About me
I am a conservation biologist with interests in population ecology, spatial prioritization and conservation decision- making. Specifically, I am interested in reconciling the objectives of large carnivore conservation which requires vast, undisturbed habitats with the needs of largely impoverished communities in human-dominated landscapes.
I am also interested in evaluating the effectiveness and impacts of conservation actions such as creation of protected areas, coexistence with wildlife, conservation-induced displacement of communities, compensation to alleviate conflicts, and law-enforcement in securing our biodiversity.
My doctoral project developed a landscape conservation plan using an interdisciplinary approach for tigers in human-dominated landscapes, using the western Terai Arc Landscape (~7000 km2) as a case study. Specifically, I
Currently, I am working as a Population Ecologist with Panthera.
Email: harihar.abishek[at]gmail.com
Link to my CV
I am a conservation biologist with interests in population ecology, spatial prioritization and conservation decision- making. Specifically, I am interested in reconciling the objectives of large carnivore conservation which requires vast, undisturbed habitats with the needs of largely impoverished communities in human-dominated landscapes.
I am also interested in evaluating the effectiveness and impacts of conservation actions such as creation of protected areas, coexistence with wildlife, conservation-induced displacement of communities, compensation to alleviate conflicts, and law-enforcement in securing our biodiversity.
My doctoral project developed a landscape conservation plan using an interdisciplinary approach for tigers in human-dominated landscapes, using the western Terai Arc Landscape (~7000 km2) as a case study. Specifically, I
- assessed the influence of connectivity, wild prey and disturbances on the occupancy patterns of tigers in the landscape (Harihar & Pandav 2012), identified realistic recovery targets and conservation actions for tigers using spatially-explicit densities of wild prey and their determinants (Harihar et al. 2014),
- prioritized alternative conservation actions (‘coexistence with tigers’ and ‘resettlement of people outside forests’) by overlaying socio-economic data on livelihoods, conflicts and preferences of pastoralist Gujjars across a gradient of tiger occupancy (Harihar et al. 2014), and
- evaluated the heterogeneous preferences of Gujjars for alternative conservation policies concerning ‘coexistence’ and ‘resettlement’ using stated-preference choice experiments to develop socially-just and feasible conservation recommendations.
Currently, I am working as a Population Ecologist with Panthera.
Email: harihar.abishek[at]gmail.com
Link to my CV
