Dolphin conservationist Puja Mitra’s clarion call came not from a dolphin, but from another intelligent and expressive mammal, an elephant. Menaka was a captive female elephant who had spent the larger part of her 17-year life under a flyover near Yeshwantpur Circle in Bangalore. As part of the organisation that rescued her, Puja was there when she was brought to a campus and unshackled for the first time in her adult life. “She let out such a trumpet when the chains were removed, it was unforgettable,” she reminisces. It was the turning point for Puja, who at the time was volunteering with the Wildlife Rescue and Rehabilitation Centre, that worked with rescued wildlife from urban and rural areas around Bangalore. Puja also recalls Menaka’s emotions during her first interaction with another of her species after decades, a young calf and its mother. “The mother and Menaka were twining trunks, vocalising, and there was just so much emotion in that moment,” she recalls.
In 2007, Puja experienced a different dimension while working on the Assam Haathi Project. She saw the human perspective of sharing space with wild elephants. In the eco-sensitive region of Upper Assam, both elephants and the farming community face losses when elephants raid their paddy fields. “I watched an old man trying to fend off elephants from his handkerchief-sized field and witnessed what we in cities can only imagine,” she remarks. By the end of her time in Assam, she knew her calling lay in conservation. Whether in rural Assam or in Karnataka or Goa, she says, people are very much a part of the landscape and share a close relationship with their environment. In Goa, even today, you can watch people casually parking their two-wheeler en route home after a workday, nonchalantly pulling out a fishing rod and fishing by the bridge. “Working in conservation is as much about working with people as it is about working with wildlife.”
Cover photo: When she’s not at sea, Puja is mother to three dogs, who rule her life. Cover photo courtesy: Puja Mitra
Puja’s path ultimately led her to another intelligent mammal — a marine one — the dolphin, and on to the broader field of marine conservation. Today, as one of the founders of the conservation-oriented social enterprise Terra Conscious in North Goa, Puja and her team work towards highlighting Goa’s biodiversity and redefining how we can interact with it. With a focus on marine and coastal conservation outreach, Terra Conscious works to build responsible tourism avenues for local communities. Its aim is to address the interests of boat operators as well as tourists and create an inclusive and sustainable plan to protect marine life. A conservation practitioner and a Commonwealth Scholar with an MSc in Biodiversity, Conservation and Management from the University of Oxford, Puja has a wealth of experience with local communities and addressing issues of livelihood development and wildlife conservation.
Puja’s tryst with dolphins began when she was with the Federation of Indian Animal Protection Organisations (FIAPO), India’s apex national animal protection agency. There, as Campaign Manager, she ran a campaign to keep captive dolphins out of India. In India, conversations about wildlife frequently revolve around terrestrial biodiversity and animals like tigers and elephants. In spite of having a coastline of over 7,500 kilometres teeming with marine biodiversity, the importance of coastal wellbeing has not received sufficient attention. While dolphins and whales are protected under Schedule 1 of the Wildlife Protection Act, for many of us living away from coastal regions, there is often a disconnect from our oceans and the life they sustain. Puja concurs. “I remember calling a print journalist in Lucknow during the dolphinarium campaign and he asked me why he needed to write about dolphins when he was based in landlocked Lucknow,” she says. “By the end of the call, I had managed to convince him – and myself.”
“This incident helped me realise how little we all knew about marine mammals,” she continues. Quoting leading global studies on the intelligence of cetaceans (whales, dolphins, porpoises) FIAPO built their campaign to create awareness about dolphins and their wellbeing. Subsequently, in 2015 India banned the possession of cetaceans in captivity. Importantly, India became the first country in the world to recognise dolphins in legislation as “non-human persons”, giving credence to their emotional and mental intelligence. Experiments have shown that dolphins can recognise themselves in a mirror, sometimes even at 7 months. This is earlier than the age at which, according to some studies, human children demonstrate the same ability.
Soon after, when she was Senior Programme Coordinator, WWF-India, Goa, Puja went on a dolphin watching tour with her mother. With its resident population of the Indian Ocean humpback dolphins (Sousa plumbea), Goa’s dolphin tourism had just begun to grow. Puja remembers how she and her mother were in one of around forty boats surrounding two dolphins. On doing some research, she learnt that dolphin safaris are classified as “water-sports” in Goa, without suitable nature-based regulations. As part of WWF’s outreach, Puja started conducting training and awareness workshops with the boat operators, sensitising them on how to operate boats around these gentle creatures. She soon realised that the gaps and on-ground challenges could not be met through training the local community alone.
This led to Puja and her partner Roshan Gonsalves to found Terra Conscious to support ethical marine tourism in Goa. Their aim is to integrate the needs of the tourism industry and the wellbeing of marine life for healthier coastal ecology and sustainable livelihoods. “I wanted to be in the same boat as the operators, it has helped us understand the challenges in the delivery-chain,” Puja explains when asked about her choice to build an ethical business based on ecosystems and wildlife.
Of all the responsible travel experiences Terra Conscious offers, Puja’s favourite is the one she usually leads, the Ocean Biodiversity Experience. This 2.5-hour experience sensitises tourists to marine wildlife and the need to conserve these ecosystems, while giving them a chance to see the endangered dolphins in their natural habitat. Other experiences include the Backwater Kayaking Trail through Goa’s intricate mangrove forests, and the Backyard Forest Cycling Trail through a private and protected forest teeming with bird life.
Outside of responsible tourism, Puja has been instrumental in establishing Ocean Watch, a Marine Wildlife Stranding Response and Monitoring Network, to monitor Goa’s coastline through a partnership between Terra Conscious, the Goa Forest Department, and Drishti Marine, with support from IUCN. The partnership facilitates responses to stranded marine creatures like the Indian Ocean humpback dolphin, Indo-Pacific finless porpoise (Neophocaena phocaenoides), olive Ridley turtle (Lepidochelys olivacea), green turtle (Chelonia mydas), and hawksbill turtle (Eretmochelys imbricata).
Puja and Roshan have also teamed up with Goa Outreach, an organisation that works with children of migrant labourers. She narrates the joy of a child discovering a tide pool teeming with life in the most unexpected part of Anjuna Beach in North Goa, close to the famous beach shack Curlies. One theme that ties it all up is Puja’s focus on protecting Goa’s incredible natural wealth and making it accessible to anyone. She believes any kind of change can only happen when people feel connected to the earth, to the environment. When I ask what drives is her, she answers, “How can you not try to change something that’s wrong. What is the choice really?”
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