Interview by Shuchi Giridhar
In this series, we will try and bring you the stories of people who chose offbeat careers. When we talk about careers and career counselling, the usual route that is taken is aptitude testing, options, earning potential, etc.
But we, at The Children’s Post, wanted to do things differently. What is life like for a profession?
So, we are speaking to professionals and asking them things that matter – what is your life like? What led you to become this? What has your journey been?
Today, we bring you the story of Mr. Vikas Madhav!
Mr. Vikas Madhav is a Bio Conservationist with over 14 years of experience. He has conducted numerous surveys, campaigns and various other initiatives to protect India’s wildlife and forests. He was awarded the Young Naturalist Award by Sanctuary Asia in 2014, and holds the record of being its youngest recipient. In 2015 he was also awarded the Tiger Ambassador for the state of Tamil Nadu. He is currently pursuing chemical engineering at the SSN (Sri Subramaniya Nadar) College of engineering.
Who is Bio Conservationist?
Mr. Vikas : A Bio conservationist is a very broad job. Anyone who works with ecological and environmental life and works towards conserving that is a Bio Conservationist. Anyone who works in either reporting about environmental aspects or seeks protection for places to converse ecological factors is a Bio Conservationist.
How was your childhood and what led you to becoming a Bio Conservationist.
As a child, I have always been an outdoor kid, following ants, watching butterflies and apparently crawling after millipedes. Once I started first grade, I took a keen interest in birds, watching them especially, woodpeckers. It started from there and overtime because a lot of exposure I had , because of my parents being supportive and taking me not just to zoos but even to wild habitats like Guindy national park and Pallikarnai at that time. The exposure I gained interacting with other people who worked with birds got me into this movement.
What is your interest in nature?
When it comes to nature, I am more of a bridge person. I act as a bridge between taxonomy and common people. I don’t go to a place and just say that xy species are found there. I want to record what is there and put that data out to other people, not necessarily well accustomed to a group. For example, if I am talking about a butterfly, I don’t just go to various Hotspots and put out what I recorded there. Instead I shall put it in a palatable form for people to understand that it is such a species. There is a difference between saying that the southern birdwing butterfly is found in five locations at Chennai and saying that India’s largest butterfly is known from Chennai in this place. The way you deliver information, that bridge of connection between nature and humans is very important. Especially, when you are in in urban environment.
How many species of birds and butterflies have you seen, reported, identified, or any new species that you have discovered
I am not sure on how many species of birds are butterflies that I have seen, I guess that I might have seen about 700 species of birds in India, and butterflies taking pictures of about 350 but I’ve seen about 400. When it comes to a species being newly discovered, I would always say “the bird or the butterfly is always there but is just that humans have not seen it yet”. I have made such records when it comes to butterflies I have spotted a species known as the ‘Red Spot Jezebel’ which is normally a species which is seen in Assam or Sikkim. It is a North East Indian species. I’ve also seen many birds that have not been reported like the ‘Indian Skimmer’ and the ‘Imperial eagle’ those are two examples of birds which have not been seen in recent times till I saw it, after that people have seen it.
What kind of activities have you lead or been a part of ?
My line of work entails 5 major components,
1 – Surveys, where I would go to various parts of the country ,I would survey at least 16 states of India, various parts of the countries and different habitats I survey.
2- Census, where I have to count what I do, so I’ve done more of census work in the Himalayas especially in the state of Uttarakhand.
3-Nature walks, where I do walks for college and school students.
4-Public walks, where different people from different communities can come and look at nature through their backspace. I’ve done community walks in Sholinganallur and Besant Nagar. So that people know what they have in their own backyard.
5-Personal walks, last but not least. This is something that has no strings attached to it I can go do whatever I want and just come back.
Could you tell us about your favourite campaign or project that you’ve done?
I don’t have any favourite campaigns but the recent campaigns that I’ve been doing are the Save Pulicatcampaign and Save Vedanthangal campaign.
The Vedanthangal campaign is to save the entire 5 square kilometre of the bird sanctuary so that it stays conserved. The Pulicat campaign is to make sure that rapid port expansion does not occur and that the Pulicat Bird sanctuary has an ecosensitive zone of 10 square kilometres.
What are the other activities that you do in relation to Bioconservation?
Part of the job is photography, I am not a photographer but I take pictures because people should believe what I see and moreover, pictures speak better than words People like to see pretty pictures of butterflies and birds than reading a hundred word essay on what I saw. My job also entails audio recording so as to know if the bird made a 2 pitched call for a 3 pitched call.
Most of the conservation efforts are citizen science initiatives. How useful have they been?
Citizen science initiative have been very useful in the state of Maharashtra, where in the Bombay High court took data from the marine life in Mumbai.So it is very important that citizens science has got lead indications. We have not had those kinds of the judgements in Tamil Nadu, but nevertheless it is important that we have these depositories there, because citizen science give a temporal vision that we never had. One person cannot monitor everything every time, and at every point. Whereas in citizen science intiatives because of collaborated action, it comes close to monitoring as many species as we can at one time.
What are the steps that each citizen can take towards striking a wildlife and human balance in our ecosystem?
When it comes to cities, there are many things that we can do personally like gardening and making sure that we have potted plants like nectaring plants, so that you can create corridors for moths and butterflies to migrate and live. On the largest scale of things you can always join campaigns, spread awareness. Ensure that you understand the right side of things, and that you don’t get muddled with the politics that is present in BioconservationHow do you balance your education and the major roles that you have being a bio conservationist?
I have a very understanding college and the professors of my department help me pursue this career. I am very grateful to my college -SSN, and especially my department, who take care of me , from my academic point of view. if I miss an exam, I am excused and allowed to write a re exam any time convenient for me and them. So that kind of Liberty is important for works that involve outdoors especially Bioconservation.
Do you have any concluding remarks or messages for our readers?
I would say that people start clicking photos. They need not be an expert – just click photos of may be a bird, a bug or a butterfly and start uploading these pictures on I-naturalist bioconservation citizen science portal. Their photo will appear on a page that is called bio diversity of Chennai which is a page that I have started with other naturalists. Someone from the group will help you identify and who knows, in this process, you might discover something that was there but was unidentifies. So just go ahead and click it.