Conservationist Shatrunjay Pratap Singh deserted a profitable profession in wine-making to battle mining actions endangering leopard habitats in Rajasthan’s Jawai area. By means of his efforts, he based the Bera Safari Lodge, remodeling the world right into a secure haven for each wildlife and vacationers alike.
Should you do a fast Google seek for ‘Leopard Nation’, you’ll be stunned when the outcome will not be 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 residence to a thriving inhabitants of leopards, thus incomes the world this moniker. The ode will appear becoming as you scroll by way of the scenic pictures that accompany the search outcomes. The outlining caves of Jawai are an idyllic residence for the wild cats.
However interspersed amongst these footage — some that showcase a leopard sitting idly, others that seize it taking a stroll — you’ll discover just a few shocking photographs. 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 pink 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 sneakers whose ends curl upwards. However the apparel will not be 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 develop into more and more widespread 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 percentages 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 stated, was the recipe for the concord. And seconding this thought is a conservationist Shatrunjay Pratap Singh from Jaipur.
The decision of the wilderness
Make sure {that a} leopard is not going to 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 inform you it’s Singh behind this achievement. Now heading the Bera Safari Lodge, a boutique homestay within the Bera village of Jawai, Singh’s journey will not be merely one in all a person organising a resort. Quite, 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 faculty 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 just a few locals, and with the assistance and help of the Rajasthan Forest Division led by then DFO (Divisional Forest Officer) of Pali — IFS Balaji Kari — put their heads collectively in an try and cease this from snowballing right into a disaster. However as they’d quickly uncover, it wasn’t that straightforward.
Singh spent nearly all 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 world housed large 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 secure haven for the leopards and those that liked them.
In the present day, the Bera Safari Lodge stands on eight acres of land and is a gold customary 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 residence. “This was on the similar time that I used to be combating in opposition to the mining within the space. I needed to keep on-site, so I lived with my driver who was a neighborhood in Bera.”
This was adopted by a whole lot of criticism. “Folks used to make enjoyable of me saying that I used to be dwelling with my driver. However somebody needed to battle the mining undertaking and I used to be very obsessed with it. The agenda was very clear. I believed, if no one does it, I’m doing it.”
One other remark on Singh’s half has been the angle of the locals in direction of the leopards. As soon as frightened about leopard assaults, he says the locals (apart from the Rabari group) would poison the beasts. “However as we speak, because of the 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. In the present day, people and leopards coexist.”
Singh, himself is keen on the wild cats. Calling himself a filmmaker conservationist, he lists the documentaries that he has lined that includes the wild, elaborates on a guide ‘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 pricey 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 come back 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 together with his visitors on the safari rides at Bera Safari Lodge. He urges individuals to enjoy the great thing about watching leopards and people stay collectively right here however cautions that this isn’t a nationwide park. “You’ll see how fantastic it’s,” he says including that in over many years there was zero human-animal battle.
By means of 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 development 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 predominant 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 would like 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 hen species are what you’ll be recognizing by way of your binoculars. Praise Singh on the paradise he has created and the enduring journey he has had, and he smiles, “It’s merely my love for the wild that received me all the best way right here.”
The photographs he has captured are as compelling because the journey. Listed here are a few of them:
Edited by Pranita Bhat
