The Researcher
Every species documented is a species with a name, a place and a future we can defend.
Research, for me, begins where the road ends. My laboratory is the Devarayanadurga State Forest — its slopes, its seasonal streams, its sacred vanas and the hundreds of lives that move through them.
The Centre for Wildlife Conservation & Research runs systematic surveys and documentation projects approved by the Karnataka Forest Department, building one of the most complete pictures of this forest's biodiversity.
The Numbers on the Ground
The surveys have so far documented more than five hundred plant species, over two hundred bird species and forty-five mammal species — and the count keeps growing with every season. Each species is recorded with its habitat, distribution and role in the forest's web.
This work has produced more than one hundred and twenty research papers, contributing new knowledge on the flora and fauna of Devarayanadurga to the scientific record.
Flora, Fauna & Ecosystems
Flora surveys document plant species and medicinal herbs — many of them the very plants the Rasashala and Ayurvedic traditions of our lineage depend upon. Fauna tracking monitors wildlife patterns and habitats: leopards, sloth bears and their prey moving through human-dominated landscapes.
Ecosystem analysis studies the interconnections between forest life — not as a catalogue, but as a living system whose health is our health.
From Data to Action
Research is only half the work; the other half is what it moves. Our findings inform conservation decisions, community outreach and coexistence strategies — so the numbers in our papers become fences for corridors, awareness for villages and safety for animals.
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A forest is not a catalogue. It is a living system whose health is our health.
Raghunandan S.