Mysore Doreswamy Madhusudan ( kn, ಮೈಸೂರು ದೊರೆಸ್ವಾಮಿ ಮಧುಸೂದನ) is an Indian

wildlife biologist A wildlife biologist studies animals and their behavior along with the role each animal plays in its natural habitat. The duties of a wildlife biologist can include: developing and conducting experiments/studies on animals in their natural habitats, ...

Whitley Award for Mysore-based wildlife biologist. The Hindu. 14 May 2009
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/ref> and

ecologist Ecology () is the study of the relationships between living organisms, including humans, and their physical environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere level. Ecology overlaps wi ...

.Why Bandipur's farmers switched to selling dung. Article by Nitin Sethi on ''Down To Earth'
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He is the Co-founder and Director of

Nature Conservation Foundation The Nature Conservation Foundation is a non-governmental wildlife conservation and research organisation based in Mysore, India. They promote the use of science for wildlife conservation in India. History The Nature Conservation Foundation was ...

Mysore Mysore (), officially Mysuru (), is a city in the southern part of the state of Karnataka, India. Mysore city is geographically located between 12° 18′ 26″ north latitude and 76° 38′ 59″ east longitude. It is located at an altitude of ...

and a Visiting Research Fellow at the

University of Leeds , mottoeng = And knowledge will be increased , established = 1831 – Leeds School of Medicine1874 – Yorkshire College of Science1884 - Yorkshire College1887 – affiliated to the federal Victoria University1904 – University of Leeds , ...

. He has worked on understanding and mitigating the effects of human-wildlife conflict in the

Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve The Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve is a biosphere reserve in the Nilgiri mountains of the Western Ghats in South India. It is the largest protected forest area in India, spreading across Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala. It includes the protected ar ...

in South India. He has also worked in several other forests in the

Himalaya The Himalayas, or Himalaya (; ; ), is a mountain range in Asia, separating the plains of the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau. The range has some of the planet's highest peaks, including the very highest, Mount Everest. Over 100 ...

s and

North-east India , native_name_lang = mni , settlement_type = , image_skyline = , image_alt = , image_caption = , motto = , image_map = Northeast india.png , ...

. In 2004, he was one among the team of wildlife biologists who described

Arunachal macaque The Arunachal macaque (''Macaca munzala'') is a macaque native to Eastern Himalayas of Bhutan, China and India. It is listed as Endangered on the IUCN Red List. It was scientifically described in 2005. It is a relatively large brown primat ...

, a new species of

macaque The macaques () constitute a genus (''Macaca'') of gregarious Old World monkeys of the subfamily Cercopithecinae. The 23 species of macaques inhabit ranges throughout Asia, North Africa, and (in one instance) Gibraltar. Macaques are principally ...

from

Arunachal Pradesh Arunachal Pradesh (, ) is a state in Northeastern India. It was formed from the erstwhile North-East Frontier Agency (NEFA) region, and became a state on 20 February 1987. It borders the states of Assam and Nagaland to the south. It shares int ...

, India."Scientists find new Indian monkey" from BBC online
/ref>

Early life and work

After obtaining a basic science degree from Yuvaraja's College, Mysore, Madhusudan did his post-graduation in wildlife biology from the

Wildlife Institute of India The Wildlife Institute of India (WII) is an autonomous natural resource service institution established in 1982 under the Ministry of Environment Forest and Climate change, Government of India. WII carries out wildlife research in areas of stu ...

Dehradun Dehradun () is the capital and the most populous city of the Indian state of Uttarakhand. It is the administrative headquarters of the eponymous district and is governed by the Dehradun Municipal Corporation, with the Uttarakhand Legislative As ...

. He worked on resource use in and around forests and its impact on large mammal conservation for his PhD thesis under the guidance of

Anindya Sinha Anindya (Rana) Sinha is an Indian primatologist. He is a professor at the National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS), India. Early life After obtaining an undergraduate degree in botany from the University of Calcutta in 1983, he went on to e ...

.Profile from the Website of Nature Conservation Foundatio
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/ref> He uncovered the links between

coffee Coffee is a drink prepared from roasted coffee beans. Darkly colored, bitter, and slightly acidic, coffee has a stimulant, stimulating effect on humans, primarily due to its caffeine content. It is the most popular hot drink in the world. S ...

production in

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

and patterns of cattle grazing and ownership in and around the forests of Bandipur. He found that the global fall in coffee prices resulted in an increased demand for

cow dung Cow dung, also known as cow pats, cow pies or cow manure, is the waste product (faeces) of bovine animal species. These species include domestic cattle ("cows"), bison ("buffalo"), yak, and water buffalo. Cow dung is the undigested residue ...

used as

manure Manure is organic matter that is used as organic fertilizer in agriculture. Most manure consists of animal feces; other sources include compost and green manure. Manures contribute to the fertility of soil by adding organic matter and nutri ...

in coffee estates in several areas in the

Nilgiris The Nilgiri Mountains form part of the Western Ghats in northwestern Tamil Nadu, Southern Karnataka, and eastern Kerala in India. They are located at the trijunction of three states and connect the Western Ghats with the Eastern Ghats. At le ...

and Western Ghats resulting in a large-scale export of dung transforming it from a locally produced and locally consumed manure for village agriculture to a high-value organic fertilizer for commercial export to coffee plantations. Following the dung export, livestock numbers in the region increased, aggravating grazing pressures on the forests. This work challenged the prevalent notion that resource use for subsistence is distinguishable from and preferable to commercial resource use in the context of protected-area management in India.Madhusudan, MD (2004) The Global Village: Linkages between International Coffee Markets and Grazing by Livestock in a South Indian Wildlife Reserve. ''

Conservation Biology Conservation biology is the study of the conservation of nature and of Earth's biodiversity with the aim of protecting species, their habitats, and ecosystems from excessive rates of extinction and the erosion of biotic interactions. It is an int ...

''. 19(2) pp. 411 - 420. .

Awards

Madhusudan was conferred the Whitley Award, popularly called ''Green Oscar'' in May 2009 in recognition of his work to reduce human-wildlife conflict in the Western Ghats. Madhusudan and NCF have said the grant from the award of £30,000, donated by HSBC, will go towards conservation activities, primarily for crop protection, in the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve.How conservation can be a paying proposition, on Business Standard
/ref> He was chosen as a

TED Fellow TED Conferences, LLC (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is an American-Canadian non-profit media organization that posts international talks online for free distribution under the slogan "ideas worth spreading". TED was founded by Richard Sau ...

in 2009.

Bibliography

* Madhusudan, M. D. & Mishra, C. (2003) Why big, fierce animals are threatened: conserving large mammals in densely populated landscapes. Battles over nature: science and the politics of conservation (eds V. Saberwal & M. Rangarajan), pp. 31–55.Permanent Black, New Delhi. * Madhusudan, M. D. & Karanth, K. U. (2000) Hunting for an answer: is local hunting compatible with large mammal conservation in India? Hunting for sustainability in tropical forests (eds J. G. Robinson & E. L. Bennett), pp. 339–355.Columbia University Press, New York. * Karanth, K. U. & Madhusudan, M. D. (2002) Mitigating human-wildlife conflicts in southern Asia. Making parks work (eds J. Terborgh, C. V. Schaik, L. Davenport & M. Rao), pp. 250–264. Island Press, Washington D.C. * Madhusudan, M. D. & Karanth, K. U. (2005) Local hunting and large mammal conservation. Wildlife conservation, research and management (eds Y. V. Jhala, R. Chellam & Q. Qureshi), pp. 60–67.Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun. * Johnsingh, A. J. T. & Madhusudan, M. D. (2009) Tiger reintroduction in India: conservation tool or costly dream? Reintroduction of top-order predators (eds M. W. Hayward & M. J. Somers), pp. 146–163. Wiley-Blackwell, Chichester, UK.

References

External links

Profile on the website of NCF

Publications of M D Madhusudan on scientific commons

Whitley Awards 2009 video of Madhusudan
{{DEFAULTSORT:Madhusudan, M D Indian conservationists Indian ecologists Scientists from Mysore Year of birth missing (living people) Living people 20th-century Indian biologists Indian environmental writers Writers from Mysore 21st-century Indian non-fiction writers