On 29th September, attendees in the Forum building on the Wageningen University & Research campus were traded to an hour-long presentation including a Q&A session by Vasudha Mishra of the Human & Environmental Alliance League (HEAL).

Vasudha, who is based in West Bengal, India, began her presentation by sharing a moving experience she had, witnessing the murmurations of thousands of small larks. However, joy soon turned to sadness as she discovered that tens of thousands of these migratory songbirds are killed every winter by poachers for their meat. A delicacy. As these birds were protected by Indian law, she knew that she and her organisation had to step in and help.

During the presentation, Vasudha detailed the steps her organisation took to put a stop to poaching activity in several districts across West Bengal. This included raising public awareness in villages that illegal activities were taking place in their community, organising field teams to look for and break up the mist nets used to catch the birds, and setting up multi-stakeholder committees with various legal and enforcement agencies in order to make stopping the poachers a enforcement priority. Vasudha shared the great news that due to this initiative, thousands of birds were directly saved from capture, and hundreds of thousands of birds were indirectly saved by destroying nets before they could be caught. Many of these birds were saved by the villagers themselves, who after learning of poaching activity occurring in their backyards were eager to help put a stop to it. 

At the end of her presentation, Vasudha shared the lesson that sometimes all it takes is a little initiative in order to bring local communities from apathy to the side of conservation.

Thank you all for joining this inspiring and insightful event! 💚