Nature warrior

BACHI SINGH BISHT is a Nature Warrior from the north of India. Here, he shares his wisdom with RAJESH MENON about how we can live in tune with the natural world, and what is our role in caring for and conserving nature.

Q: Tell us about how your passion for nature and conservation arose. Did it start from childhood?

RM: My mother told me that we used to live in a hut under a Gutel tree (Trewia Nudiflora). That’s where I was born. I was brought up in a village surrounded by thick jungle. Until the 10th Standard, I went to a school located at the edge of the jungle near an ancient canal. I feel these natural surroundings had a great impact on me during my childhood. This is how my love for nature arose.

Q: Tell us about the work you do now?

RM: I became a nature guide, or “Nature Warrior” as my friends call me, in the early ’90s. I have managed wildlife lodges across Uttarakhand, Central India, Maharashtra and Rajasthan, sharing my knowledge of birds, wildlife, and the conservation of nature with others. Whenever opportunity presents itself, I am called by wildlife training institutes and environmental education institutes (both government and private) as a resource person, trainer, motivator, subject expert, and as a Yoga instructor based on nature therapy. Right now, I work as a freelance Nature Warrior and provide services wherever my inner self takes me in preserving nature.

Q: How do you advise that we educate our children about caring for the planet and relating to all living species?

RM: Using our five senses properly, sincerely and honestly. The most important is to use our moral and civic sense properly to avoid much of the nonsense going on around the world toward nature. Being honest to one’s own inner self will improve our inner connection with nature. Being disciplined and adhering to moral values in every single act of our daily lives will make us better human beings. Keeping ourselves sensitive to all beings will keep us responsible and humble towards nature.

Q: What advice can you give to adults about social responsibility toward nature?

RM: Keeping a mental, physical and moral balance, respecting women and the elderly, and love and care for young ones will go a long way. Every human being is made up of the five elements: earth, water, air, fire and sky. As adults, we have to have the right understanding of the true meaning of all these five elements and value them at the minutest level.

Q: Tell us about Jim Corbett National Park. Are there enough places like this in India to act as a refuge for natural wildlife? What more can we do?

RM: Jim Corbett National Park is one of the oldest in Asia, and the biodiversity here is unmatched. Here, the tiger has one of the highest density populations in the Indian subcontinent. India has more than fifty tiger reserves now, and tiger conservation projects contribute toward their increasing numbers.

Our responsibility as individuals and the collective society is to conserve nature. Rather than talking and writing, we need to act. Here and now.

Interviewed & photography by RAJESH MENON