Ashish Kothari - Session 01, 2023-06-03

Ashish Kothari discusses his 50-year journey in Indian conservation, emphasizing the need to bridge wildlife conservation with human rights and community-led initiatives. He recalls the formation of Kalpavriksh in 1979, focusing on community-based conservation and education, and reflects on the limitations of the horizon of the organization’s vision.

He reflects on certain major achievements of nationwide conservation initiatives and highlights the Forest Rights Act and the Snow Leopard project. He also highlights the challenges to conservation action in India, underscoring the top-down approach of formal wildlife conservation and the need for economic and political model shifts.

Ashish discusses the importance of gender and caste dimensions in conservation and environmental justice. He acknowledges the persistence of gender inequalities within conservation organizations and the need for more women in leadership positions.

Kothari envisions a future where all of India becomes a conservation site, emphasizing community governance, decentralized development, and global collaboration. He highlights the role of individual actions in protecting species and landscapes and the need for a global phenomenon of change. He also discusses the challenges the current education system poses in promoting individualism and underscores the need for a shift toward community-based learning.

(00:00:37) Personal motivations and objectives towards conservation, bridging the gap between wildlife conservation and human rights, involvement in student demonstrations and interventions in Delhi

(00:07:35) Founding of Kalpavriksh, early aims and actions, reflections on pathways, site-specific and participatory conservation education

(00:16:46) Limitations of the national wildlife conservation policy of India, recent successes of wildlife conservation policy in India

(00:21:03) Intersections between casteism and environmental conservation in India, gender dynamics in conservation in India, social and gender inequalities in conservation

(00:29:23) Economic and political challenges in conservation action in India, formulation of National Biodiversity Action Plan, collating action plans from across India

(00:37:22) Final report of the National Biodiversity Action Plan committee, collapse of the draft action plan, balancing modern scientific models and community knowledge systems, inconsistencies in implementation

(00:45:03) Need for focusing on ecologically sensitive species and community conversed areas, co-governance models and decentralization, vision for global networks of local institutions and communities for conservation, non-state based models

(00:54:15) Challenges towards conservation action, alternative education systems, significance of multilingual education

(01:04:09) Concerns around wildlife conservation in India, long-term conservation models, regional and global cooperation for conservation action