How the Titli Trust is protecting 'lesser' creatures such as butterflies

A workable formula for wildlife conservation might lie in pulling in locals to save their own environment, feels Sanjay Sondhi of Titli Trust

In August 2018, Goran Dusej, 60, and two of his colleagues from Switzerland made an unusual trip to India. Dusej and Co came from halfway across the world for a rather specific purpose: to visit the Eaglenest Wildlife Sanctuary in Arunachal Pradesh to see Bhutanitis ludlowi, aka Ludlow’s Bhutan Glory. If the locals thought making a long and expensive trip to spot a butterfly amusing, they didn’t let on.
 
The rare butterfly species, endemic to Bhutan and that country’s “national butterfly”, was first spotted in India by Sanjay Sondhi of Dehradun-based Titli Trust. Within months of the discovery and