Conservation
Photography
Ramki Sreenivasan
Conservation India

Conservation Photography
• Understand
• Take
• Use

What is it?

What it is not

Not photography for photography’s sake
Photo: Ramki Sreenivasan

It is not about winning awards!

No likes!

Going beyond the pretty picture
Photo: Ramki Sreenivasan

So what is it?

Offshoot of nature photography but it is
born out of “purpose”
Photo: Aditya Panda

Conservation photography is photography
that empowers conservation
Photo: Vimal Raj

Everyone can be a conservation
photographer
Photo: Shashank Dalvi

Need to be sensitive to conservation
issues
Photo: Anon

Passion to bring about change through
your images
Photo: TRAFFIC-India

Don’t need fancy equipment Photo: Canon USA

What you can do starting today?

What you can do starting today?
• Document specific issues
• Clearly capture the "threat"
• Tell stories:
• Area specific
• Issue specific
• Give powerful factual captions
• Seek advice on actioning them – report / complain to forest dept,
local NGOs, media, make petitions, etc.

Conservation photography examples
• Habitat destruction or fragmentation — from tree-felling to a full-
blown hydroelectric project
• Any construction activity inside a protected area
• Any commercial activity in ecologically sensitive zones (ESZs)
• Tree-felling in protected areas and reserve forests
• Roads that have sprung up inside or near a protected area
• Road & railway kills
• Forest fires

Conservation photography examples
• Livestock (cattle / goats) inside protected areas
• Evidence of poaching / crime – snares, traps, killing, poachers,
etc.
• Wildlife kept as pets
• Tourism and its impacts
• Encroachments
• Man-animal conflict, human threats to wildlife, domestic dogs
• Plight of endangered animals

Examples

Big tourism projects destroy habitat and
block wildlife corridors
Photo: Akarsha BM / WildCat-C

Man-made linear intrusions have many
detrimental ecological effects
Photo: NCF

Images of habitat destruction in protected
areas is vital evidence for illegal activity
Photo: Shekar Dattatri

Coal mining in prime tiger habitat outside
Tadoba tiger reserve
Photo: Greenpeace

Sarus Cranes in the backdrop of massive
construction in Delhi — losing wetland habitat
everyday
Photo: Delhibird

Lakes suffer from poor protection across India and
is exploited for encroachment / development
Photo: Vishwatej Pawar

Windmills in grasslands and plateaus have
come up across India hindering flight paths of
birds
Photo: Aparna Watve

Including India’s rarest bird
Photo: Nirav Bhat

Destruction of grassland by ‘planting trees’ in Hesaraghatta.
This issue is now in the Karnataka High Court thanks to a
PIL
Photo: Ramki Sreenivasan

This illegal tree cutting operation was
documented by a birding group in Namdapha
Tiger Reserve
Photo: Bano Haralu

Road-widening projects through PAs
without clearances
Photo: Suresh G

Roads without proper clearances
constantly come up in PAs or ESZs
Photo: Anon

Roadkills are a serious conservation threat – a
pregnant blackbuck killed by a speeding vehicle in
Maharashtra
Photo: Adwait Keole

The danger of urban roads – here a dead leopard
killed by a speeding vehicle on NICE road,
Bangalore
Photo: Deccan Herald

An elephant calf mowed down in Bandipur.
Images like these were used to lobby for several
highway closures in Karnataka and other states
Image: Deccan Herald

A dead sambhar on an Odisha highway. Roads are
upgraded without need and the first victims are usually
wildlife
Photo: Bivash Pandav

Small animals die too like this Slender
Loris in the Western Ghats
Photo: NCF

Shy and elusive creatures are more often
seen in roadkills (and markets)
Photo: Dr. Pramod Patil

Railway tracks also pose a significant conservation
threat.
Photo: Giri Cavale

Every kind of animal have been killed on Indian
tracks.
Photo: Giri Cavale

Animals in human habitation – a fragile
“coexistence”
Photo: M. Ananda Kumar

Olive Ridley Turtles killed in fishing nets
Photo: Bivash Pandav

Village dogs and turtles – yet another threat
for nesting Olive Ridley Turtles in the Odisha
coast
Photo: Sumit Sen

The dangers of feral dogs range from competing with
wild predators to spreading deadly diseases
Photo: Vickey Chauhan

The dangers of feral dogs range from competing with
wild predators to spreading deadly diseases
Photo: Jayanth Sharma

A Wild dog with a plastic bottle demonstrates
littering by tourists – a serious fall-out of tourism
Photo: Mahesh Bhat

Critically endangered bustards hiding from
tourists in Nannaj, Maharashtra
Photo: Dhritiman Mukherjee

Photo: Ponnambalam

Same story. Different location. Tourists
and wildlife guides on foot in Kaziranga
Photo: Leio D’Souza

Fragmentation affects endangered animals. This
LTM shows the plight of a once arboreal troupe
Photo: Ramki Sreenivasan

Agriculture is another significant threat to wildlife – in this
case to the endangered Wild Ass in the little Rann of
Kutch
Photo: Nirav Bhat

The endangered Lesser Florican displaying in
agricultural fields in Saunkhaliya grasslands,
Rajasthan
Photo: Gobind Sagar Bharadwaj

A stark contrast between protected and unprotected areas
in Bandipur Tiger Reserve separated by the park
boundary
Photo: Shekar Dattatri

Full-fledged farming Inside the heart of
Simlipal – one of India’s largest tiger
reserves
Photo: Ramki Sreenivasan

Pushed to the brink in human-dominated
landscapes – critically endangered Gharials on the
Chambal
Photo: Aditya Singh

Temples and religious festivities inside
PAs are big threats to wildlife
Photo: Suraj Kumaar

Human-tiger conflict – cattle-lifter tigers were
poisoned by villagers in retaliation in
Ranthambore.
Photo: Aditya Singh

The typical end to a ‘conflict’ leopard – tranquilized and
sent to a zoo or re-released to cause ‘conflict’
elsewhere
Photo: Vidya Athreya

More conflict – crop-raiding elephants in
the plains of Karnataka
Photo: Shankara

An electrocuted elephant is usually the result of
conflict and habitat fragmentation due to
plantations
Photo: WCS-India

An electrocuted elephant due to low
hanging powerline in Kaziranga.
Photo: Sanesh Kadur

Elephant taunting became a sport in Coimbatore
forests. This photographer created a campaign that
stopped it
Photo: Sreedhar Vijayakrishnan

This shocking cellphone image of a
frenzied mob setting a captured leopard on
fire
Photo: Belinda Wright

Large carnivores in human-dominated
landscapes
Photo: Dharmendra Khandal

A freshly killed Grey-sided Thrush shows
the sorry state of hunting in Nagaland
Photo: Ramki Sreenivasan

A shocking image of freshly skinned Amur Falcons in
Doyang, Nagaland. Lakhs were being hunted
annually
Photo: Ramki Sreenivasan

Image retrieved from an arrested poaching gang in Desert
National Park in Rajasthan showing freshly hunted
bustards
Photo: Rajasthan Forest Dept.

Sometimes multiple images tell a story better.
Here are images of bird trapping in Murlen,
Mizoram
Photo: Ramki Sreenivasan

Birdwatchers helped nab waterfowl
poachers in Siruthavur near Chennai
Photo: Samyak Kaninde

Pelican poaching reported from Kanva
dam, Channapatna
Photo: Seshadri KS

Illegally captured parakeet chicks seized in Palamau
tiger reserve, Jharkhand. They were on the way to
markets
Image: Aditya Panda

This is the only record of a Blue Pitta in
India – taken in a market in Arunachal
Pradesh
Photo: Rita Banerji / Dusty Foot

A pet Slow Loris in Mokakchung, Nagaland. Most
villagers weren’t aware that keeping wildlife as pets was
illegal.
Photo: Nagaland Biodiversity Project

A captive giant squirrel in a coffee estate. The FD
was alerted and hopefully the squirrel is now free.
Photo: Amoghavarsha

This photographer helped bust a turtle and
terrapin trade in Raichur, Karnataka
Photo: Santosh Martin

Local markets are a source of illegal
bushmeat. Here a Loris is for sale for Rs.
500
Photo: Alka Vaidya

A Clouded Leopard Skin Hangs in a Naga
Kitchen
Photo: Sandesh Kadur

Cattle grazing in protected areas, Satkosia
Tiger Reserve, Odisha
Photo: Aditya Panda

The daily plight of forest personnel at the
frontline of conservation
Photo: Jayanth Sharma

Thanks!