^{Wildlife Trust of India Founder & CEO Vivek Menon receives the RoundGlass Samsara Lifetime Achievement Award from Shri DH Shankaramurthy, Chairman of the Karnataka Legislative Council, at the Vidhana Soudha in Bengaluru on October 7}

Bengaluru, Karnataka, October 11, 2017: In recognition of his exceptional contribution to the field of wildlife conservation during a career spanning three decades, Vivek Menon, Founder and CEO of the Wildlife Trust of India (WTI), was honoured with the RG Samsara Lifetime Achievement Award on October 7. The award was conferred upon Mr Menon by Shri DH Shankaramurthy, Chairman of the Karnataka Legislative Council, at the Vidhana Soudha in Bengaluru during an Environmental Summit organised as part of the Round Glass Samsara Festival. The Hon’ble Anote Tong, a three time former President of the Republic of Kiribati, which will be the first nation to be submerged due to climate change, and Mr Robert Swann, legendary explorer and the first person to walk to both the Poles, were also honoured with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Summit.

Apart from his role at the helm of WTI, one of the country’s leading nature conservation organisations, Vivek Menon is a Senior Advisor to the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW). He advises the Indian government on natural heritage conservation as a part of several committees and is the Chairperson of the IUCN SSC Asian Elephant Specialist Group and a member of Steering Committee of the IUCN Species Survival Commission. He is a well-known wildlife conservationist, environmental commentator and photographer with a passion for elephants, and has authored or edited ten wildlife books, scores of technical reports and more than 150 articles in various scientific and popular publications.

“I am deeply honoured and humbled at having received this award, especially at the seat of democracy in Karnataka, the Vidhana Soudha”, Mr Menon said. “While there is some sense of personal satisfaction looking back over the last three decades, and a lot of important work has been accomplished by our team at WTI, there is always a lot more to be done!”

One of the long-term initiatives that WTI is engaged in is the securing of a viable future for India’s National Heritage Animal, the Asian elephant, which is a keystone species. “If you save the elephant you save the whole of peninsular India”, Mr Menon declared at the Summit on October 7. WTI has been working for over a decade with the Government of India’s Project Elephant, state forest departments, and national and global NGOs to secure and protect the 101 elephant corridors mapped across India through its Right of Passage project. The organisation has already helped secure six of these vital habitat linkages in Kerala, Karnataka, Meghalaya and Uttarakhand and is currently working on securing seven more.

“Elephants are large animals and they need a lot of space and a lot of food. Unfortunately, their habitat is getting more and more fragmented by the day. Elephant corridors connect key habitats and we are taking this movement to secure Right of Passage for elephants directly to the people – taking the Gajah to the Prajah as it were – through our Gaj Yatra”, Mr Menon said.

“If you save the elephant you save the whole of peninsular India”, Vivek Menon declared at the Environmental Summit organised as part of the Round Glass Samsara Festival.

The Gaj Yatra is the biggest campaign ever planned around India’s wild elephants. It will take the form of a roadshow that will move through 12 elephant range states (over 4000 towns and villages) over the next 13 months, with elephant-sized artworks created by local artists and craftsmen as the centrepiece. Gaj Utsavs will be organised at different venues along the way, with concerts, parades, street plays and activities for children in particular. The Gaj Yatra was officially launched on World Elephant Day, August 12, 2017, at Teen Murti Bhavan in New Delhi by the Union Minister of Environment, Forest & Climate Change Dr Harsh Vardhan; actor, filmmaker, humanitarian and WTI Brand Ambassador Dia Mirza; and Mr Menon. It was flagged off in Mumbai the next day at the revered Shri Siddhivinayak Temple (Prabhadevi) by the Union Minister of Industry and Commerce Shri Suresh Prabhu (then Union Minister for Railways) as well as some of WTI’s Champions of Nature including Dia Mirza, Arjun Rampal, Pooja Hegde, Jackky Bhagnani, Sayani Gupta and Diana Penty.

The Gaj Yatra is partnered by IFAW while the corridor securement programme is supported by the Asian Elephant Alliance that includes World Land Trust, IUCN Netherlands and Elephant Family, apart from WTI and IFAW.

With Asian elephants now occupying a meagre 3.5 percent of their historical range, securing and protecting elephant corridors has become a conservation imperative. It is hoped that the Gaj Yatra will help raise awareness about the plight of India’s National Heritage Animal and build a groundswell of popular support for the securing of these corridors.