LUCKNOW WOMAN GETS INTERNATIONAL RECOGNITION
Onkuri Majumdar, 36, a wildlife conservationist who grew up and studied in Lucknow, has been bestowed with ‘Emerging Explorer Award’ this year from National Geographic.
An alumnus of Loreto Convent, Lucknow, she started work on tiger conservation in Delhi over 10 years ago, and later moved to Thailand to continue her work on an international scale.
Onkuri received up the National Geographic Emerging Explorer’s Award and US$ 10,000 cash prize in Washington DC early in June, when she was invited to a week-long symposium along with 14 other awardees from across the world.
“It was a great opportunity,” says Onkuri. “Very inspirational, and the award itself will have a positive impact on my career. Besides greater recognition, it will also offer the chance for further collaboration with Nat Geo,” she said.
The National Geographic Society was founded in 1888 and is one of the world’s largest non-profit scientific and educational organisations. It has funded more than 11,000 scientific research, conservation and exploration projects. Onkuri was also invited to Cyprus to deliver a talk in October on increasing public awareness on the scope of wildlife crime, which affects us all in various ways.
Ask Onkuri what motivates her, pat comes the answer: “I love nature because it constantly drives home to me the facts that we are a part of something so much bigger than us. Greed of a few people that leads to destruction of nature outrages me. I almost feel personally insulted. Why would someone want to destroy something that took millions of years to come into being?.”
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