- India is one of the most
mega diverse countries in the world
with over 91,000 species of animals
and 40,000 different kinds of plants.
But among all of those amazingly big
and small creatures, there are 1.4 billion humans.
Some encounters are peaceful,
while others are not so much.
but that's where Wildlife Seve comes in
with Dr. Krithi Karanth at the helm.
She's dedicated her life to resolving conflicts
between humans and animals so they can coexist.
Helping farmers get their livelihoods back
and for animals to be free.
Follow along in this next film,
as we see how Dr. Karanth is able to bring peace
in more ways than one.
Please enjoy "Wild Harmony,"
a production by Wild Elements.
- I think the real challenge
is how do you support a country like India,
where there's 1.4 billion people
and we are sharing space with less than 5% of land
set aside for wildlife?
(light music)
I think COVID-19 has made all of us
aware of our deep connections to nature.
(light music)
I spent the first 17 years of my childhood
traveling to different parks across India,
watching animals firsthand.
So I got to do crazy things that most kids don't get to do.
(elephants grunting)
I learned to set up camera traps,
learned to wear receivers and track tigers.
(camera clicking)
Over the last 50 years, there's been a concerted effort
by the Indian government, by scientists,
by conservationists, to bring wildlife back.
And the price of this recovery
is the high human-wildlife conflict we see in India today.
(people shouting)
What do I mean by conflict?
It's crop loss, livestock predation, property damage,
and occasionally, even human injury and death.
(man speaking foreign language)
(car engine starts)
(light music)
My research last 10 years has taken us
to over 3000 villages across India,
where we've talked to people about human-wildlife conflict.
(woman speaking foreign language)
In the communities that we work in,
we find that women in particular,
bear the brunt of conflict losing their crops or livestock
or having a family member injured.
So I think women are affected professionally
and in their daily lives across India.
Over 80 to 100,000 incidents of human-wildlife conflict
are reported to the Indian Government.
After spending a decade researching this,
I started to get frustrated and realized
that we needed to go beyond documenting the problem
to actually solving this.
(light music)
Five years ago, we launched a Wild Seve Program.
Seve means in service of.
It is basically a toll-free number that you can call into
when you have a leopard on your roof,
a tiger in your farm.
Our field staff arrive at the scene,
help assess the damage and document the claim,
so that when it's filed in a government office
the claim is not rejected.
(man speaking foreign language)
I do believe that if you expect communities
to live alongside wildlife,
when they suffer the negative consequences,
we have to be there every single time.
(light music)
So we've been working with all of these communities,
trying to assist them in many different ways.
In 2018, I started to notice that kids
who were living in these villages,
who were actually getting to see
tigers or elephants in real life,
lived in fear of these animals or didn't care about them.
So in 2018, we launched Wile Shaale.
Shaale means school in Kannada.
It's a conservation education program
implemented in schools around wildlife reserves
across the country.
The purpose of the program
is to instill empathy for wildlife,
inspire kids to care for wildlife and wild places,
and also give them some basic safety coping mechanisms
if they're in a conflict situation.
(light music)
As the pandemic hit the world,
I realized that it wasn't enough
to talk to these communities living next to wildlife
just about human-wildlife conflict.
(woman speaking foreign language)
Deforesting, infringing into deep, remote areas,
hunting and poaching of wildlife,
all create reservoirs where there is diseases
that will jump from humans to animals
or the other way around.
COVID-19 is one, but there are many other
zoonotic diseases found in the western lands.
So we launched Wild Surakshe.
Surakshe means safety.
It's a public safety and community outreach program
that is working with frontline government staff.
To ensure that people living in close proximity to wildlife
understand why zoonotic diseases
are transmitted between wildlife and people.
And how do you keep both people
and wildlife safe for the long term?
(light music)
Going forward, I hope we are more aware
that human activities can cause long-term impacts,
not just in one place, but around the entire planet.
I think women, as scientists and as conservationists
in India and the world have come a very long way.
But despite our abilities, our passion,
our interest and our commitment,
we're still often questioned.
And I think that absolutely needs to change.
I'm incredibly hopeful for the future.
I fundamentally believe that more people
care for wildlife than ever before.
I see the power of storytelling.
I see how there are more citizen scientists
getting involved in research.
And I think a combination of this
will get more and more people to fight
to save the wildlife and wild places we all care about.
(light music)