Speaker: Prerna Singh Bindra, author, wildlife conservationist and was formerly a member of India’s National Board for Wildlife. Prerna has authored The Vanishing: India’s Wildlife Crisis published by Penguin Random House and co-edited Wild Treasures, an anthology on Natural World Heritage Sites of Asia. A board member of Hathi- Sathi Foundation which works to enable safe shared spaces for people and elephants in north-east India. She is currently pursuing her PhD at the University of Cambridge.

Chair: Ms Prakriti Srivastava, formerly Principal Chief Conservator of Forests, Kerala and DIG (Wildlife), Min. of Environment, Forest and Climate Change

India has 42 of the world’s 50 most polluted cities; our rivers are sewers and is ranked second in deforestation after Brazil between 2015-2020. While these figures might be contested, there is no denying that India is an environment basket case, and our wildlife is in a crisis with even some endemic species ie. The Great Indian Bustard and the hangul facing extinction. While India has shown remarkable achievements in conserving endangered megafauna like tigers and Asian elephants, they stand threatened with India’s development juggernaut and consequent demand for energy, power and infrastructure. Troublingly, the legal, policy and institutional framework is being restructured to weaken safeguards protecting forests and wildlife. This lecture will dwell on the issues, explain why conservation matters and why it needs to be a mainstream electoral issue.