Rohit Varma, co-founder of Nature inFocus, shares what to expect at this year's ongoing Nature inFocus festival in Jayamahal Palace.
Indian leopard at Nagarhole, Karnataka. (Supplied)
Nature inFocus was founded in 2014 by Rohit Varma and Kalyan Varma to build a one-stop community for wildlife and nature lovers — photographers, filmmakers, researchers, conservationists, travellers, and nature enthusiasts.
Since then they have been conducting an annual festival to celebrate the best in all these fields. At this year’s Nature inFocus festival, there will be talks, photography showcases, engagement activities for kids, and panel discussions.
“We have also planned art installations, film screenings, workshops, awards ceremonies, sustainable flea market, and also a live band performance by the band Indian Ocean,” adds Rohit Varma, co-founder Nature inFocus, about the Bengaluru festival.
Lion-tailed Macaque at Valparai, Tamil Nadu. (Supplied)
The Bengaluru festival will bring the nature and wildlife community under one roof. Besides this, the awards segment will recognise talent in photography and filmmaking, and give them due recognition.
For the Portal experience, stories from the natural world will be showcased and narrated. Lastly, the Production angle is expected to reveal the vast and diverse natural history of India to the world through films.
Staying true to the theme, this year, there are panel discussions such as “50 years of Project Tiger — Past, Present and the Future”, “The role of a Philanthropist in Conservation”, and “A Sustainable Lifestyle in the Anthropocene — Is it Even Possible?”.
The list of headline speakers for the event is a mix of Indian and international conservation experts, activists, and even entrepreneurs who are doing their bit for nature’s cause.
Tickell’s Blue Flycatcher at Bengaluru, Karnataka. (Supplied)
Some of the speakers include Vance G Martin, President, Wilderness Foundation and Global Founder/Co-Chair, Wilderness Specialist Group (IUCN); wildlife photographer Dhritiman Mukherjee; composter and urban farmer Vani Murthy; environmental activist and founder of Sanctuary Nature Foundation Bittu Sahgal; conservation zoologist and tiger expert Ullas Karanth; water activist and educator Vishwanath Srikantaiah; actor and UN Environment Goodwill Ambassador Dia Mirza; Nitin Kamath, co-founder & CEO of Zerodha and founding director of Rainmatter Foundation.
Another highlight is Nature inFocus’s partnership with London-based Natural History Museum’s renowned Wildlife Photographer of the Year (WPY) event. This is an annual international wildlife photography competition and touring exhibition staged by the museum.
The Natural History Museum runs the largest photography contest in the world. Nature inFocus runs the annual Nature inFocus Photography and Film Awards. Hence, this collaboration hopes to bring major environmental issues to the public domain via visual media.
Rohit adds, “The hope is that it will inspire the rest of us to think and believe that each one of us can make change happen. When we started the festival many years ago, environment and conservation were not the primary focus, photography was.”
The team then expanded the festival’s ambit to include filmmaking as well. But even before the pandemic, it was becoming clear to the team that the Bengaluru festival, by way of its programming, was gravitating towards environmental issues.
“There was a time when everyone spoke of the ozone hole and how we’d all get skin cancer. However, in the last two or three decades, we’ve seen CFCs being banned. This has now resulted in the ozone layer’s recovery,” he shares.
At Nature inFocus, Rohit and his team see hope. They believe that if we collectively take the right actions, we can possibly reverse climate change.
When: 29 and 30 July 2023
Where: Jayamahal Palace
Timings: 9 am-10 pm
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