"It made me realize why I do this," said Aamod, who was an undergraduate student studying frogs and snakes in Arunachal Pradesh then. Today, he is a research fellow at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.
A career in wildlife conservation, till recently an option that attracted only a few, is drawing students willing to venture into the wild. Both the Centre and state governments have been showing increased interest in funding wildlife research projects as have international agencies and NGOs which translates into opportunities for young environmentalists, said experts.
The sky is the limit for those who work on projects related to environment assessment and conservation action, said Ankur Patwardhan, head of the department of biodiversity at Abasaheb Garware College. "The gap between acquiring a degree and actually working on a project that gives students hands-on training is what matters," he added.
The prospect of spending her entire career inside a laboratory appeared daunting to Apoorva Sahasrabudhe when she was pursuing her B Sc. So when she was selected for a course that allowed her to spend ten days a month on the field, she grabbed it.
Her MSc dissertation was based on the conservation of sacred groves in the Western Ghats, funded by the ministry of environment and forests. She won the first prize at the national level 'Anveshan' competition organized by the Association of Indian Universities and Tata Institute of Social Science. Sahasrabudhe is now a research fellow on the same project. "For my MSc I studied just one sacred grove in Velhe village, now we shall be studying eight to ten such sites," she said.
Her senior Monali Mhaskar had always been interested in plants. A Department of Biotechnology funded project on mapping and distribution of woody species in the Western Ghats, gave her a chance to travel extensively in Koyna, Chandoli and Radhanagri.
There has been no looking back. Mhaskar was recently selected for the Centre's women scientists' programme. She will study the ecosystem services people can obtain from natural resources
The city offers courses that help students. Since it was first started in 2003, the M Sc in Biodiversity programme - the first such course in the University of Pune and perhaps the country - Patwardhan and his colleagues have been scripting success stories.
Many students are now research fellows-- some at the department itself, others in other institutes both in India and abroad. A significant number have also been placed in various NGOs while some entered academia. A small fraction has also found jobs in developing green infrastructure or eco-restoration.
"There is nothing quite like going into the wild and observing nature up close. The experience that students with field work and reports validate their applications when they apply for admissions," said Anirudh Chaoji, director of Ecologics, a city-based NGO.
For the last eight years, Ecologics has been providing undergraduate students with opportunities to participate in projects for such an experience. Chaoji said it works both ways. When students participate in projects, they develop interest and look at it as a career and to build their resumes.
"Many science graduates end up in the corporate sector. The general belief is that the only opportunities in science are either teaching in a classroom or conducting research in a laboratory. We want to take students to the field to motivate them to take up a career in conservation," he added.
Efforts have met with some success. For three successive years, every batch of the Master's programme at National Centre for Biological Sciences in Bangalore has a member from Ecologics. This year, two young ecologists trained by Chaoji have joined the Master's programme at the Wildlife Institute of India, Dehra Dun.
Patwardhan said interest was picking up. "When we started the course, there were three applications for every seat. Today, there are at least five for each of the 24 seats," he said.
Patwardhan pointed out that there are many reasons for this.
Of course there are many more opportunities today, he said. Citing a personal example, he said that when he had completed his graduation in 1995, there were fewer organizations funding research in this field.
But he also credits the influence of television channels like National Geographic and Animal Planet that has drawn young ecologists to the field.
"Today children develop an interest in conservation and believe they can create a career in this field," he said citing the example of one of the students from this year's MSc. Batch who had made his first inquiries about the course as soon as he had passed his X standard exams.
Source: http://tinyurl.com/myu8qe3
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