This week I'm in conversation with the unlikely but effective partnership of Sunil Harsana and Nitesh Kaushik, both part of the 2022 cohort of the Coexistence Fellowship.

Sunil is a homegrown conservationist from Mangar Bani who has spent over a decade of his life preserving the floral and faunal diversity in the (NCR)-Aravallis region, the last remaining natural forest of this landscape. He has also worked extensively to spread awareness among the Mangar Bani community and, during his work, has even unearthed evidence of a pre-historic civilisation in this area! He has a burning, deep focus with his work, where there has never been a distinction between the personal and professional - it is all just his life.

Nitesh, complementarily, is a young and upcoming conservationist with big dreams who completed her Master's in Biodiversity and Conservation from Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, kickstarting her career by contributing to a baseline study of flora through ethnobotanical tools in the Damdama Biodiversity Park, in Haryana. Her main interests lie in understanding the relationship between humans and nature, which further found its footing through the Fellowship.

Sunil and Nitesh are now working in the Aravallis of south Haryana, an important leopard corridor, between the Sariska Wildlife Sanctuary, in Rajasthan, and the Asola Bhatti Wildlife Sanctuary, in Delhi. Their project focused on understanding mammal diversity and their ecologies in this landscape, and enhancing human-leopard coexistence in the area. After some rocky beginnings, that you will hear more about in this episode, they are now thick as thieves and continue to collaborate towards common conservation goals in this landscape.

Here it is now, The Thing About Finding Common Ground with Sunil and Nitesh from the Coexistence Fellowship.