Threats to unique forests and mangroves of Andhra Pradesh not talked about often: Conservationist

Bengaluru: Thirty-year-old wildlife photographer and conservationist Srikanth Mannepuri says he walked into his profession quite serendipitously. His school in coastal Kakinada was near Olive Ridley nesting project sites. He says one day he dropped by one of them out of curiosity and knew instantly he wanted to be a conservationist.

“I guess my family, my mum particularly, saw it coming too. As a young boy, it was not pictures of fancy cars or bikes that got my attention. I was more fascinated by the poster of a lion sitting majestically in the grassland that hung in our house. Later, I got into Discovery Channel's wildlife documentaries, spent my free time watching them,” says Mannepuri.

Serendipitously or not, the award-winning photographer knows exactly what he wants to do with his camera. He wants to bring to the world’s attention not only the beauty of Andhra Pradesh’s natural heritage, but also the threats faced by it.

“When I was considering taking up wildlife photography and conservation as a profession, I was advised by many to go to forests and wildlife sanctuaries like Jim Corbett, Ranthambore and Bandipur. Nobody talked about Andhra Pradesh. So, I decided to document the hitherto unexplored forests and mangroves here,” says Mannepuri.

His meticulous documentation of various threats to the state's natural ecosystem soon started winning awards – both inside and outside India.

Mannepuri is a recipient of the "highly commended award" in the ocean category at the 58th London-based Natural History Museum’s wildlife photography competition in 2022 -- considered the Oscars of nature and wildlife photography.

His latest is the grand prize of Nature in Focus (NIF) Awards, the photographer of the year (2023), considered one of the Holy Grails for wildlife photographers in India. Incidentally, Srikanth has been winning Nature in Focus awards in conservation category since 2021 -- four awards so far.

In all, he says he has won 14 awards in the last five years.

Like most of his pictures, this year’s NIF award-winning series, 'Disappearing Guardians', too, was shot using drones, thus giving us an instant understanding of the magnitude and the scale of threats to the unique mangrove forests of coastal Andhra Pradesh.

According to Kalyan Varma, the co-founder of NIF, when they started the awards in 2014, many were shooting with the singular goal of capturing that one stunning portrait or unique behaviour.

“But these days more and more participants are experimenting with new technology like drones and camera traps to pursue meaningful, long-term environmental documentation that has the potential to bring about real change,” says Varma.

Long-term environmental documentation, says Mannepuri, is his area of expertise. “For instance, my interest in mangroves started way back in 2014, while I was still a biotechnology student. Once a forest official was giving a guest lecture and I approached him and asked for volunteering opportunities. That is how my journey began.

"I worked as an intern on a camera trapping project in the mangroves of River Godavari. Every day, I used to go and install camera traps,” adds Mannepuri.

Initially, Mannepuri says he was more into writing research articles using the data he collected of the species trapped by cameras. “I used to write a lot about animal behaviour, especially of fishing cats. A lot of migratory birds also visit this particular area, so I wrote about them too,” adds Mannepuri.

But it did not take him long to understand that pictures were far more powerful a medium when it comes to talking about dwindling wildlife.

"You see, if you want to stop the incessant deforestation or poaching, it is important to communicate to locals. At one point, I realised that locals had no access to all those research articles that I wrote. So, I started documenting my projects as videos and photos instead and showed them so that they can understand how cool these animals are too,” says Mannepuri.

It is for the same reason, Mannepuri says, he left his post graduation in zoology midway. “I did that for a year and then suddenly I felt like classroom sessions are not working for me anymore. So, I wrote to the US-based Fishing Cat Conservancy, which was doing a lot of work in my region to create conservation-based livelihoods to ensure ecological and economic sustainability, and said I wanted to join them.

"They took me in and I worked with them for two years, learning a lot about wildlife conservation and biodiversity,” says Mannepuri.

Armed with that knowledge, as well as seeing how well people reacted to the multi-media documentation, Mannepuri says he started to explore more sophisticated technology – like drones – to get across his point.

“I also started to travel to other parts of Andhra Pradesh, from the mudflats of Kakinada and grasslands of Kurnool to all different sanctuaries and national parks, documenting everything I could,” adds Mannepuri.

Incidentally, he won the Natural History Museum’s wildlife photography competition in 2022 for his in-depth documentation of overfishing in coastal Andhra Pradesh.

“The particular image that won the award was titled ‘Just One Day’s Catch’. It was a happy-sad moment for me, because it was a picture that was quite heartrending. It captured the harsh ground reality of the overfishing of swordfish,” says Mannepuri.

For someone who never left the shores of Andhra Pradesh till his mid-20s – it was only in late 2018, he started exploring forests in other states, beginning with Karnataka – Mannepuri says he travels a lot these days, giving lecture-demonstrations of his work.

Next on his list-to-do is a full-fledged film on natural history and conservation of wildlife in Andhra Pradesh. “I will start shooting as soon as I get a permit from the wildlife department. The one-hour film will showcase Andhra Pradesh’s biodiversity, its beautiful landscapes and the challenges wildlife are facing. It will also talk about solutions,” says Mannepuri.