5th Feb., 2019


Mangrove ecosystem conservationist Anil Mistry could have tread the path his predecessors and peers had taken. A path that led to chopping off forests and killing animals for fast cash, as floods ravaged his island home in the Indian Sundarbans.

But an encounter with a dying doe changed his heart.

“Since my childhood, I was aware that this area was associated with poaching and illegal cutting of trees. There was no progress [development] in the village. Floods ravaged our village. Automatically we took to poaching. Usually, we went for the deer and if we spotted a tiger then we got it too,” Mistry told Mongabay-India in a candid chat in Bali island village in the Sundarbans.

“Once on a hunt, my friend killed a doe and her fawn was around her. The doe was wounded and was crying (in pain). It died. This encounter left me distraught with grief,” the 52-year-old Mistry recalled the incident from two decades ago.

Read full story here