Event: RTI for Wildlife Conservation

Veteran conservationist, Biswajit Mohanty, has employed a number of tools in his endeavours to conserve wildlife. In this talk on Sunday, he'll outline perhaps one of the most unlikely of those tools (yet one that has yielded exceptional results): the Right to Information Act (RTI)!

Autor*in Anna Rees, 08.16.13

Veteran conservationist, Biswajit Mohanty, has employed a number of tools in his endeavours to conserve wildlife. In this talk on Sunday, he’ll outline perhaps one of the most unlikely of those tools (yet one that has yielded exceptional results): the Right to Information Act (RTI)!

The RTI is designed to increase governmental transparency and allows any citizen to request specific information from public authorities which must then be supplied within 30 days. Mr Mohanty has become adept at using the RTI to his and nature’s advantage, putting more than 1,400 successful queries to the government or governing authorities to date. In the process, he has unearthed a number environmental violations and helped put a stop to breaches of environmental and forestry law.

Hosted by Conservation India in Bangalore and taking place this Sunday 18 August, this event will see Mr Mohanty (who is the Managing Trustee of the Wildlife Society of Orissa) discuss the most effective ways to use this as a tool for activism and protection of wildlife.

Interested in environmental and wildlife conservation? Check out Conservation India’s website for all the event details.

Author: Anna Rees/ RESET editorial

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