Darryl D'Monte

November 11, 1944 – March 16, 2019

The original environmental journalist

Anand Parthasarathy remembers the veteran Mumbai-based scribe who wrote the first detailed account of the saving of the Silent Valley.

- Anand Parthasarathy

A slim, green pamphlet that landed on the desk of Darryl D’Monte, then Senior Assistant Editor of the Times of India at Mumbai, in late 1977, was to have a profound effect on him – and the direction his career in journalism would take. The pamphlet, ‘Report of the Task Force for Ecological Planning of the Western Ghats’, had been put together by Zafar Futehally, Vice President of what was then known as the World Wildlife Fund (India). It detailed the ecological significance of a tract of tropical rainforest in Kerala known as Silent Valley, against the background of plans to tap the valley for generating hydroelectric power.

Darryl was intrigued by the thought that such a priceless biosphere might be lost forever. He decided to dig deeper, checked with contacts and through them established lines of communication with a small group of concerned Earth scientists and lay citizens in Kerala, who were creating lobby groups against the proposed project.

What Darryl learnt from them, was to change him irrevocably. His professional instincts as a journalist saw the makings of a good story, even as his growing feel for nature saw a classic challenge in the situation. In an era when the term ‘environmental journalist’ had not yet been coined, he just became one.