Conservationist Shatrunjay Pratap Singh deserted a profitable profession in wine-making to struggle mining actions endangering leopard habitats in Rajasthan’s Jawai area. By his efforts, he based the Bera Safari Lodge, reworking the realm right into a protected haven for each wildlife and vacationers alike.
When you do a fast Google seek for ‘Leopard Nation’, you’ll be shocked when the outcome is just not the title of a ‘nation’ on the map, however as a substitute a small area in western Rajasthan.
The hills of Jawai within the state’s Pali district are house to a thriving inhabitants of leopards, thus incomes the realm this moniker. The ode will appear becoming as you scroll via the scenic photographs that accompany the search outcomes. The outlining caves of Jawai are an idyllic house for the wild cats.
However interspersed amongst these photos — some that showcase a leopard sitting idly, others that seize it taking a stroll — you’ll discover a couple of shocking pictures. One which caught my eye was a leopard in shut quarters with a lone man herding his cattle.
For a rustic that wakes as much as gory tales of leopards attacking and mauling unlucky people, the sight is startling. A fast analysis spree led me to find that these males had been members of the Rabari group that moved to India from Iran a thousand years in the past.
The boys are distinguished by their apparel — a purple turban worn on the top with a white shirt that’s tied in knots with strings. The look is accomplished with a floral print towel over their shoulder and footwear whose ends curl upwards. However the apparel is just not the one factor this nomadic pastoral group is known for. They’re additionally extremely regarded for his or her harmonious relationship with the indigenous leopards.
As you’ll be nicely conscious, leopard sightings and assaults have turn into more and more frequent throughout the nation. An article in The New Indian Categorical mentions that between January 2000 and December 2023, a complete of 551 deadly assaults had been recorded.
How then is the Rabari group managing to peacefully co-exist with the noticed wild cats? How do they go about their day by day affairs with out worry, in a area the place the chances of crossing paths with the animal are at an all-time excessive?
The reply lay in an article printed by Vice. Because it seems, the group reveres the leopards. Hartnaram, who’s a Rabari herdsman’s son shared, “We don’t burst firecrackers throughout Diwali and chorus from taking part in loud music even throughout wedding ceremony processions in order that it doesn’t disturb the wild cats.”
A mutual respect, he mentioned, was the recipe for the concord. And seconding this thought is a conservationist Shatrunjay Pratap Singh from Jaipur.
The decision of the wilderness
Make certain {that a} leopard won’t hurt you if you’re with a member of the Rabari group. That is their promise.
As soon as threatened to have their inhabitants depleted, the leopards now benefit from the area they’ve. And as any native will let you know it’s Singh behind this achievement. Now heading the Bera Safari Lodge, a boutique homestay within the Bera village of Jawai, Singh’s journey is just not merely certainly one of a person establishing a resort. Fairly, it’s a lesson in perseverance.
In 2013, Singh was on trip at his ancestral farmland in Pindwara, 20 km from Bera. One afternoon, whereas watching the leopards — a ardour he had developed ever since nature walks throughout his boarding college days at St Mary’s in Mount Abu — he heard a blast. “I enquired with the locals concerning the supply of the blast and learnt that the Authorities had allotted 9 mines within the space,” he shares, including that additional probing revealed 144 mines had been within the pipeline.
If these blasts and loud noises continued for mining functions, the leopards’ habitats could be destroyed.
Singh, together with a couple of locals, and with the assistance and assist of the Rajasthan Forest Division led by then DFO (Divisional Forest Officer) of Pali — IFS Balaji Kari — put their heads collectively in an try to cease this from snowballing right into a disaster. However as they’d quickly uncover, it wasn’t that simple.
Singh spent the vast majority of three years having numerous conferences with authorities officers, bureaucrats and ministers the place he satisfied the room that Jawai was the pure habitat of leopards, and that the realm housed great tourism potential. In 2014, the Authorities gave a untimely termination discover to all of the mines. The exercise was quickly discontinued.
Singh, who had give up a profitable job in winemaking to show his consideration to the matter, now had a brand new dream. He envisioned that the land that he had fought so onerous to guard would now be a protected haven for the leopards and people who cherished them.
Right this moment, the Bera Safari Lodge stands on eight acres of land and is a gold normal in how luxurious doesn’t have to be at the price of nature.
Successful story in conservation
Singh, who’s now on the helm of a profitable boutique lodge, recollects his early days of renting out a room in his driver’s house. “This was on the identical time that I used to be preventing in opposition to the mining within the space. I needed to keep on-site, so I lived with my driver who was an area in Bera.”
This was adopted by quite a lot of criticism. “Folks used to make enjoyable of me saying that I used to be residing with my driver. However somebody needed to struggle the mining mission and I used to be very enthusiastic about it. The agenda was very clear. I assumed, if no one does it, I’m doing it.”
One other remark on Singh’s half has been the perspective of the locals in the direction of the leopards. As soon as frightened about leopard assaults, he says the locals (except for the Rabari group) would poison the beasts. “However immediately, as a result of tourism mannequin in Bera, each villager is immediately or not directly related to it. Since a majority of the tourism right here is safaris to see the leopard, they perceive how vital the animal is for his or her welfare. Right this moment, people and leopards coexist.”
Singh, himself is keen on the wild cats. Calling himself a filmmaker conservationist, he lists the documentaries that he has coated that includes the wild, elaborates on a e-book ‘Leopards & Shepherds of JAWAI’ that he co-authored, and casually mentions he was the cameraman on Nationwide Geographic’s particular programme ‘Wild Cats of India’.
These stints are illustrious. However ask him what he holds most expensive to himself, and he says it’s the reminiscence of his first leopard sighting. “Her title was Zara and he or she wasn’t shy to be photographed in any respect,” he smiles. “She used to return actually shut.”
Concern was the very last thing on Singh’s thoughts. He understood the wild and it understood him again.
And it’s these learnings that he shares along with his visitors on the safari rides at Bera Safari Lodge. He urges individuals to enjoy the fantastic thing about watching leopards and people stay collectively right here however cautions that this isn’t a nationwide park. “You’ll see how great it’s,” he says including that in over many years there was zero human-animal battle.
By the years when Singh wasn’t documenting the wild cats, he was constructing his dream homestay that began with three rooms and has now grown to seven.
The stone building is a paradise and is managed by workers from the area. The produce too is sourced from the village, and thus, Singh notes how they’re a part of the economic system supporting native individuals. “Our major motto is: We don’t promote rooms, we promote experiences right here,” Singh emphasises happening so as to add that their no TV coverage is an extension of this. “We wish visitors to be exterior the room and revel in nature.”
And there’s a lot of this magnificence to be loved. Sloth bears, hyenas, chinkaras, and numerous migratory chook species are what you’ll be recognizing via your binoculars. Praise Singh on the paradise he has created and the long-lasting journey he has had, and he smiles, “It’s merely my love for the wild that bought me all the way in which right here.”
The photographs he has captured are as compelling because the journey. Listed below are a few of them:
Edited by Pranita Bhat