Sparrows: An Important Emotional Link In Nature Conservation

Mohammed Dilawar, the founder of Nature Forever Society, has been working extensively in the field of conservation. The environmentalist, who has been listed by the Time Magazine as one of the 30 ‘Heroes of the Environment’, gets candid in an interview with Namrata Gulati Sapra for TerraGreen.

- Namrata Gulati Sapra

When did the decline of sparrows first capture your attention? 

I had grown up seeing sparrows in my childhood as our homes and surroundings had a lot of sparrows in a way that they were part of our lives. Apart from sparrows I used to watch vultures soar high in the skies for hours. When I started working in the field of conservation, the catastrophic decline of vultures was reported.

I realized that not only vultures but sparrows were also on the decline. My worst fears came to light when I found reports and studies in the UK about the decline of sparrows in the UK, where they have been monitoring the sparrows and other common birds for more than a century. Back then, there was little awareness with regards to saving sparrows. On the same day, I saw a pair of sparrows trying to make a nest in the circuit box of a telephone pole. It dawned upon me that one of the reasons for the decline of sparrows was lack of nesting sites. I made a nest on the day and installed it on the telephone pole and made a commitment to myself that I would devote my life to the conservation of sparrows. From then on, there has been no looking back.

Tell us about the Nature Forever Society. 

Back in those days, sparrows were not believed to be conservation material and people would laugh at me for wanting to conserve the species. There was no support from the scientific community and conservationists in India for conservation of common species such as sparrows. Hence, Nature Forever Society (NFS) was born with an aim to not discriminate between common and threatened species. NFS has been working for the conservation of house sparrows and other common species since 2006. Its mission is to involve citizens in the conservation movement in India.