A very happy new year to you all.

On the 16^th of November last year, WTI quietly celebrated 15 years of existence. We had internally made it a point not to have a large bash to commemorate the event, for when we were 10 and did have a celebration, we had promised ourselves that the next one would be when we turn 25!

It is a good moment in organisational history however, to look back and see if we have made any impact at all. Let me list the most prominent of our milestones; the most significant 15.

1.  WTI has pioneered several wildlife conservation models in India including the concept of private land purchase and securement as a model for conserving endangered habitat by working on elephant corridors as a test case. Along with the Asian Elephant Research and Conservation Centre (AERCC), Project Elephant and elephant-bearing states of India, WTI has worked out the most important corridors for elephant movement and drawn a green-print to secure them. It then purchased the first ever Asian elephant corridor in Kollegal (Karnataka) and handed it over to a protected area. It has followed this up by securing corridors in Wayanad (Kerala) and Siju- Rewak (Meghalaya).

Photo: Ramith Meledath / WTI

 2. It has also pioneered systematic wildlife rehabilitation and wildlife health monitoring as tools for conservation in India in partnership with IFAW. It built the first two super-speciality centres for wildlife rehabilitation in India: the Centre for Wildlife Rehabilitation and Conservation (CWRC) in Assam and Centre for Bear Rehabilitation and Conservation (CBRC) in Arunachal Pradesh and started operating six Mobile Veterinary Services that have saved more than 1500 individual animal lives, vaccinated over 12,000 cattle, attended to 1,000 captive elephants and provided them with health support at the protected areas near where they are located. As a result, protocols for the rehabilitation of eight species of endangered wildlife have been formulated and field-tested, and at least 300 vets given hands-on exposure to wildlife veterinary science and rehabilitation, creating a new cadre of ‘green vets’ in the country.

 Photo: Subhamoy Bhattacharjee / IFAW-WTI

3. Building on two of the founder-Trustees’ work, WTI has created a network of wildlife enforcers and litigators in the fight against wildlife crime. This has led to more than 100 seizures of illicit contraband, busting of major trade gangs and networks, training of more than 12,000 staff of 100 protected areas in Level 1 of anti-poaching training and insuring the lives of the nation’s wildlife staff. This has, in turn, led to the creation of the first ever national database on wildlife protected area staff status.

4. It was instrumental in getting the Whale Shark put on  CITES Appendix II, lobbied the government for its inclusion in the Wildlife Protection Act (the first fish ever) and ran a landmark campaign in Gujarat to raise it to a conservation icon. The Whale Shark Day and six cities adopting it as a city mascot are symbols of the pride of Gujarat and along with over 190 whale sharks freed by fishermen in whose nets they had got caught off the coast of the state since the launch of the campaign, speaks volumes for the success of the campaign.

 Photo: Simon Pierce / Megafauna Foundation

5. It undertook the first ever comprehensive survey the largest goat in the world, the Markhor in Jammu and Kashmir, found that there were at least 350 of the species still present in Indian territory and assisted the Jammu and Kashmir government to declare a new national park, Kazinag National Park, and expand a sanctuary, Hirpura Wildlife Sanctuary, for its conservation. Later the Tatakuti WLS in Jammu was also newly established as a reason of these surveys. Schaller Conservation Surveys has also established the wild chiru and wild yak populations of Ladakh and showed that the endangered Ladakh urial was only half the previous enumerations.

 Photo: Riyaz Ahmed / IFAW-WTI

6. Using a community led conservation model, WTI was responsible for the lobbying and creation of 12 village reserves in the Garo Hills- Selbalgre, Siju-Aretika, Rewak-Kosigre, Mandalgre, Sasat Sakal Aduma, Baladingre, Daribokre, Khalagre, Chandigre, Dudutgre, Chasingre and Jadegindam 2050 hectares of area which is today community-conserved for the hoolock gibbon and the elephant.

7. It set in place, in collaboration with the Bihar Forest Department, a long-term recovery plan for the tiger in a neglected and forgotten tiger reserve – Valmiki, in Bihar. Demonstrated through science that tigers were still present in viable numbers, through litigation that the staff who protect species must also be looked after, and through community work that there is hope in recovering even a highly beleaguered tiger habitat with ground level work. Our conviction that Valmiki was a biodiversity rich area was further proven in 2013, as four species, previously unrecorded here, were camera-trapped – crab-eating mongoose, hoary-bellied squirrel, yellow-throated marten and Himalayan serow by conservation workers including our field staff.

 

8. Our efforts to bring back Manas to its former glory through our Greater Manas Conservation Project has in itself had several significant achievements. Be it bringing back the rhino to Manas after years of poaching that wiped out the local population, reintegrating elephants back in the wild or rehabilitating clouded leopards for the first time in India, which was highlighted in the popular National Geographic documentary ‘Return of the Clouded Leopards’. We also successfully advocated for the local authorities to adopt the idea of Greater Manas, and also helped re-enlist Manas Wildlife Sanctuary as a World Heritage, by removing the ‘in danger’ tag of UNESCO. 

9. In partnership with the Chhattisgarh Forest Department, WTI started a long-term project to save the highly endangered Central India wild buffalo of which (WTI research showed) there were only seven left in Udanti Sanctuary and none in three of four other protected areas where they were supposed to be found (Pamed, Bhairmgarh and Sitanadi). It is now leading a holistic recovery plan for the remaining specimens through ex situ and in situ measures. Due to these measures at least the last of the Central Indian wild buffalo still survive.

 Photo: Dr R P Mishra / WTI

10. WTI entered Rajaji National Park in 2001 (passing trains had killed 11 elephants in 14 years) and launched a joint project with the Uttaranchal Forest Department and the Northern Railways to halt the killing of elephants in the park due to rail hits. Not a single elephant was killed for over a decade. This has now been tried in three other parts of India and a national plan for elephant train hit mitigation is now ready.

11. Combined a very public fashion campaign against Shahtoosh with strategic legal, enforcement and policy work and a pioneering alternative livelihoods project for women spinners and weavers in Kashmir to give a new lease of life for the endangered Chiru. As a result, Shahtoosh is formally banned in Jammu and Kashmir, awareness level amongst consumers is high and international attention has been drawn to this regional issue. The alternative livelihoods project established the Kashmir Handmade Pashmina Promotion Trust comprising the skilled shatoosh workers to manufacture and sell exclusive high-quality hand-made Kashmir pashmina product, under the brand name Pashm-e-Shahi. This is not just green, but a rainbow product which while saving a wild species, is also a fair trade product, environment-friendly, promotes a cultural heritage, helps uplift a war-torn community and especially its women, and represents an aspiration for peace and respect for life.

12. Exposed the illegal mongoose hair brush trade, lobbied and got the mongoose species protection under the Wildlife Protection Act and through an award-winning documentary and several school programmes, launched a campaign that reduced their use as children’s paintbrushes.

13. Showed innovative rapid action models of conservation including fibreglass hornbill beak alternatives for the Nyshi tribe in Arunachal Pradesh (four threatened hornbill species around Pakke Tiger Reserve in Arunachal got some reprieve), circus safety-nets for wind-blown endangered (global population less than 1,000) Greater adjutant stork chicks (in one year nearly two dozen chicks were rescued and a larger project was spawned as a result), popularising fish oil alternatives for dolphin oil bait in the Ganges among others. The latest successful RAP was the stopping of a mass hunt of Amur falcons in Nagaland, a practice that consumed tens of thousands of migrant bird lives a year ago, yet was halted almost completely the year after due to community level interactions.

Then with the blessing of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, WTI launched a massive Tibetan Awareness Campaign in Indian Tibetan settlements upon hearing news of the wanton use of tiger and leopard skins in Tibet. Was part of an international outcry that made the overt use of endangered skins in Tibet vanish and laid the grounds for a basal change in the attitudes of the Tibetan community in India for the conservation of species.

14. WTI and its international partner, International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) have played a consistent supportive role to the Indian government in its fight against re-opening the ivory trade at CITES. Since its inception, WTI has attended all Standing Committee meetings and Conference of Parties of CITES and Critical Animals Committee Meeting. As a result, from 1998 to 2007, no ivory was sanctioned to be traded internationally. In 2007 a nine-year moratorium was won despite a concessional one-off sale in ivory. Internationally, WTI and IFAW have also revived the Global Tiger Forum, the only inter-governmental forum on tigers, by sponsoring Cambodia to join the forum, seconding a technical officer into the secretariat and by bringing out the national action plans for tigers in a single volume. The forum has now become widely participatory and international interest in it has been revived.

15. In addition to its groundwork, WTI also advocates at various levels to ensure greater protection or status to wild species and habitats. Over the past years, through advocacy and/or research, WTI has contributed to the creation of a number of protected areas – Mansingh Deo, New Nagzira, Nawegaon Wildlife Sanctuaries in Maharashtra, Tatakuti WLS, Kaz-i-nag National Park and Pampore wetlands in Jammu & Kashmir. WTI’s work has also helped led to the creation of Pakke Elephant Reserve, and several tiger reserves including Nagzira-Nawegaon, Udanti-Sitanadi and Sathyamangalam.

We have miles to go before we sleep, but these 15 milestones ensure that when we do sleep inter- alia, we do so with the peaceful knowledge that our contribution to the conservation of India’s wildlife heritage is something we could as a community, be proud of!

 

Photo: Sashanka Barbaruah / IFAW-WTI