New Delhi: Two Indian women are among six conservationists from across the world who have been conferred with the prestigious “Green Oscars” or the Whitley Award this year. Parveen Shaikh, who studies a riverine bird called the Indian skimmer, and Barkha Subba who works with local communities to conserve a rare amphibian, the Himalayan salamander, received their awards from the United Kingdom’s Princess Anne, a patron of the Whitley Awards, at a ceremony in London at the Royal Geographical Society on April 29. The annual Whitley Award, instituted by the UK charity Whitley Fund for Nature, funds grassroots conservationists for their ongoing work. It will provide winners with funding amounting to £50,000 for one year, training and profile boosts including short films.Local guardians for a rare river birdParveen Shaikh, a scientist with the Bombay Natural History Society, has been conferred the award for her ongoing work on Indian skimmers.The Indian Skimmer bird. Photo: Viraj Athalye.The Indian Skimmer is a riverine bird that has a scissor-like bill (it is also called the Indian scissors-bill). These birds skim the river surface to catch fish, their main prey. Once widely distributed across Southeast Asia, the bird has disappeared from most of its historic range due to habitat degradation. Chief culprits include pollution, sand mining and the damming of rivers by hydropower projects. The bird now survives only in India and Bangladesh, with a few records from Nepal and Pakistan. India is home to more than 90% of the global population of about 3,000. Skimmers nest on sand bars, which are seasonal mid-river islands. Not surprisingly, even small changes in river flow can destroy nests.Shaikh has been working to conserve the Indian skimmer through a community-led ‘Guardians of the Skimmer’ initiative on the Chambal River. Through the recruitment of local ‘nest guardians’ and continuous scientific monitoring, nest survival has increased to 27% from 14%, and the local population grew to about 1,000 individuals in 2025, from 400 in 2017. Shaikh’s team has trained and mentored more than 30 nest guardians along the Chambal to protect nesting bird colonies that are vulnerable to predators such as free-ranging dogs and jackals, as well as trampling by cattle. “Local guardians help identify new sandbars, monitor nests, and prevent disturbance during the breeding season. Some now proudly refer to the skimmers as ‘our birds’, which reflects a growing sense of ownership. This change in perception from indifference to stewardship has been one of the most meaningful outcomes of the project,” Shaikh said in a statement.Parveen Shaikh at work. Photo: WFN/Whitley Awards.It was this work that won her the Whitley Award this year. With her award, Shaikh will strengthen protection for the species at Chambal and expand her model of community-led riverine bird conservation to Prayagraj in Uttar Pradesh in the Ganga Basin, according to a press release.Shaikh and her team will appoint and provide incentives to local nest guardians at both Chambal and Prayagraj, to continuously monitor skimmer nests and nesting outcomes. They will install predator proof fencing in vulnerable river stretches. In Chambal, they will also experiment with artificial nesting platforms.Saving salamanders and their habitatsBarkha Subba, scientific adviser at a local NGO ( the Federation of Societies for Environmental Protection) has been working to study the Himalayan salamander in the Darjeeling Himalaya in West Bengal. Though they look more like lizards, salamanders (also called newts) are amphibians and are closely related to frogs and toads and most well-known for their ability to regenerate limbs. The Himalayan salamander is found only in India, Nepal and Bhutan and can grow to a length of 17 cm and live for up to 11 years. The species was once widely distributed across Darjeeling’s cool, shaded wetlands and forest fringes. However, primary threats to the salamanders are wetland loss, unregulated tourism and tea garden land diversification, which not just alter habitat but also shrink breeding areas. In the Darjeeling Himalaya, only around 30 breeding sites remain. Many of these sites lie outside protected areas. The Himalayan salamander. Photo: WFN/Whitley Award.Through her Whitley Award, Subba will restore the salamander’s habitat, remove invasive species, screen for the deadly chytrid fungal disease (which has caused shocking amphibian extinctions worldwide), as well as engage local people in awareness programmes promoting sustainable land use and eco-friendly tourism. Her work, which will involve strengthening partnerships with local communities, tea estate managers, and government agencies, will focus on seven of the most critical breeding sites in the area including spots that fall under government land, privately-owned tea gardens, and community-owned lands.“What keeps me going is what I see on the ground. I see communities standing up for places they love. I see young people choosing to protect rather than exploit. I see forest officials ready to listen and cooperate. I see a species that has survived for millions of years, still trying, still returning home,” Subba said in a statement. Barkha Subba at work. Photo: Bhaskar Chettri. Salamanders are known to return to the same sites they were born in, to breed and lay eggs: a phenomenon known as philopatry.The other Whitley award winners this year are Marina Kameni (Cameroon) who will undertake activities to conserve endemic amphibian populations in Southwest Cameroon; Moreangels Mbizah (Zimbabwe) who will expand a coexistence model of conservation in northern Zimbabwe that allows the movement of lions between protected areas and community land; Paola Sangolqui (Ecuador) who is protecting the nesting sites of the Critically Endangered Galápagos Petrel from invasive species; and Issah Seidu (Ghana) who is saving guitarfish along the country’s western coastline and advancing plans to create the country’s first Locally Managed Marine Area.Other Indian conservationists who have won the prestigious award in the past include Sanjay Gubbi in 2017 and Purnima Barman, who won the Whitley Gold Award in 2024, for her work on the Greater Adjutant stork in Assam.