Surya Ramachandran is academically an engineer from Chennai. After his college days he decided to head into the wilds of Central India as a naturalist, spending time in Satpura, Kanha and Panna and in due course authoring the Photographic Guide to Central Indian Wildlife with his friend and colleague David Raju. The last eight years of his life have been spent in the mountains of the trans-Himalaya of India exploring possibilities to work with the community in setting up snow leopard and brown bear tracking operations. His core interests lie in understanding microhabitats and stories of ecological relationships of the places he visits. He is widely travelled in the subcontinent, with the personal focus areas being the cold deserts of Ladakh, the deserts of Western India and the Western Ghats. Along with David Raju, he has also released the comprehensive Photographic field guide - Wildlife of South India in 2020 and a subsequent second edition of the same in 2024. Surya is fundamentally a wildlife guide. He currently leads specialist wildlife expeditions to the various corners of our subcontinent and beyond.

One cannot save or talk about India's wildlife by ignoring the people who live with wildlife in their backyard. This was my first take away as a naturalist travelling across the various landscapes of India and beyond. These people are the primary custodians of our wildlife and it is their understanding, their initiative and most importantly, their tolerance that lets us enjoy and appreciate our wild havens. I wish to highlight stories borne out of community collaborative efforts, direct conservation of community lands by people and the influence of the common man, the citizen scientist, in conserving landscapes and wilderness events. These are stories of species great and small, stories of conservation, wildlife experiences and mighty journeys that the most insignificant of creatures undergo and lastly, of people living in the various corners of our country doing their part in keeping our subcontinent a wildlife haven.