Kulesh Bhandari

• WWF-India Conservation Catalyst Programme Grantee (2026–27)
Selected for community-led restoration of degraded sal forest-edge habitat in Santhal Pargana, documenting wild edible plant species and engaging local youth as forest-food stewards.

• Grantee, The Habitats Trust (2026)
Awarded a grant for Indian Flying Fox (Pteropus medius) roost conservation in Santhal Pargana.

• Member, IUCN Commission on Ecosystem Management (CEM) (2026–2029)
Contributing field-based insights to global consultations on ecosystem management and conservation.

• Young Scientist Trophy — Nipah & Zoonotic Spillovers Conference (Kerala, 2025)
Awarded a DBT (Department of Biotechnology, Govt. of India) travel grant under the Young Scientist category; delivered an oral presentation.

• Oral Presentation, ATBC 2026 (Xishuangbanna, China)
Presented "Thermal Refugia and Faunal Assemblages of Tropical Granite Outcrops in Eastern India's Rock–Forest Ecotones" at the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation annual conference.

• Poster Accepted, Global Symposium on Soil Compaction (GSSCOM'26), FAO & Aarhus University (Denmark, September 2026)
Accepted for an international symposium convened by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and Aarhus University.

• Selected, IISF Young Scientist Conclave (2025)
Presented the Wild Food Forests model at the India International Science Festival, India's largest national science platform.

• Founder & Curator, Biodiversity Atlas of Santhal Pargana
Built a regional open-access biodiversity initiative documenting 14,000+ observations and 2,700+ species; active contributor to iNaturalist, India Biodiversity Portal, and GBIF.

• Peer-reviewed publication & science communication
Author of a peer-reviewed field ecological note and of ecological narratives featured by IndiaBioscience; commissioned contributor to Mongabay India.

Independent biodiversity researcher and wildlife conservationist working in the granite inselberg landscapes of eastern India. The sal-dominated ridges and rocky uplands of this region form the empirical foundation of my research.

My work focuses on the fauna of rock–forest ecotones in eastern India — the faunal assemblages and thermal refugia of granite outcrops, particularly for mesocarnivores such as striped hyaena and golden jackal, and flying fox roost ecology across the region's upland landscapes. I combine field-based survey with the ecological knowledge of the communities I work alongside, documenting species and habitats that remain poorly recorded in eastern India.

I am the founder and curator of the Biodiversity Atlas of Santhal Pargana, a citizen-science initiative on I Naturalist that has aggregated over 15,000 community-contributed observations documenting more than 2,700 species across Jharkhand. I am a Member of the IUCN Commission on Ecosystem Management (2026–2029) and the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation.