In April 2023, I was granted a scholarship to attend a master's degree in the United Kingdom, but due to unforeseen and unavoidable circumstances I had to defer my plans. That year however, I continued my long term vision of working in my home-state of Nagaland as a practitioner to bring local communities to the forefront of conservation action and develop pathways for direct ownership and access to resources and funds. In this journey I took a decision to not pursue my master's since the on ground work got started and today we are at the precipice of real community led conservation momentum that could be exemplary for Nagaland as well as the wider sector. 

To realize this effort and make it more sustainable I approached the scholarship organization with a proposal to turn this award into a community award for an indigenous research proposal, to which the organization agreed since their focus is not just a degree or a certification but also the research conducted during the course. However, there was one condition that this research becomes a part of a action-research training program of an educational of a research institute. So this message is for those who hold decision making positions at such institutes and would like to provide some guidance as well as official affiliation for the scholarship funds to be utilized for a community led conservation initiative. 

The community members and I are eagerly looking to overcome this obstacle to generate local research outputs that can inform our conservation actions. The topic of the research is "Cultivating community-based conservation rooted in local ecological knowledge in the Old Jalukie Community Biodiversity Reserve (ICCA): A community-owned conservation initiative."

Please do connect - even if you are unable to support but would like to know more :)

Waiting in anticipation, 

Preety

preetysh.12@gmail.com

+91-7760193104