Leopard Moon Rising

British conservationist Laurence Rose travelled to India to hear stories that are rarely told: first-handaccounts of indigenous people’s special relationships with the wildlife around them. The Warli peopleliving in the urban forests of Mumbai use ancient art practices and traditional dance to protest forestdestruction and encroachment. Like the Maldhari pastoralists of Gujarat, they live harmoniously alongsidesome of the allegedly most dangerous animals in the world. In Mumbai, it is the leopard, living at thehighest density of any urban big cat population. In Gujarat’s Gir forest, it is the endangered Asiatic lion,which preys on the herdsmen’s prized buffalo. Rose delves into the values and practicalities that governlife among India’s big cats, discovering that even the tiger is revered as much as it is feared.Along the way, he observes at first hand the devastating effect of the Asian vulture crisis, which has seenover 100 million birds die in ten years. The human cost is only beginning to be understood, with the effectson some communities hidden from official view.The country that saw the world’s first conservation principles laid down – by the emperor Ashoka, rulingthe Indian subcontinent in the 3rd century BCE – now struggles to live by his edicts. Rapid economicgrowth, population growth, infrastructure development and the spread of mining and agriculture areessentially the same threats as are encountered everywhere on Earth. Opposed against them are ancientaspects of culture that deem such assaults on nature anathema. For an outsider like Laurence Rose, theroles of traditional culture and contemporary values are best understood when the two sides cometogether and do battle.