An illustrated guide to safety around wild crocodiles Simon Pooley*, Kartik Shanker, Meera Anna Oommen, Karunya Bhaskar# Crocodilians which are distributed across 91 countries, are culturally significant, economically valuable, biologically and behaviourally fascinating, and important apex predators of waterways. Several of these species are regularly involved in conflict with humans. Many of the countries with…
“Naveen is in his element when he’s doing fieldwork. A jack of all trades, he has served various roles as a cook, a sharp field assistant, a certified diver and an expert snake handler.” – Adhith Swaminathan (Base Manager, ANET) on Naveen.
By Kanishk Srinivasan | While working under the banner of Dakshin’s Community Wellbeing and Environment Programme, a significant chunk of our work in the last few months has been building collaborations and partnerships with other organisations, activists and experts in the various fields that we’re attempting to work in. To provide a few examples, the Health team has built collaborations with community based organizations and youth groups active in our field sites in South Andaman and Odisha. The health and livelihoods sub-programmes have also brought Dr Abhijit Das and Venkatesh Salagrama on board as advisors to learn from their expertise in these areas and to improve programme planning and implementation.
By Devathi Parashuram and Greta Ann Sam | A lot, as it turns out. How is it already 2022?! Last year was action-packed for Team CC. We brought out three issues of the magazine: 15.1 and 15.2 which are, as always, freely available for download on the website. And 15.3, which was a special issue on ‘African conservation today: New trends, perspectives and opportunities’, guest edited by Fred Nelson and Gladys-Kalema Zikusoka, and launched in December 2021 at the 30th International Congress for Conservation Biology.
Due to the volume of high quality submissions we have been receiving and the limited space in the quarterly print magazine, we are publishing more and more online-only articles. As a result of this, the total number of articles we published in 2021 was more than double that of 2020.
Sea Turtle Photo Identification Study Calling all amateur and professional underwater photographers! Have you been lucky enough to photograph sea turtles under Indian waters or photograph them during rehabilitation? If yes, we invite you to join Dakshin’s researchers for a non-invasive citizen science study that can help unravel the mysterious lives of these charming marine…
By Karishma Modi | Sea-turtles brought Dakshin Foundation to the Andman and Nicobar Islands (ANI) and Odisha. Over time, it became more and more apparent that the complete well-being of communities in close physical, economic and cultural proximity to the oceans and other marine ecosystems needed to be prioritised by any organisation with a long-standing connection to a place. Dakshin Foundation’s Environmental Education (EE) and Community Well-being and Environment (CWE) Programmes do just that: prioritise communities in the coastal and island geographies of India. Our interventions, that problematise education and practices related to health in these communities, are responding to community needs and building solutions from the ground up.
By Anand Rao, Biswa Swaroop and Madhuri Mondal | The well-being of the small-scale fishing communities across our coasts are increasingly threatened by dwindling livelihoods, decreasing access to coastal commons due to poor developmental plans, lesser food security and nutrition, and poor access to healthcare. In 2019, Dakshin Foundation conducted a scoping study in Odisha and South Andaman to understand the wellbeing needs of the fishing communities. These studies raised critical points regarding the health and safety of the fishers and their families. We have grouped them into the following two categories: Health issues faced by fishing communities;
Health & safety issues faced at sea
By Namrata Lunia | Dakshin Foundation turned 13 on the 22nd of July, 2021, and to celebrate the occasion, we invited our online community to spend the day with us (virtually) on the 24th of July, Saturday. Registrations opened up a week before and with over 100 registrations, the response to the event exceeded our expectations!
The virtual meet was divided into six sessions, where the audience got to meet and interact with members of our programmes. The main goal was to provide the larger Dakshin online community with the opportunity to ask questions and learn about our work.
As varied questions poured in from people from different walks of life, it was extremely encouraging to see high levels of interest not just in the work that we do but also in the preservation of the environment and livelihoods.
By Adit Dsouza, Adithya Pillai and Sanjana Chevalam | A research team from Dakshin Foundation, supported by Centre for Social Impact and Philanthropy, Ashoka University, is collaborating on a project to map philanthropic commitments towards marine conservation and other ocean-related causes in India. The research will explore three broad themes – a. characterizing the present state of resources available for support towards coastal and marine ecosystems and coastal communities; b. prioritising marine conservation and coastal community needs for better philanthropic support; and c. documenting best practices and strategies to mobilize interest and support for marine conservation and allied sectors.
By October this year, we hope to publish (at least) one working paper outlining the public and private resource flows within the sector, and delineating some of the challenges faced by organisations seeking to make an impact for coastal communities, habitats and species.
By Tanmay Wagh | The Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MOEF&CC) recently launched the nationwide Long Term Ecological Observatories (LTEO) programme, a multi-institutional and inter-disciplinary initiative to understand the impacts of climate change and anthropogenic disturbances on a range of ecosystems and taxa. The programme is being implemented in landscapes across India and involves monitoring of soils, grasslands, forests, animal movement, herpetofauna, invertebrates, fish, birds and marine ecosystems. The marine ecosystems component of the LTEO programme is led by Dakshin Foundation in collaboration with Pondicherry University, Nature Conservation Foundation and the Indian Institute of Science. The Marine Theme’s research will be carried out in the Andaman Islands and will involve long term monitoring of coral reefs, seagrass meadows, leatherback turtles and abiotic water quality parameters.