Earth Heroes

Paresh Chandrakant Porab, Goa Forest Department, conducts raids on poachers, protects turtle nesting sites, and surveys forest lands to identify them for their potential as future sanctuaries and national parks.

They have studied hornbills, small carnivores and bird communities in the Western Ghats and have documented the destruction wreaked by human agriculture on thin forest soils.

For dedicating his life to the protection of wild nature through the use of cinematography and for his courage and determination in producing films – with or without sponsorships – that have influenced policy and saved endangered species.

Prosper is remarkably young and despite not being formally trained, his knowledge and passion for India’s wildlife has won him the reputation of a giant-killer with many hard-fought conservation battles under his belt.

Aamod Zambre has worked in one of the most exciting places on the planet – Arunachal Pradesh’s Eaglenest Wildlife Sanctuary. Here conservation biologists first recorded the existence of the subspecies of a snake Protobothrops jerdonii xanthomelas and a scorpion, Euscorpiops bhutanensis.

Vishal Jayant Bhave, just 23 years old, has managed to discover as many as 80 new Opisthobranch that were previously unknown in India. He lives to study and protect the sea and was born and brought up in Ratnagiri, a small coastal town in Maharashtra.

Week after week for the past three years, Vijay Pinjarkar, Special Correspondent with the Times of India, has investigated scores of environmental stories, in the process unearthing dark and hidden secrets that many powerful people would have preferred to kill.

For four decades and more this remarkable husband and wife team have meticulously documented, studied and taught botany. Many of their students are now renowned botanists in their own right and this, according to this husband and wife team, is their greatest reward.

An iconic figure, he is widely credited with having fathered one of the world’s best known tiger reserves – Ranthambhore. This involved the painstaking restoration of a forest that had been overrun by humans.

For evaluating the status of tigers, their habitat and prey in India.Dr. Y.V. Jhala’s credentials are impeccable. A doctorate from the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, U.S.A. in Wildlife Science, a stint at the Wildlife Conservation and Management Training Programme of ...