Ashish Kothari

Ashish Kothari is one of the founding members of the Indian environmental action group Kalpavriksh, started in 1979. He has also taught environmental studies at the Indian Institute of Public Administration (though his academic background is Sociology!). He has been a member of anti-big dam movements like the Narmada Bachao Andolan (Save the Narmada River Movement), and continues to actively support people's struggles against destructive development projects...while also at times serving on government committees relating to environmental clearance, framing of biodiversity l egislation and wildlife action plans, and others. Over the first four years of the 21st century, he has been coordinating the making of India's National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan.

 
For almost two decades, he has also been advocating a socially and culturally more sensitive process of wildlife conservation, and has worked to support and document several community based approaches to conservation. Ashish started off as an animal rights activist, and remains passionate about this issue though not as active as he would like to be. He also retains a deep interest in bird-watching, and is struggling to revive his field outings in the midst of having to deal with far too many emails!

Read some of the articles written by Ashish at

http://www.narmada.org/debates/gail/ashish.response.html

Greening or Green wash?

Forest or Tribal Rights?

A task force and its options

Missing tigers

Rights and Wrongs

Ashish Kothari interviewed by Ashish Fernandes, Sanctuary Magazine

Pankaj Sekhsaria
Contact: psekhsaria@gmail.com

Pankaj SEKHSARIA works with the Kalpavriksh Environmental Action Group
in Pune where his main responsibility is editing, publishing and
distributing the Protected Area (PA) Update, a bimonthly newsletter that
carries news from wildlife sanctuaries and national parks from India and
South Asia. He has written a book " Troubled Islands" on the Andaman
and Nicobar Islands. He also moderates an active email discussion group
on the andaman & nicobar islands.
Over the last ten years he has published nearly a 100 articles and photo
features in the mainstream Indian press on issues related to wildlife
conservation,
and people's livelihoods rights. A graduate from the Mass Communication
Research Centre, Jamia, and New Delhi, he co-produced the investigative
documentary, The Yellow Haze, which helped in getting a Supreme Court
ban on the illegal use of the drug Quinacrine ( a malarial drug) used
insitu for female sterilisation. He has also assisted in wildlife film
projects in Assam and in the Andaman islands.

Read some of the articles written by Pankaj at

The Road to Destruction

Delivering the Jarawas

Jarawas at a crossroads

Read more articles by Pankaj at http://pankaj-atcrossroads.blogspot.com/

Neema Pathak

Neema Pathak is a member of Kalpavriksh and has studied Environmental Sciences. Neema has worked in compiling a status report on the Management Status of Protected Areas in the State of Maharashtra. She has co-cordinated a project on People's involvement in Wildlife Management in South Asia, this project was accompalished with help from a network of people and organisations across South Asia.

She has also done a detailed documentation of the efforts of a a tribal village in Central India towards self-rule and forest conservation. Neema has been coordinating a project on documentation of Community Conserved Areas in India and as part of the project has been involved with site investigations, policy analysis and lobbying at various levels on issues of Community Conservation Initiatives and participatory conservation in India. She is also coordinating a process of drafting guidelines in India for providing effective legal backing to Community Conservation Efforts in the country. Neema is also a member of TILCEPA, and has compiled an information on Community Conserve Areas in South Asia. Neema has also done an investigation and report on effectivity of International and National Community Forestry Networks on changing the situation for people and ecosystems on ground with a team of people.

Tasneem Balasinorwala

Tasneem Balasinorwala was educated in Economics and while working on Sales, Software Engineering and Education she also developed a keen interest in Ecology and Natural resource management. She is a member of Kalpavriksh, an environmental group based in India and has been working full time with TILCEPA since mid 2003.

She has supported TILCEPA through logistical, administrative, and organisational roles and helped plan several TILCEPA events both at the World Parks Congress, 2003 and at the Conference of Parties, 2004. She also works on putting together TILCEPA reports and publications.



Manisha Sheth Gutman

Manisha Sheth Gutman was educated as an architect and a designer. After four years of architectural practice her desire to find more sensitive ways of design led her to study Ecology and Natural Resource Management. She has been a member of Kalpavriksh since 2001. Her interests include global networking, urban environmental initiatives on green consumerism and eco friendly design. She is also keenly interested in the spiritual values of Nature conservation and has offered several years of voluntary service to a spiritual organization in India. She is the founder of a company that designs and promotes ecosensitive products.

See more of Manisha's work at http://ecoexist.blogspot.com


Seema Bhatt

Seema Bhatt holds a Masters degree in Environmental Studies from Yale University, USA. She has served as Senior Programme Officer, Biodiversity 'Hotspots' Conservation Programme WWF- India and as Coordinator (South Asia) for the USAID funded Biodiversity Conservation Network. She is a Consultant on the Environment and Development Book Series Project at the Centre for Environment Education. She now works as an independent consultant mainly looking at biodiversity issues. Seema has focussed her work on looking at participatory approaches to conservation and also an enterprise-based approaches to conservation all over South Asia. She has evaluated many donor funded biodiversity projects in India. Seema has been part of the Technical and Policy Core Group which was formulating India's National Biodiversity Strategy Action Plan for the last four years.


Tejaswini Apte

Tejaswini Apte joined Kalpavriksh in 2000. As a research associate, she worked on natural resource conflicts and resolutions, Pani Panchayats, and prepared a simple guide to Joint Protected Area Management. She is now an independent researcher and has done consultancies for various NGOs and research institutes, including evaluations of national and international community forestry networks, organizational and project evaluations, and an analysis of participatory planning tools used to prepare the National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan, with a focus on Sikkim, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra (published by IIED as “An Activist Approach to Biodiversity Planning: a handbook of participatory tools used to prepare India’s NBSAP”). Interests include participatory policy planning, decentralized governance, community forestry/fishery, and intellectual property rights in relation to biodiversity and traditional knowledge. She is currently writing “A Simple Guide to Intellectual Property Rights and Biodiversity” for an advocacy information pack being prepared by Kalpavriksh.

Tejaswini holds a BA in English Literature and Development Studies from the University of Sussex, UK and MA in Image (Media) Studies from the University of Kent, UK. She worked in journalism and media before joining Kalpavriksh.

Read some of Tejaswini’s research at:

An Activist Approach to Biodiversity Planning: A handbook of participatory tools used to prepare India’s NBSAP (IIED)

Interactive Radio Drama used for NBSAP planning in Karnataka (IIED)

Water Rights, Land Reform and Community Participation: The Pani Panchayat Model for Sustainable Water Management (Case study, Kalpavriksh)

Joint Protected Area Management: A Simple Guide. How it will benefit wildlife and people (Kalpavriksh)

Learning Lessons from International Community Forestry Networks in India (CIFOR)

Kanchi Kohli

Kanchi is a graduate of Social Work and has been working on environment and forest clearance issues for the last 8 years. This has primarily been in the form of issue based research and campaigns related to social and environmental impacts of development projects across the country. She began her work in Uttara Kannada district of Karnataka, where she worked with local groups and individuals for two years to understand the use of environmental legislations and the legal spaces within them for effective participation in environmental decision making.

Since 2000, she has been working with Kalpavriksh Environmental Action Group, where she continued her involvement with environmental issues. Over the last five years she has worked as a Member of the Technical and Policy Group which drafted the Final Technical Report of India’s National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan.

Writing and information dissemination are key components of Kanchi’s work. She writes regularly in the mainstream newspapers and magazines as well as websites. She has contributed to three publications related to environment and forest clearance of development projects; special issue of Ecologist Asia on Dams in the North East, titled Large Dams in North East India: Rivers, Forests, People and Power (2003); and Eleven Years of Environment Impact Assessment Notification, 1994: How Effective Has It Been?. She also helped in updating the information in the publication, ‘Large Dams in North East India: a Dossier ’.

Presently, the focus of her work is related to campaigns and advocacy on various environment and biodiversity issues, with a critical component of support to grassroots groups. While she continues to be part of Kalpavriksh, she is independently coordinating the Forest Case Update in partnership with Ritwick Dutta.


Manju Menon