This year the conference was held at Sawai Madhopur, Rajasthan between 23rd and 26th April 2017. This four-days conference was organised in collaboration with the Forest Department, Rajasthan. This is the third conference that was organized in India for the Rufford grantees, and the second Rufford India conference that was organised by FERAL. The previous two conferences were held in New Delhi and Bengaluru in the year 2013.
Aim of this conference was to provide a common platform for the RSG grantees from India to meet at one place and share and learn from each other’s’ conservation experiences. It also provided an opportunity for the grantees to interact with the officials from the forest department, which is the nodal agency for wildlife and forest management in India and learn on ground conservation challenges and opportunities from them. The conference was attended by 32 Rufford grantees working across India. In addition to Rufford grantees we had 20 officials and researchers working with Rajasthan Forest Department. The grant recipients presented their work as oral presentations or as posters. We also introduced a new session where grantees presented their work as short video documentaries and lead a panel discussion.
Dr. Ravinder Singh Bhalla (Sr. Doctoral Fellow, FERAL) welcomed all the participants and the representatives of the Rajasthan Forest Department and The Rufford Foundation. He emphasised on the role played by the RSG in the careers of young researchers and the importance of RSG conference.
Apart from presentations from grant recipients, the conference included talks by Dr. G. V. Reddy, Chief Wildlife Warden, Rajasthan Forest Department, Mr. Valmik Thapar, Ranthambhore Foundation, New Delhi, Dr. Jagdish Krishnaswamy, Convenor and Senior Fellow, Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE), Bengaluru, and Dr. Meena Venkataraman, Carnivore Conservation and Research, Mumbai.