Belinda Wright (conservationist)

Last updated

Belinda Anne Irene Wright OBE (born 1953 in Calcutta, India) is a prominent British wild life photographer and wildlife conservationist based in India. She is the Executive Director of the Wildlife Protection Society of India (WPSI). [1]

Contents

Parents

Belinda's mother Anne Wright is a founder trustee of World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) India, which she helped set up in the late 1960s. She was a member of the Tiger Task Force that was commissioned by the late Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, to select nine tiger reserves for the launch of Project Tiger in 1973. She served for twenty-three years on the Indian Board for Wildlife and was closely involved with the passing of the Wild Life (Protection) Act. Anne has also served on the wildlife boards of nine states in North East and Central India. In the early 1980s, Anne was awarded the title of Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, or MBE, for her efforts to preserve India's environmental heritage and her conservation work with the Government of India. She is currently the chairperson of the Rhino Foundation. [2]

in 1988 Belinda's father Robert Hamilton Wright received the Officer of the Order of the British Empire or OBE for his dedicated service to British citizens in India. Bob headed the British Citizens' Association for decades and served on the board of Dr. Graham's Homes in Kalimpong in North Bengal. He spent a lot of his time working with the East India Charitable Trust, which runs old people's homes, and several charity schools and hostels. Bob was also the Chairman of a Historical Cemeteries Association and was a steward of the Royal Calcutta Turf Club for many years. Since the early 1980s, Bob's love for the wild had been nurtured by the setting-up and management of Kipling Camp. He spent time every month at the Camp. Bob Wright died on 19 April 2005. [2]

Career

Belinda has spent her entire life in India working on wildlife issues, and is one of India's leading wildlife conservationists. She works actively to increase the dialogue and communication on Indian wildlife conservation issues, especially Indian tigers.

Belinda spent her childhood in the jungles of Bihar, particularly around the area now under Palamu Tiger Reserve. She saw her first wild tiger when she was 3 months old and photographed her first wild tiger when she was 16 years old. She worked for many years with National Geographic and made films for BBC. In 1985 she won two Emmy Awards and 14 other major international awards for her National Geographic film Land of the Tiger. To make this film she spent more than two years following the secret lives of wild tigers in Kanha Tiger Reserve and Ranthambore Tiger Reserve. [3]

In 1994, she founded the Wildlife Protection Society of India (WPSI) with the aim of helping to avert India's wildlife crises by providing support and information to combat poaching and the escalating illegal wildlife trade – particularly wild tigers, for which Belinda has had a lifelong passion. In her capacity as WPSI's executive director, she travels the length and breadth of India to assist and support conservation efforts and to help enforce the law. In June 2003, Belinda followed in the footsteps of her parents and was appointed an OBE for her "services to the protection of wildlife and endangered species in India". [3]

Related Research Articles

Project Tiger is a wildlife conservation movement initiated in India to protect the endangered tiger. The project was initiated in 1973 by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change of the Government of India. As of March 2024, there are 55 protected areas that have been designated as tiger reserves under the project. As of 2023, there were 3,682 wild tigers in India, which is almost 75% of the world's wild tiger population.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bengal tiger</span> Tiger population on the Indian subcontinent

The Bengal tiger is a population of the Panthera tigris tigris subspecies and the nominate tiger subspecies. It ranks among the biggest wild cats alive today. It is considered to belong to the world's charismatic megafauna.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jim Corbett National Park</span> National park in India

Jim Corbett National Park is a national park in India located in the Nainital district of Uttarakhand state. The first national park in India, it was established in 1936 during the British Raj and named Hailey National Park after William Malcolm Hailey, a governor of the United Provinces in which it was then located. In 1956, nearly a decade after India's independence, it was renamed Corbett National Park after the hunter and naturalist Jim Corbett, who had played a leading role in its establishment and had died the year before. The park was the first to come under the Project Tiger initiative.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kenneth Anderson (writer)</span> Indian writer and hunter

Kenneth Douglas Stewart Anderson was an Indian writer and hunter who wrote books about his adventures in the jungles of South India.

Guy Mountfort was an English advertising executive, amateur ornithologist and conservationist. He is known for writing the pioneering A Field Guide to the Birds of Britain and Europe, published in 1954.

Frederick Walter Champion was a British forester, who worked in British India and East Africa. In the UK and India he became famous in the 1920's as one of the first wildlife photographers and conservationists.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sundarbans National Park</span> National park and nature reserve in West Bengal, India

The Sundarbans National Park is a national park in West Bengal, India, and core part of tiger reserve and biosphere reserve. It is part of the Sundarbans on the Ganges Delta and adjacent to the Sundarban Reserve Forest in Bangladesh. It is located to south-west of Bangladesh. The delta is densely covered by mangrove forests, and is one of the largest reserves for the Bengal tiger. It is also home to a variety of bird, reptile and invertebrate species, including the salt-water crocodile. The present Sundarban National Park was declared as the core area of Sundarban Tiger Reserve in 1973 and a wildlife sanctuary in 1977. On 4 May 1984 it was declared a national park. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site inscribed in 1987, and it has been designated as a Ramsar site since 2019. It is considered as a World Network of Biosphere Reserve from 1989.

Edward Pritchard Gee (1904–1968) was a Cambridge educated, Anglo-Indian tea-planter and an amateur naturalist in Assam, India. He is credited with the 1953 discovery of Gee's golden langur. He is notable as an early influential wildlife conservationist, especially for his 1959 and 1963 surveys and recommendations resulting in the creation of Chitwan National Park, the first of nine national parks in Nepal.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Indian leopard</span> Leopard subspecies

The Indian leopard is a subspecies of the leopard widely distributed on the Indian subcontinent. It is threatened by illegal trade of skins and body parts, and persecution due to human-leopard conflict and retaliation for livestock depredation.

<i>Sanctuary Asia</i>

Sanctuary Asia is an Indian nature and wildlife conservation magazine founded in 1981 by Bittu Sahgal, its current editor. The magazine expanded in 2015 to become established as a non-profit foundation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pench Tiger Reserve</span> Tiger Reserve in Central India

Pench Tiger Reserve or Pench National Park is one of the premier tiger reserves of India and the first one to straddle across two states - Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra. The reference to Pench is mostly to the tiger reserve in Madhya Pradesh.

Anthony Raymond Fitzjohn, OBE was a British conservationist who worked extensively with George Adamson at Kora in Africa. In recognition of his service to wildlife conservation, Fitzjohn was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 2006.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Tiger Conservation Authority</span> Indian government agency

The National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) was founded in India in December 2005, based on a recommendation put forth by the Tiger Task Force. The Prime Minister of India established the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) to streamline the management of Project Tiger and numerous Tiger Reserves of India.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bittu Sahgal</span>

Bittu Sahgal is an environmental activist, writer, and the founder of Sanctuary Nature Foundation, an Indian nonprofit conservation organization that works on environmental policy, advocacy, science, on-ground support and habitat management. He is also the founding editor of Sanctuary Asia, a wildlife and ecology magazine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wildlife Protection Society of India</span> Indian wildlife protection organisation

The Wildlife Protection Society of India (WPSI) was founded in 1994 by Belinda Wright, its Executive Director, who was an award-winning wildlife photographer and filmmaker till she took up the cause of conservation. From its inception, WPSI's main aim has been to bring a new focus to the daunting task of tackling India's growing wildlife crisis. It does this by providing support and information to government authorities to combat poaching and the escalating illegal wildlife trade - particularly in wild tigers. It has now broadened its focus to deal with human-animal conflicts and provide support for research projects.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nilgiri Wildlife and Environment Association</span> Indian NGO

Nilgiri Wildlife and Environmental Association (NWEA) is a non-governmental organization registered in Tamil Nadu, India. Their objective is to conserve the wildlife, habitat and natural resources of the Nilgiri Hills.

The Truth About Tigers is a 40-minute wildlife documentary produced by award-winning wildlife and conservation filmmaker, Shekar Dattatri. The film explains how the public can contribute towards saving the tiger.

Bahar Dutt is an Indian television journalist and environmental editor and columnist for CNN-IBN.

Saroj Raj Choudhury was an Indian environmentalist, wildlife conservationist, writer and the first Forest Conservator under the Government of Odisha. He was also the founder director of the Simlipal National Park, in the Mayurbhanj district in the Indian state of Odisha. Choudhury was known for the pugmark technique he employed for tiger census and for his comradeship with Khairi, a domesticated tigress. His experiences with the animal has been documented in a book, Khairi: The Beloved Tigress, written by him and published in 1977. The Government of India awarded him the fourth highest Indian civilian honour of Padma Shri in 1983.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yadvendradev Vikramsinh Jhala</span> Indian scientist and conservationist

Yadvendradev Vikramsinh Jhala is an Indian scientist and conservationist who recently ended his tenure as the Dean at the Wildlife Institute of India in Dehradun.

References

  1. ↑ "Belinda Wright, One-woman Tiger Team". Sanctuary Asia. April 2005. Archived from the original on 17 May 2008. Retrieved 30 March 2009.
  2. 1 2 "The Wright Family". Kipling Camp. 2008. Archived from the original on 11 April 2009. Retrieved 30 March 2009.
  3. 1 2 Bhardwaj, Ashutosh (25 January 2007). "Interview : Belinda Wright, Passion of the Tiger". Delhi: DevelopedNation.org. Archived from the original on 16 March 2008. Retrieved 30 March 2009.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.