Dr Ruchi BADOLA

Senior Professor and Scientist G, Wildlife Institute of India

I am a Senior Professor at Wildlife Institute of India. I work on People Protected Area interface, human-wildlife conflict mitigation, valuation of ecosystem services and livelihood development. I have developed and implemented programs dealing with human dimension in wildlife conservation and institutionalized community involvement in conservation. I am coordinating Ganga Biodiversity Conservation initiative a flagship program of the Indian Government. As a part of this program, I have created a cadre of trained volunteers among local community, known as Guardians of Ganga. These people are contributing for the restoration of aquatic biodiversity and river conservation. The process of mainstreaming river conservation in planning and development processes, in a high human density area having high socio-ecological values, is ongoing. I contributed to HIMAP as CLA and Asia specific chapter, IPBES as LA. I am a member of IUCN Green List Standard Committee.