This is Rinchen’s story.

It is the end of September 2025, and we have just completed a 60 km hike into the Kiyar Naala, deep within Kishtawar National Park. Walking between 7–10 hours a day, navigating trails washed out by recent floods, and camping in makeshift huts left behind by the Bakharwaals (pastoralists), we gained 1,500 metres in altitude. Along the way, we deployed 12 camera traps that, in the coming months, would give us new insights on how snow leopards inhabit this part of Jammu and Kashmir.

Since 2023, scientists at the Nature Conservation Foundation have been working on the first comprehensive baseline study of snow leopard populations in the Kishtawar National Park, and our camera-trapping exercise is part of that broader effort.

As soon as we reach a place with cellular network, Rinchen will learn that his mother has fallen severely ill. We’ve been unreachable for the past week.

Rinchen is a part of a group of conservationists based in Spiti, and has been working in mountainous landscapes across the Himalayas for the past 12 years. To me, he embodies the spirit of most conservationists I’ve had the privilege of working with over the past six years, some of whom have grown to become close friends. Their experiences offer a window into what conservation work looks like on the frontlines of the climate crisis.

From rising temperatures and declining forest cover, to the changing wildlife behaviour, climate and environmental news surrounds us from all directions. Whether we choose to engage or not, there is no avoiding the conversation anymore. In 2024, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) published the People’s Climate Vote, the world’s largest public opinion survey on climate change. More than half of the respondents said they thought about climate change daily or weekly. Similarly, a 2023 Yale survey in India found that 86 percent of the 2,178 respondents were concerned about the extinction of plant and animal species.

Read the full article about the mental health crisis impacting conservationists by Tanmayi Gidh at India Development Review.