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Greetings from Wildlife Trust of India!

Hope you have been doing well and taking good care of yourself and those around you.

We are glad to share with you the updates for the project ‘Covid Support to Families of Conservation Warriors’. Thank you so much for supporting this project and for your generous donation to the appeal on GlobalGiving platform.

At the peak of the second wave of COVID-19 (between March and June 2021), India lost more than 500 conservation heroes!

Most of them were young, between 30 and 50 years of age, and had committed their lifetime to preserving India's wildlife. The sudden demise of so many young, committed people is not only heart-wrenching, but a blow to nature conservation.

Wildlife Trust of India’s (WTI) Conservation Heroes Covid Casualty Fund provides an ex-gratia of INR 100,000/- and a scroll of honour to the next of kin of the fallen heroes.

Under the ex-gratia scheme, WTI received requests for over 215 Covid casualties from the wildlife sector across India. Of these, 135 requests have already been processed by WTI, and the next of kin of our fallen heroes have received a scroll of honour and a cheque of INR 1,00,000/- in official handover ceremonies. Your support to the project surely made a difference.

Of all these requests we share images of the cheque handover ceremonies for two of the sanctioned grants. Mr. Mangyalal* and Mr. Laalsing* were both serving as Forest Guards at Madhya Pradesh Forest Department. They were both highly motivated and loyal in their service to nature. Mangyalal, succumbed to Covid-19 on 5^th of May, 2021, leaving behind his wife, a son and two daughters. Three days later, on 8^th of May, 2021, Laalsing left the world, his wife and two sons for the heavenly abode, after losing his battle to the deadly pandemic.

In addition to WTI’s support, the state government provided their families an ex-gratia of INR 50,000/- each.

While nothing can compensate the loss of a life, this is the least we can do now, which is to recognize their service and stand in support of the young families they left behind, who have suffered the biggest blow.

Once again, thank you so much for your generous support in our endeavour to support the bereaved families of India’s forest guards who we lost to Covid-19 pandemic. We will be soon back with more updates. Till then, take care!

Warm regards,

Team WTI

*Names changed to maintain confidentiality.