Women’s Day: How these 5 women are leading conservation efforts and fighting for a sustainable planet
On International Women’s Day, SocialStory highlights the efforts of women who are working their way towards sustainability.
Conservation is one of the key aspects of sustainability, and one step towards conservation can definitely ripple into something larger and long-lasting.
The Habitats Trust, an organisation working towards protecting habitats and their indigenous species through strategic partnerships, is focussed on the on-ground efforts and is engaging technology for conservation. The organisation’s annual initiative, called ‘The Habitats Trust Grants’, aims to provide support to multiple organisations at different levels in many aspects of conservation.
Today, a number of women-led initiatives have received these grants from the organisation. On the occasion of International Women’s Day, we bring to you the stories of such women who have taken that step towards conservation.
Trisha Ghose
Trisha Ghosh
As the Project Director of The Habitats Trust, Trisha Ghose is a part of the strategic team which shapes the trust’s activities and engagements. She has spent close to a decade working on conservation issues in India.
Over the years, she has also worked with some of India’s premier conservation organisations, including WWF-India and the Wildlife Protection Society of India. In addition, she has also worked on a slew of conservation issues including human-wildlife conflict, poaching, and illegal trafficking in wildlife parts, habitat loss and fragmentation, conservation awareness generation, and support to forest fringe communities.
Neethi Mahesh
Neethi Mahesh
The recipient of The Habitats Trust grant in ‘The Conservation Hero Grant’ category in 2019, Neethi Mahesh has been working in the Western Ghats, focusing her efforts on Riparian (land-river interface) Habitats with the endangered Mahseer fish as the flagship species.
Her project is located near river Cauvery that flows through Kodagu District (Coorg) in Karnataka. Riparian vegetation operates as a wildlife corridor, which is used by fish, birds, and mammals for dispersal, migration, and movement. It also supports the livelihoods of the local tribes, fishermen, and other locals. Mahseer fish is now on the list of endangered species, with an extremely limited range, and so conservation and restoration of this Riparian habitat is extremely crucial.
Nayantara Jain
Nayantara Jain
Nayantara Jain is the executive director ReefWatch Marine Conservation, a non-profit that was established in 1993. She also received The Habitats Trust Grant in ‘Lesser-Known Habitats Grant’ category in 2018.
Nayantara’s organisation is working towards monitoring, rehabilitating, and restoring Coral Reefs in Chidiyatapu in Andaman & Nicobar Islands. In addition, the organisation has also conducted beach clean-ups in Mumbai, SCUBA training for scientists, and education programmes in schools across the country.
Richa Priyadarshini
Richa Priyadarshini
With plastic waste becoming a growing concern, Richa Priyadarshini, Associate Professor, Department of Life Sciences, School of Natural Sciences (SoNS), Shiv Nadar University, has made a unique discovery with the help of her team. She and her team have discovered two strains of plastic-eating bacteria, which can decompose ‘polystyrene’, one of the key components in single-use plastics.
According to the team, upon coming in contact with the plastic (polystyrene), the bacteria uses it as a carbon source and creates biofilms. This further alters the physical properties of polystyrene, and initiates a process of natural degradation, releasing certain hydrolysing enzymes to break the polymer chains.
Bimlesh Lochab
Bimlesh Lochab
Another Associate Professor in the Department of Chemistry, School of Natural Sciences (SoNS), Shiv Nadar University, Bimlesh Lochab developed India’s first sustainable Lithium-Sulphur battery. Her research will aid the production of cost-effective, compact, energy-efficient, safe and environment-friendly Li-S batteries, offering an alternative to Lithium-ion batteries that are commonly used today.
The Li-S battery technology leverages principles of Green Chemistry, which incorporates by-products from the petroleum industry (Sulphur), agro-waste elements, and co-polymers such as cardanol (a by-product of cashew nut processing) and eugenol (clove oil) for the cathode. It has the potential to aid multi-billion dollar industries, including tech gadgets, drones, electric vehicles (EV), and several more that depend on such batteries.
Edited by Megha Reddy