sparrows have been with us for more than
10,000 years they have been with us from
the start of the civilization when
humans became agriculturist from hunters
and gatherers they have seen the rise
and fall of civilizations and the
sparrows were the first bird that
children identified when they were small
the chirps was the first sound they
could relate to coming out from an
animal and I was no different I had a
wonderful childhood which was full of
birds which was full of flowers full of
nature in those days such abundant was
the population of sparrows
that they were part of the family the
entire lifecycle of the sparrow would
get unravel in front of your own eyes
we never mind minded in those days
Sparrow was making a nest on the back of
the photo frame or on the top of the
cupboards we never mind them bringing
grass and dropping some down in fact my
grandmother never used to allow to put
on the fans because the sparrow would
get killed I had an amazing childhood
growing up with birds animals so found
was I of seeing all these birds that
most of the time in the school library I
opened up all the books which used to
have birds animals because in those days
we didn’t have Discovery or National
Geographic either started growing up
more and more I got involved into this
fascinating world of my life so much in
world I was that as I grew young I got a
root shock of my life
the vultures which were among one of the
most common Raptor in the world which
were found in millions in India had
catastrophically declined
they had reached a point where the
scientists were spectacled whether they
would survive the decade or not this
thing shook me to the core I was
speechless I didn’t had any answers my
mind was refusing to accept what the
people were saying so I went back to all
the places in my childhood where I had
seen a lot of vultures this municipal
clock tower in the city center of Nasik
during my childhood full of vultures but
that time I couldn’t find any what made
me even more nervous what made me even
more spectacle was that it was not only
the vultures that I was not seeing even
I was seeing fewer sparrows I was seeing
fewer other common birds which were
present everywhere during my childhood
so I went upon catching hold of every
research paper every report in the
country but what I found out was a
scientist or ornithologist never cared
to count the common flora and fauna in
our country however in UK where they
were counting the sparrows and other
common birds there had been a
catastrophic decline in UK and mainland
Europe the same thing was happening in
India also the only thing that we didn’t
do was we never counted a common flora
and fauna that time I made a promise to
myself that what has happened with the
vultures what has happened with other
species I would never let that happen
with the sparrows the sparrow has been
with humanity since its start it is one
of the best bio indicator of the
environment in and around us the same
causes which were responsible for the
decline of sparrows were also affecting
humans however we were blind enough not
to see those the conservation of Sparrow
was even more important because it is
one of the most important connection
humanity and nature and if this breaks
people would not stand up to save the
nature I came from a business family
background and I thought that if I had
to save sparrows and commit my life
towards saving them I had to convince my
family to allow me to relieve my dream
it also gave me a thought that if my
family believed in what I am going to do
if my family was convinced that the
sparrows had to be conserved it would be
quite easy for me to convince the world
but from the day they were convinced I
have never looked back
there have been the rock-solid support
which has helped me go out and save
sparrows so a boy from NASA without
having any exposure to the field of
conservation had embarked on a journey
to save sparrows however when I entered
the real field I entered into the big
conservation organizations in the
country I found it was quite different
it had its own biodiversity but not what
I had expected and I found out that it
was totally tree centric either
it had to be Tigers or threatened
because there I realized all the name
fame and money lied here this was
against my thought processes it was
against the fundamentals of ecology
because there I was taught that
everything from an ant to an elephant is
important and here I could see that
there were more tiger Wallace than the
actual Tigers in the in the country so I
was in a state of shock again totally
blank didn’t knew what to do however
there was right at the end of the tunnel
I got a wonderful opportunity to work
with grass root level conservationists
and organizations across the country
this was through a project with Royal
Society for protection of bird
a uk-based organization which is one of
the world’s most biggest organization
saving birds I got an opportunity to go
to UK get trained and this opened up
entire different world
I learned about the different approach
of conservation which were quite
different from the textbook conservation
which was happening back in India it
opened up that to be able to save
something you not only needed to do your
work but you also had to talk with the
government agencies the media you of you
need to had a proper funding mechanism
in place so there I learned and I
thought that if I want to save sparrows
I would not take a project based
approach and if I had to commit myself
towards the sparrows on a lifelong
mission I need to have a sustainable
plan in place back in India when I came
back I realized like the real people who
are doing conservation where the
grassroot level people they were the
small organizations pressed across the
length and breadth of the country and
later on they would become my true
allies in saving sparrows however what I
didn’t hand in on my side was time the
sparrows were declining too fast and I
had to give them a life-saving injection
however such extraordinary situation
needed an out-of-box approach the
traditional approach would not work I
realized that too soon because of my
lifelong observation of the ecological
behavior and the needs of sparrows the
kind of setup that we had in India and
the lessons that I had learned in UK so
we’ve decided to form an organization
named nature forever Society which would
not discriminate between species based
whether they are threatened or rare it
would not discriminate between
conservationists whether they are normal
citizens we formed a society with
humanity at its core a society which
would be transparent weak
designed to adopt an icebox and bird
feeder program in order to give that
life-saving injection to sparrows the
program helped us achieve three main
goals to create critical habitat for
sparrows which was declining across the
country mainly the nesting sites and the
food because as globalization opened up
the country our lifestyle changed
traditional architecture gave way to
modern at architecture we didn’t had the
nesting sites for sparrows food was not
easily available so this address this
key ecological need of sparrows what I’d
also broken post globalization was the
emotional connect that we had as a
society had with the sparrows add those
and windows were shut for sparrows so
was a culture we had to reinstate this
emotional bond between the sparrows and
humanity once again at the same time
since we had not taken a project-based
approach towards conservation we
required as funding which would be
long-term and transparent we didn’t
wanted people to donate money to us we
didn’t want it checkbook charity what we
wanted them to do was to adopt the
responsibility of saving sparrows in the
past 1012 years we have been able to
create more than 30,000 nesting sites
across the country safe nesting sites
for birds not only sparrows but manners
parakeets the birds which were declining
in the urban landscapes we were able to
connect create more than three point
file at sustainable source of food for
sparrows which was critical in
reestablishing the emotional connect
which was breaking and which would
guarantee that the future population of
sparrows have a sustainable source of
food however one of the thing that we
were able to achieve we were able to get
more than 30,000 sparrow supporters
across the country so when I started I
was alone with my family
today we have more than 30,000 families
across the world helping us save
sparrows who have made sparrows a part
of their family
these people are a voice of sparrows
what we also wanted to do with sparrows
is to raise the profile of sparrows
because it was always the Tigers and the
elephants the glamorous species which
was getting all the attention so for the
first time in the history the Indian
Post released a stamp on sparrows so
common flora getting on the stamp was a
big win for us we worked with the Delhi
government and got the sparrow declared
as the state bird of Delhi we worked
with a bomber based organization in
distributing more than 52,000 bird
feeders free of charge across the
country in the world we believe that
creating 15,000 opportunities for
sparrows will help in bringing them back
this helped us get back the emotional
connect that we were looking out for
however now what we wanted was people
should commit themselves towards Pharaoh
conservation saying I love Sparrow was
not enough we wanted people to say I’ll
put food for sparrows however we didn’t
wanted to reinforce things on people
because our supporters came from all
walks of life they were doctors
engineers policemen politicians that
other things to look after also so they
based on the time budget we calculated
that even if someone gives 15 minutes in
a week it will create big effect on the
sparrows the Isle of Sparrow campaign
reached more than 1 million people
across the world people started
committing themselves towards Pharaoh
conservation because of this wide beats
of audience that we had across the world
we were able to declare 20th March as
the world’s Pharaoh day which is today
spread around more than 50 countries
however today when I look back
even after 15 years this is what is the
biggest motivation even today when
someone sends us a photograph of a
sparrow its nest being occupied all
sparrows on the feeders we get the same
kind of excitement which was there 15
years back because we believe that the
sparrows will help humanity consume nature one day