CONSERVATION | Aditya Panda Safaris

CONSERVATION

Wildlife conservation is at the very core of everything Aditya does. He is deeply committed to conservation as his life's mission.

Aditya has been one of the most vocal advocates for the conservation of India’s wildlife and wildlife habitats, especially in his home state of Odisha. Actively involved in wildlife conservation early in his life, Aditya has played a crucial role in highlighting the plight of Odisha’s wildlife, particularly that of its tiger and elephant landscapes over the past one and a half decades. This has allowed him to amass remarkable experience and repute from an early age and given him a deep and intricate understanding of wildlife conservation issues.

He coordinates and works closely with like-minded conservationists, naturalists, scientists, forest officers and others to help return health to Odisha’s tiger habitats.

He focuses not just on protected areas such as the Satkosia and Similipal tiger reserves but also in identifying and preserving the integrity of larger tiger and elephant landscapes. He believes that the vastness and high levels of contiguity of these landscapes in Odisha key to the survival of tigers here.

His rich experience and close understanding of the wildlife of Odisha along with the deep understanding of natural history that he has gained over thousands of hours spent over years of observing India’s large mammals in their wild state enable him to formulate and advocate pragmatic policies and solutions to Odisha’s wildlife conservation issues.

Aditya strongly believes that the right kind of ecotourism policies and practices can cause a turnaround in Odisha’s wildlife conservation challenges. They can play a transformational role in bringing communities living in and around wildlife habitats into a positive relationship with conflict prone species like tigers and elephants and significantly improve community relationships with the Forest Department and district administrations. With his wide exposure to best wildlife tourism practices across India, Aditya believes it is time to implement these in Odisha. He believes that well regulated, carefully planned and implemented ecotourism can not only reduce animosity between communities and wildlife, it has immense potential to pull lakhs out of poverty with its capacity for generating large scale livelihood and employment avenues for marginalised people in Odisha’s poorest districts. This is especially significant in current times of climate change, agricultural failure and depleting natural habitats.

As an internationally trained naturalist and wildlife expedition leader, Aditya currently works as a freelance safari operator and leads world-class privately guided luxury safari expeditions across India. He is professionally engaged Expedition Leader with Natural Habitat Adventures, USA, (rated one of the top ten wildlife travel companies in the world) and leads their India expeditions. He also leads expeditions for Nature Trek (UK), AndBeyond (South Africa) and also his own enterprise. This allows him to travel extensively to India’s finest wilderness areas and spend countless hours tracking and observing a rich diversity of wildlife including most of the subcontinent’s mega-fauna. At the same time, it allows him to educate wilderness travellers and visitors from across the world about the natural history of India and the conservation issues faced by the country.

Highlights

As an award winning wildlife conservationist and naturalist, Aditya has served the cause of wildlife conservation actively over the past nearly 15 years.
As deputy editor of TigerLink magazine (2009-15), he was involved in researching, editing and analysing tiger conservation related news, policies, legislation and scientific publications that enabled him to gain a thorough understanding of conservation legislation and policy implementation in India. He worked here under the guidance of Shri PK Sen (IFS, Retd., Former Director, Project Tiger & Member, National Tiger Conservation Authority) and Ms Prerna Singh Bindra (Former Member, Standing Committee, National Board for Wildlife & State Board for Wildlife, Uttarakhand).
He has been actively working for the conservation of tigers, elephants and their habitat landscapes in Odisha, particularly the Satkosia Tiger Reserve landscape, through continuous advocacy, engagement with stakeholders including the Forest Department since 2006.
He has also been engaged in conservation activities in other tiger landscapes of the state, including Similipal, where he has helped bring attention across various media, nationally and internationally, to the needs and benefits of successful voluntary relocation of villages from the core area, highlighting the success of this conservation landmark in the reserve and helping counter negative narratives against it by biased parties that have hindered conservation efforts.
He has also trained people from the local communities around Similipal in eco-guiding (2011) to help them earn an alternate livelihood, complementing the conservation initiatives in the tiger reserve.
Since 2012 in the Athgarh Forest Division he has helped support temporary Forest staff (elephant trackers) by raising funds to provide all such staff in the entire division with uniforms, winter clothing, raincoats, boots, spotlights and other equipment to boost their morale and help them perform their duties more effectively, in greater comfort and safety.
To encourage them to work hard despite severe difficulties they face—including, but not limited to antagonism from their own communities—he nominated elephant tracker Panchanan Nayak of the division for a national award by media house NDTV at Delhi and receive national acclaim and financial rewards for himself and his fellow elephant trackers in 2015.
He has helped raise the issue of acute human-elephant conflict in the state, especially the Chandaka-Athgarh Forest Division landscape, through the Giant Refugees Campaign that brought international attention to the issue and involved noted Indian celebrities, politicians, wildlife conservationists, media and others in bringing attention to this issue.
As an expert in wildlife tourism best practices, he has been working with the State Wildlife Wing to help introduce quality conservation tourism into the state, shape ecotourism policy and nurture a large, sustainable and mass employment generating wildlife tourism industry that will serve as a most effective tool for wildlife conservation. It will also encourage a sustainable industry for economic upliftment of people in the remotest parts of Odisha.
He has worked closely with the conservation initiatives in Mangalajodi, Chilika, to help nurture the now famous conservation and ecotourism model in place where former bird poachers have been engaged in conservation and alternate livelihood through tourism. His work there includes counselling the reformed poachers, training them in eco-guiding, hospitality and ornithology, besides producing material for their tourist interpretation centre, publicising Mangalajodi as a destination to birdwatchers across the world, etc.
In his capacity as a wildlife photographer, he has worked as a key member of the filming team that created the first international standard natural history and conservation film on Chilika Lake, “Chilika: The Jewel of Odisha”. Presently, he is working on a similar film to bring attention to and showcase the wildlife of Chandaka-Dampada Wildlife Sanctuary.
Aditya has authored several articles on wildlife conservation and is a widely published wildlife photographer. He has co-authored and edited a book ‘Ecotourism—A Biodiversity Management Initiative of OFSDP’. He has also edited publications of the Odisha Biodiversity Board.
He has been tasked by the Wildlife Wing, Dept. of Environment, Forests & Climate Change, Govt. of Odisha, to train frontline forest personnel of the state in detecting and monitoring leopards.

Besides these few notable mentions, he has constantly been advocating for, raising key issues and working with policy makers and the public for constructive outreach to help preserve and revive Odisha’s tiger and elephant landscapes. At the same time, he has constantly been engaged in seeking greater support of governments and society at large for the Forest Department and its frontline staff.

He has been widely acknowledged for his efforts towards wildlife conservation and was honoured with the ABN-AMRO – Sanctuary Asia Young Naturalist Award at the young age of 21 in 2007. Subsequently he was awarded the Carl Zeiss Wildlife Conservation Award in 2010.

His high credibility as a wildlife conservationist has been rewarded by the Government of Odisha appointing him as an honorary wildlife warden of the Department of Environment, Forests & Climate Change. This allows him to serve as a catalyst between the public and the government, advise the government on conservation matters and empowers him with legal authority to search, seize and arrest in order to prevent wildlife crime. He serves as Honorary Wildlife Warden of Angul District, home to his beloved Satkosia Tiger Reserve and Mahanadi Elephant Reserve.