Ullas Karanth's daughter gets Nat Geo grant

Bangalore, December 11: Krithi K Karanth, a conservation biologist and daughter of noted wildlife biologist Ullas Karanth, has received National Geographic's 10,000th grant.

Krithi Karanth works on human dimensions of conservation, such as human-wildlife conflicts, land use change and people-park relationships. With the National Geographic grant, she will assess human-wildlife conflicts in five parks of India's Western Ghats.

The project aims to identify and map risks for people and the implications of conflict-prone wildlife such as elephants, wild pigs, leopards and tigers.

India's rich wildlife has dwindled over the past century and continues to be threatened by habitat destruction, prey depletion, poaching and the global wildlife trade.

“The decline of species are so dramatic, widespread and so recent,” Karanth said. She said despite changes in land use and density of population, some species survive due to human tolerance, in many parts of India. “This cultural tolerance must be harnessed,” she added.

National Geographic, which began funding the studies since 1890, with a single grant to explore the uncharted Mount St Elias region of Alaska, has been since then extended to several programmes, including excavation of the lost Inca city of Machu Picchu by archaeologist Hiram Bingham; Jane Goodall's ground breaking study of wild chimpanzees; the pioneering exploration of the deep sea by Jacques-Yves Cousteau and many others.

The grants are given primarily for studies in anthropology, archaeology, biology, ecology, geology, geography, oceanography and paleontology.