2025 Prize Winner Dr. Krithi K. Karanth Featured in Grist
Conflicts between people and wildlife are rising as habitats shrink and fragment. McNulty Prize Winner Dr. Krithi K. Karanth is working to change that. Through Centre for Wildlife Studies, she is reconnecting habitats and creating safer conditions for both communities and endangered species. Read the introductory excerpt below and learn more on Grist:
"When Krithi Karanth walks into a forest village in the shadow of India’s Bandipur National Park, she is often greeted by farmers with cell phones in hand — ready to report video of a night-time encounter with an elephant herd, or the fresh tracks of a leopard that passed behind their homes.
They are dispatches from the frontlines of some of the world’s most intense wildlife interactions. In the rolling green hills of India’s Western Ghats, survival depends on co-existing with high-density populations of some of the planet’s most imperiled species. That can come at a cost: Wild elephant herds can damage valuable banana plants, and tigers can turn up unexpectedly in sugarcane fields — threatening livestock and sometimes lives.
For farmers like Shankarappa in the region’s Naganapura village, these interactions often prompted fear. His family’s land lies just over half a mile away from Bandipur National Park, one of the last harbors of Asian elephants. “They’ve created a lot of issues,” he said.
Though global biodiversity is rapidly diminishing, many of the communities who live closest to nature are often left out of solutions. In many rural Indian regions, animals’ habitats are shrinking due to expanding agriculture and logging in forests. That’s forced villagers into closer contact with wildlife, often with devastating results. Karanth says the way forward is transforming how farmers perceive wildlife and empowering them to cope with the animals moving through their fields.
The CEO at the Centre for Wildlife Studies, a nonprofit research organization based in India, Karanth grew up among the same forests where she now conducts research and implements conservation programs. Her father is wildlife ecologist Ullas Karanth, one of the world’s leading tiger biologists. “I spent much of my childhood outdoors, watching wildlife and exploring forests,” she recalled. That early connection with nature has shaped her approach to conservation."