Dear readers,
Sanctuary’s Mud on Boots Project was established in 2017 to identify and empower India’s grassroots wildlife conservationists and provide them with a platform to grow their work. Since then, our homegrown project has evolved to be a robust programme that supports a diversity of grassroots wildlife and community conservationists across 14 states in India.
A snow leopard in its natural habitat in Spiti, Himachal Pradesh. Photo: Shiv Kumar
In the past year alone, such conservationists supported by Sanctuary have planted indigenous saplings to rewild abandoned lands in Himachal Pradesh; organised sterilisation camps for stray dogs to protect high altitude wildlife in Ladakh; trekked in the high reaches of Arunachal Pradesh to lay camera traps that have documented snow leopards; built a community-owned and operated solar fence to protect fields in West Bengal while coexisting with wild animals; and rescued dozens of injured desert wildlife in the Pokhran region of Rajasthan. Beyond this, the project has also extended support to myriad other grassroots organisations and individuals - sending dozens of books to rural schools, facilitating support to human-elephant coexistence ventures in Nuxalbari, lobbying for the release of delayed wages to forest staff, advising conservation campaigns, and freely sharing resources of every variety in the spirit of conservation, community and collaboration.
Mud on Boots Project Leader Marina Juliet handling a snake. Photo: Vivek Gandhi
Though we have worked steadily through the pandemic, our fundraising efforts have not been even nearly at par with the work we enable, guide and support. In March, we aim to change this by raising 30 lakh rupees for the Mud on Boots Project. We will raise exactly half of this amount via a dedicated 20-day crowdfunding campaign!
We need not reiterate that the most existential crises of our world - climate chaos, pandemics, and mass extinctions - are a direct result of our disrespect towards Nature. But it is also true that each one of us has a choice, perhaps even a duty, to engage with and bolster the work of those mud-on-the-boots heroes who work relentlessly to study, protect and regenerate our magical blue planet.
To borrow a few lines from the late Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and naturalist Mary Oliver:
“Love yourself. Then forget it.
Then, love the world.”
So join us in loving our breathtakingly diverse world by supporting the Mud on Boots Project!
Love,
The Sanctuary Family
Note: Contributions of any amount are appreciated and all donations are eligible for tax deduction under Section 80G of the Income Tax Act. You can learn more about the Mud on Boots Project here.
