and Sri Lanka with a rich seagrass ecosystem. Besides,…
By Satya Sainath | As part of our ongoing project on Migration and Infrastructures of Resilience of Small Scale Fishers’, we co-created Community-Databases of Migrant Fishers (CDMF) in select villages of two districts – Ganjam, Odisha, and Nagapattinam, Tamil Nadu. CDMF provides vital information to gram panchayats to reach migrant…
By Devathi Parashuram and Shivangi Pant | There have been a few changes at Current Conservation since our last newsletter update. Greta Ann Sam has been Managing Editor since April. In May, we welcomed Shivangi Pant on board, as the new Managing Editor (Art & Design). We have since published…