My main motivation to write this blogpost was to talk about my experiences as a woman in the field of conservation. It began with a conversation with my female colleague when I told her about how I caught a urinary tract infection (UTI) when I was in the field and I was not aware of it. Being in Goa for the first time, the UTI restricted my diet. I complained, “Why did nobody tell me about it?”, and she suggested that I write about it. So while I started this post to talk about the health of women in fieldwork, I thought I should also share a few other experiences I have had as a woman in conservation, as a small piece of self-care and awareness.
Since graduating from university in 2021, I have been through four application processes. Of all the questions asked in the interviews, two questions were common: “Will you be able to take care of yourself?”, and “Will your parents allow you to move to a different place?”. I wonder if male candidates for these positions get asked similar questions. My first project after completing university was an internship on human-elephant conflict and coexistence in Assam. This was the third organisation I applied to. My second application was to Technology for Wildlife Foundation, which is where I now work. These were my first steps towards a conservation journey that I wish to continue for as long as possible.
Occasionally, whether or not you get to be in the field, you are required to prove yourself. While I was initially hired as a GIS analyst in the first project, I was eventually involved in very different work. When I joined the project, I just knew that I was supposed to collect on-ground data from the different forest divisions, and do literature reviews to map out the Kaziranga-Karbi Anglong landscape. Little did I know that I was about to work for an elephant radio-collaring operation. My work involved tracking weather forecasts to obtain tentative windows when the radio-collar operation could be conducted. I was also given the task of sourcing medicines and other materials for the operation from various vendors, locally and across India.
After the procurement was completed, we were ready to deploy the radio-collars. Putting a collar on a wild elephant while it is sedated requires either prior experience or practice, given the short window of time to conduct the actual operation itself. So we went to the Kohora range of Kaziranga National Park, where we waited the whole day for the kumkis (trained captive elephants) to arrive at their feeding grounds Once the tallest female had eaten her fill, we started with the practice session, where time and skill went hand in hand. It is a very serious step as you’ll always be tested differently when in the wild with wildlife. The project coordinator and the Ph.D scholar who hired me were the ones who were to put the collars on the elephant, while I documented the whole process.
Kumkis arriving at the feeding ground in Kohora, Assam.
Time management was the key, and the practice session was focused on finding the most efficient way of putting on the collar, and deciding the ease gap between the collar and the elephant’s neck. It also included testing tools that could be used to cut the extra stretch of the collar after it was put on. It was also my time to prove to them that I could take care of myself in the field. The practice session itself was successful, and I did prove myself to them. I also understand how serious such work can be, and therefore I feel it was correct on their part to be sure of the people that get to be part of the operation on the ground. I just wondered, had I been a male, would I have to prove that I could take care of myself in the same way?
The actual operation was also successful. A tuskless male (known locally as a makhna) and a female elephant were both sedated and collared on the same day. The operation required coordination between all the teams:, the veterinary team conducting the darting, the research team on the ground, and the forest guards. For my part, I was documenting the operation keeping note of time. On receiving a signal from the vets, we carried medicine boxes, running in between thorny knee-high grassland towards the woods. I assisted the veterinarian with the blood sample collection of the elephants along with noting their health and body measurements.
It was the first time I consciously felt every second that passed being in the wild amidst the rumbling and roaring of the megafauna, the Asiatic elephants. Being the only woman there made me feel somewhat proud? However, this reflected many other things. One could easily observe this was a male-dominated project. In the whole process, from meeting with different stakeholders like tea-estate owners, forest officers, guards from different forest ranges, the vet team, not a single woman was present. What could be the reason behind it? Are women uninterested? Is there a selection bias, or is it something else?
It turned out that I was also the youngest among the team. My interaction with all the team members was quite positive; they were encouraging and appreciative of my presence and participation. They also politely expressed that having a woman on the team probably served them good luck and they should consider having more women on the team in the future. Yes, please! And this is not just for their luck; I am sure many women would be willing and passionate to work in this field with them.
This part of my story went well; however, during those preparation and operation days staying out in the field in Assam in summer, I ended up with the urinary tract infection (UTI) infection mentioned earlier, that lasted for months. I could trace the origin of this illness back to the days when the kumkis had arrived, which was when we visited the forest beat offices daily. The condition of these offices was not very pleasant. It would be correct to say that they were in the most degraded state: the toilets had broken, open, leaking half-roofed walls. These were the conditions the forest guards lived in. When I questioned them about the conditions, they said, their salaries are so low that they would rather divide up the money among themselves than have these facilities.
However, I don’t know exactly what led to my UTI. Was it because I unconsciously resisted using these places, unaware of the consequences I might face? I realise we do not talk about such topics very openly, or maybe not at all, but after this incident, I ensure that I speak about my experience. Surprisingly most senior women I have spoken with about this have gone through the same experience, but in different intensities. I now make sure to encourage women in the field to drink more water and discourage them from holding their pee! Especially for women whose job requires hours of fieldwork, where we do not necessarily have access to a proper toilet everywhere we go. Grab the opportunities of whenever, wherever. None of the forest beat offices I visited had women in the workforce. Had there been women forest guards present, would the conditions still be the same?
Before I finished university, when I was conducting my 2nd-year college internship, I had quite an unpleasant experience. I studied river dynamics and the charland (river sandbar) dwellers. My mother accompanied me on this field visit to the river Aie (meaning mother) near my hometown in Assam. Since it was the first time I was doing fieldwork in my native place, and was in the presence of my parents, they were being protective. It would not have been the same had my field site been elsewhere. The truth is they are worried no matter where I am, but they have accepted me for what I have chosen to do. For this trip, they just wanted to accompany me when they got the chance.
The charland dwellers are seasonal farmers. They cultivate various crops, mostly watermelon, in the sandbars when the water levels are low. On reaching the site, my mother and I walked towards one of the non-permanent shifting farms. I spoke to the seasonal farmer in Assamese, who seemed to be a kind man, and told him about my project. He invited us inside his farm and showed us around.
Just when we were almost done speaking with him, a man came and began shouting and screaming at us. Screaming- why have we women entered his farm, and shouting- who would pay for their crops when they get destroyed, destroyed because we women menstruate, and so we cause plants to die. He considered us unholy, just as women during their menstrual periods are considered to be unclean in many parts of India. In a land where people from all over the world visit the menstruating Goddess Kamakhya Devi to worship, the women of the same land were being disrespected for menstruating. The farmer I had interviewed tried to stop the man from using such harsh language with us, and to drag him away. He respectfully asked us to leave, and to not listen to him. While angered, I also felt both sorry for causing an argument between them and, on the other hand, guilty for bringing my mother to the site, and for what she had to face.
After this incident, I no longer wanted to study in a field that required human interaction. So my next study was entirely ecological which I loved. But I realised that nothing exists in isolation. We are all one and connected, and these experiences are just tiny parts of it. I think working in the field of conservation, towards conservation of a species, will never be ethically successful if we cannot understand the human community around it.
Conducting field work in Orissa, 2023.
Now that I can do thrilling work while dealing with health issues and people, what comes next? I am sure there are a lot of other things on the plate. But I recall another common question I faced, in the form of concern for me, and women in general. It is about choosing a life partner. No, the senior experienced researchers respect my privacy, and at the same time, I respect them for their concern. I felt they wanted me to be aware of the relationship between the field I am in, and my personal life. It is a concern from both men and women that I have met. It only pushes me to wonder if this is a gender-based issue or if men in the field get the same advice. Has everybody in this field gone through a similar experience? I don’t know how it works. Does every field researcher have partners from the same job background? Has everybody who has had partners from different fields faced some issue or the other that led to their relationships not working out? Does it have anything to do with the job or with the understanding between two individuals?
Recently, as part of my current job with TfW, we went to the beautiful state of Orissa for conservation work related to the olive ridley turtles. Unfortunately for us, the first phase of the arribada (the extraordinary mass nesting) had taken place before we reached. We can only imagine how breathtaking the sight would have been. It was my first field trip out of Goa with the TfW team, and it was full of learning and amazement.
During this period, we met the teams directly involved in studying and protecting these threatened species. The state operations of two prominent conservation organisations were being handled by two women! I could only feel motivated by how they handled everything with such grace. They shared bits and pieces of their work experience. Being women, they have had a few additional things to take care of, from building healthy relations with the volunteers and the community, or at times needing to control one’s anger from being unheard as a woman and trying again.
Now that I have written this, I sit back and reflect on the many women I have come across in this field, directly or indirectly. I realised I had been missing out on women whose stories and struggles were already known, such as our Stork Sister, Dr. Purnima Devi Barman, who is working towards the conservation of the greater adjutant stork in Assam. I met her during an online talk organised for our School of Human Ecology during the COVID-19 pandemic. What a simple and warm personality! She shared how the people mocked her, and later on, she made a whole army of the same people known as the Hargila Army. Her story, and the stories of so many other women, are descriptions of lived moments filled with excitement, disappointment, loss of hope, strong willpower, rebuilding hope, and persistence.
I am sure everybody has their own experiences and stories to tell. Some might feel comfortable sharing, and some might choose not to share. I hope to come back from the field again with more stories to share.