This Maharashtrian NGO is ensuring local communities become its guardians

Today, even though the pangolin is listed under Schedule 1 of the Wildlife (Protection) Act of 1972, it is being hunted, poached and eaten to extinction

Known as the guardian of the forest, this secretive mammal is found across the Indian subcontinent. Today, even though the pangolin — better known as the scaly anteater — is listed under Schedule 1 of the Wildlife (Protection) Act of 1972, it is being hunted, poached and eaten to extinction. Traffic, an international wildlife trade monitoring network, has estimated that during the period 2009–2017, only 5,772 poached/illegally traded pangolins were intercepted. Wildlife experts believe that these estimates are wildly conservative because pangolins are the most illegally trafficked mammal species in the world. Poached and sold in China and Southeast Asia, their meat and scales are believed to have medicinal value. At a time when keystone species like tigers and elephants are being threatened by poaching, habitat loss and environment degradation, the conservation of these lesser-known mammals would have easily taken a backseat but for the efforts of Maharashtra-based Sahyadri Nisarga Mitra (SNM). The NGO has been working for the past three years along the Konkan Coast to generate awareness about pangolin conservation.
 
“When we started working with communities in Ratnagiri district, most villagers didn’t even know that pangolins are a Schedule 1 species and entitled to the same protection as the tiger,” says Vishwas Katdare, SNM’s president. Poaching had provided them with a viable livelihood for generations. “We realised that pangolin conservation would have to begin with changing the attitudes of the local community first,” he says.
 

To do this, SNM first set up cameras in collaboration with the forest department to identify pangolin habitats in the Konkan belt. Then it initiated workshops for department employees and other stakeholders to sensitise them about this rare mammal, and also teach them to identify their poached body parts. Additionally, SNM developed a network of associates in villages near pangolin habitats, who regularly provide information about pangolin activity in the area. It targeted school and college students next. Through a series of community activities, workshops and festivals, Katdare and his associates built an entire narrative around pangolins in an effort to convert villagers into committed stakeholders.”These activities have fostered the idea that the well being of the locals and their environment are crucially interlinked,” he says. “One can’t exist without the other.”
 
The results have been visible. In 2018, of the nine pangolins intercepted from poachers, five were because of the information provided by villagers. In the years ahead, Katdare believes that developing pangolin-centred livelihoods could accelerate their conservation effort. “We have already trained five local youths as nature guides and have developed two homestays in villages that earlier used to make a living from poaching,” he says. “Our plan is to spread across Ratnagiri district over the next three years and then across Maharashtra.”
 
In addition to pangolins, SNM has also been working on conserving other lesser-known species of birds and sea turtles along the Konkan coast, spending close to Rs 80 lakh annually on these activities. This year, it has been awarded a grant of Rs 10 lakh by The Habitats Trust for pangolin conservation. Katdare plans to focus more and more on changing community attitudes towards pangolins and their environment as a whole. “Our experience shows us that the only way to ensure the success and longevity of any conservation programme,” he says, “is for the local community to lead the way.”
 

For more information, see www.snmcpn.org or follow them on Facebook. Their Twitter handle is @MitraNisarga