Bhalla fights for conserving lions in Kenya.
By Deepak Chitnis
WASHINGTON, DC: Indian-origin conservation biologist Shivani Bhalla has been named as one of the National Geographic Society’s Emerging Explorers for the year 2014.
Bhalla was announced alongside 13 other individuals as a member of what the National Geographic Society (NGS) calls its Emerging Explorers Class of 2014. The designation affords her a $10,000 award, which will be put toward continued funding of Bhalla’s conservation efforts.
Born and based in Kenya, Bhalla is one of the leaders in her field, and has devoted her life and career to protecting some of Africa’s most precious and endangered wildlife species. Bhalla is a fourth-generation Kenyan, and for the past several years, has focused specifically on conserving Kenya’s rapidly dwindling lion population.
She earned her BSc degree in Environmental Science from Lancaster University in the UK, followed by her MSc from the Edinburgh Napier University in Scotland. She also holds a Ph.D. from the University of Oxford.
Bhalla is currently the founder and executive director of Ewaso Lions, an organization dedicated to that very cause. According to her information on the NGS website, there are only about 2,000 lions in all of Kenya, a number which – at the rate things are currently going – could fall to zero within the next 20 years.
The main reason for the decline in Kenya’s lion population is due to deforestation and habitat loss, as well as a general lack of knowledge and information for the indigenous population. To that end, Bhalla and her team have been working with Kenyans to increase awareness of why lions are important, why they should not be poached, and how to safely continue human expansion without further endangering lions.
“Ewaso Lions’ innovative community outreach programs, which involve young tribal warriors as well as women and children, are helping foster local support for conservation. Her team has dramatically changed local attitudes, and the lion population she monitors has grown to its highest numbers in a dozen years,” said NGS, in a press release.
The other 13 individuals selected by the NGS as 2014 Emerging Explorers are: inventor Jack Andraka; educator Shabana Basij-Rasikh; ecologist and epidemiologist Christopher Golden; marine biologist David Gruber; paleontologist Nizar Ibrahim; creative conservationist Asher Jay; conservation biologist Juliana Machado Ferreira; artist, writer and musician Paul D. Miller aka DJ Spooky; environmentalist Maritza Morales Casanova; social entrepreneur Sanga Moses; author and campaigner Tristram Stuart; electrical engineer Robert Wood; and nanoscientist Xiaolin Zheng.