- Conservation social scientist Trishant Simlai, challenges the dominant narrative that conservation surveillance technologies such as camera traps are devices solely meant for monitoring wildlife.
- Fourteen months of ethnographic research at the Corbett Tiger Reserve reveal how these technologies are prone to misuse and impact the lives of indigenous communities.
- Conservation surveillance technologies should be employed with the full participation of indigenous communities, Simlai says in conversation with Mongabay India.
Following his talk about conservation surveillance technologies at Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE), Bengaluru, on February 5, Trishant Simlai was met with shock and awe among fellow researchers and conservationists. Over the last few years, Simlai has been invited to some of the most prominent institutes and conservation organisations to present his research, including University of Oxford, Stanford University, World Wildlife Fund for Nature and more. Everywhere, it has been the same reaction.
The conservation social scientist has, of late, captured the attention of the conservation world with his research on surveillance technologies, such as camera traps and drones, and the implications of them watching people instead of wildlife. “It’s not that those who use these technologies don’t know. They get thousands of pictures of people in their camera traps. But it took our research paper for them to stand up and take notice,” says Simlai, who completed his doctoral studies at the University of Cambridge in 2021.
Drawing on 14 months of ethnographic fieldwork in the Corbett Tiger Reserve in Uttarakhand, from October 2018 to December 2019, Simlai’s research examines how conservation surveillance alters the relationship between the forest and Indigenous communities and establishes layered regimes that discipline and exacerbate the marginalisation of said communities.
In this interview with Mongabay India, Simlai talks about the significance and consequences of his research and the way forward for conservation surveillance technologies. The conversation has been edited for clarity and length.
Mongabay: There is a growing interest in the social sciences in conservation. What do you make of it?
Trishant Simlai: Though it’s not new, I certainly feel that more of us are starting to take an interest in the social sciences. I also started in the traditional STEM field as a wildlife biologist. It took an education outside India, with an institute that wasn’t the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) or the National Center for Biological Sciences (NCBS), where I was trained in anthropology and conservation, to reflect and critically examine my positionality in conservation.
I feel it’s at a very nascent stage in India. There is still scope for more interdisciplinarity between the social and natural sciences. While it’s great to see more social scientists coming into conservation, I think natural scientists with experience in wildlife biology and ecology are able to operate better when trained in these fields.
Mongabay: What inspired the shift to social justice and conservation?
Trishant Simlai: I don’t think I can pinpoint a specific incident. Even as young researchers working with conservation organisations and forest departments, we often encounter situations where we feel conflicted about whose side to take. I’ve seen firsthand women being stopped from going into the forest, their sickles being forcefully taken. I’ve seen people being scared out of their minds, running for their lives when they see forest department officials.
When I joined for my Master’s in conservation and rural development at the University of Kent, we were trained in political science and anthropology. We were taught by academics like Professor Rosaleen Duffy, who led us to think critically about conservation. In India, wildlife biology, for example, is taught from a very apolitical perspective. But these things are far from neutral. They are political!
All of these things pushed me to pursue my PhD research on the social and political implications of conservation surveillance in the Corbett Tiger Reserve.
Mongabay: What would you say are the key takeaways from your ethnographic research in Corbett?
Trishant Simlai: There are so many! Primarily, my research challenges the dominant narrative that conservation surveillance technologies are meant for good. Camera traps and drones frequently capture photographs and footage of people in what is termed human bycatch. My research recognises and acknowledges the impacts of these technologies on Indigenous and local communities. Surveillance technologies essentially compound the woes posed by models of fortress conservation, curbing access and restricting the movement of these communities inside the forest.
But then I realised that people seem to accept this kind of surveillance. Why has there been no large-scale movement or resistance from affected communities? That’s because they have much bigger problems. They are already dealing with many more layers of injustice. Their primary issues are the mortal threat of tigers, curtailment of their rights, and being dispossessed of their land. Also, these technologies are applied in very clandestine ways, and those affected lack the social or political capital to challenge them. Among Scheduled Tribe (ST) and Scheduled Caste (SC) communities, there are villages identified by the forest department as encroachments. Now, if an SC or ST woman were to make a complaint to the forest department, the first thing they would ask her is what she was doing there in the first place. Her privacy becomes secondary.
Mongabay: How is conservation surveillance different from other public surveillance?
Trishant Simlai: CCTV surveillance, for instance, is prevalent in public areas such as shopping malls and railway stations. But there are signages everywhere telling you that you are under surveillance. That does not exist in the forest. When people don’t know they are being recorded or photographed, they act in certain ways, often resulting in photographs of people in compromising positions.
Also, forests are not exactly public spaces. Indigenous communities have the right to access the forest to collect firewood and other NTFPs. Forests are also gendered spaces. They act as refuges for women, a space of privacy that allows for camaraderie with other women, to talk about their sex lives and their fathers-in-law, or even to engage in taboo behaviour such as smoking beedi or consuming alcohol.
Mongabay: What needs to change for conservation surveillance?
Trishant Simlai: We need clear guidelines for the use of surveillance technologies in forests. Right now, all across India, camera trap data is accessible to the lowest functionary of the forest department. Most of these forest guards and watchers will have good relations with people in the villages, predominantly men, meaning there is a massive scope for misuse.
There are no regulations in place. There is no transparency. Nobody knows what happens with this data. For example, thousands of pictures are taken of people collecting firewood, and this data is being used without their consent.
We are not asking for these technologies to be banned. We understand that they are crucial for conversation, but there need to be guidelines and laws governing their use within forests. The act of taking pictures of people through camera traps in clandestine ways potentially violates Articles 14, 19 and 21 of the Constitution, and it demands legal intervention.
Mongabay: What has been the fallout of your study?
Trishant Simlai: After my research paper was published, the media went ballistic. Honestly, I would accept that the issue has been sensationalised beyond measure. Reading some of the headlines, the impression one gets is that the state has mandated the use of camera traps and drones to spy on women and men in the forest. I have not even mentioned the word ‘spy’ in my paper.
But the picture painted, has meant that the axe fell on the forest department, and the first thing they did was to try and discredit me. They even alleged that I violated the permissions they gave me. But the truth is that permissions were given for an altogether different topic, where I was to examine the implications of these surveillance technologies on the forest department staff. That research has not been published yet. I did not require their permission to interview or work with people who live in villages outside the jurisdiction of the Corbett Tiger Reserve.
I understand that the forest department had to react. But sadly, they have channelled their efforts to try and discredit me instead of coming up with solutions or at least engaging in dialogue with me.
Mongabay: How has the larger conservation community reacted? Has there been actual positive change?
Trishant Simlai: The reaction has been lukewarm. The conservation community abroad, like Fauna and Flora International, has reached out to help them build contextual guidelines for their projects in different parts of the world based on my research.
But the Indian conservation community has been surprisingly silent. While researchers have told me how this exact thing also happens on their sites, conservation organisations have remained silent. A friend, concerned about the implications if I were to go to court, asked me, ‘Will we have to go around taking permission from villages and gram sabhas?’ Yes, of course!
But I also understand their concern. Conservation projects often have very short timelines. Human participation and consent naturally become secondary when the entire system of conservation practice is based on objective questions and answers like: ‘We want to find out how many tigers there are!’ The problems are structural. Even if a researcher wants to change things, he can’t do much about it.
Mongabay: What about the communities in Corbett?
Trishant Simlai: The research paper was picked up by the local news, after which I was invited for a talk by the Ramnagar Mahila Morcha Manch, a union of women from the villages around the Corbett Tiger Reserve. The biggest validation for my research has come from women. The women in these communities have always been scared of camera traps, but they never thought of it as a question of consent or privacy infringement. Like I said before, they have much bigger problems in their lives. So, I think the questions I have raised, the community has stood by it, and they see me as on their side.
Mongabay: What are your views on the future of conservation surveillance?
Trishant Simlai: There is scope for surveillance technology to keep revolutionising how conservation works, especially in wildlife monitoring. The problem is with how they are deployed, who is deploying them, and whether the people who are being recorded are active participants.
My postdoctoral work is on Van Gujjars, a community of pastoralists who have been systematically evicted from forests. The community is now trying to tap into the landmark Forest Rights Act (FRA) to reclaim their land. One of the processes for the FRA is to do substantive mapping of the land rights where they existed previously. Before, they would do hand-drawn maps, but now they have turned to satellite images, GPS and drones to do this more accurately.
I believe this is the future of conservation surveillance, where these technologies are used in plural ways and with the full participation of indigenous communities.
Banner image: Trishant presents his research at the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE), Bengaluru. Image by Saloni Bhatia.
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