Page 35 - DAIS - DAISPORA ISSUE03

My earliest memory of Munib Khanyari is in Grade 8, on a school trip where we
were tasked with learning survival skills at a camp. This particular task revolved
around reading a topographic map and charting the course for a trek the next

day. Munib took roughly 2 minutes to complete this, and I never did.

When Munib entered DAIS, something you heard terribly often from him–even at
the age of 13, was that he wanted to be a Marine Biologist. Seventeen years later,
over a patchy cell connection in the mountains, I caught up with him about how
he swapped the oceans for his roots, the mountains. My very impressive
Kashmiri friend now shuttles between Barcelona and the Himalayas, pursuing a
postdoc in Wildlife and Conservation from ICTA in Barcelona, and it’s on this These high elevations are grasslands–capturing carbon in their soil and water. At
very topic that he (and now we) launched into headlong. this point, I’m sure the environmental studies lesson of your youth can explain
what would happen should these grasslands, and the fantastical snow leopards
In 2016, Munib started working full time with the ‘Snow Leopard Trust’ (SLT) that inhabit them, fall prey to climate change.

where he studied snow leopards, semi-mythical creatures of the high mountains
of Asia, and their prey–Ibex, Bharal and other small mammals. Over the course of At this point in our conversation, I asked him then, what we could do, and he very
a scholarship from Bristol, Munib studied disease transmission in these same poignantly left me with three things we can do. ‘Everything is connected’, he
mammals. In studying the prey, Munib worked on solutions for how these said. ‘Ask yourself, where can I avoid my consumerism?’. Every conscious NO to
mammals can fall prey to the right predator–snow leopards, that is, and not a straw, a paper bag (yes even a paper bag), a third Zara linen draped dress or
disease. pair of trousers—is an opportunity to leave the world a slightly better place for
our voiceless friends in the mountains and for US too!
At SLT, Munib also worked with local communities on conservation efforts. His
work centred around protecting livestock via ‘predator proof His next tip was to ‘inculcate a sense of wonder about nature’. Spending time in

corrales’--collaboratively built between the SLT and the local community. When I nature—and for those of us that are parents—inculcating an appreciation for
probed him on how they managed to engineer this, he said they used locally nature in the next generation is so incredibly important. ‘How can our children
sourced materials. This ensured that the community takes active ownership in know what to protect if they have not spent time immersed in the wonder of
maintaining the upkeep of these corrales. Munib’s more recent work, via a grant nature’, says Munib?
from National Geographic, involved galvanising young Kashmiris to take up the His parting rejoinder to this was tip number three: to immerse yourself in nature
cause of conservation. Camera trapping in Kashmir has shown him and his team with the help of local tour operators–stewards of the land over possible
that there are at least 15 adult snow leopards in the mountains. exploiters.

The point I’m coming to–besides the fact that my friend in the mountains is

amongst the most interesting alumni of DAIS? The high mountains of
Asia–besides being home to the snow leopards–are “water towers”. Munib calls Avantika Rajani Ahuja
these the world’s kidneys. Class of 2012