Sejal Worah on her journey to becoming Programme Director at WWF-India

How Sejal Worah embarked on an unconventional green career in conservation and became WWF-India Programme Director

The seventh in the monthly series by WWF-India that highlights niche and unconventional green careers through the stories of well-known personalities from the field of environment and conservation

Right from a very young age, I knew that I wanted a career that would keep me close to Nature. A major influence was the outdoor experiences I had shared with my father. My early inspiration came from reading books by Gerald Durrell, travelling to remote places, and interacting with people.

After finishing school, I came across a new field called Life Sciences that, to my joy, included Ecology as a subject. I graduated in this, followed by a Master’s in Wildlife Biology at the State University of New York, Syracuse, the U.S. Inspired by a talk by the then Secretary General of WWF-India, I joined the organisation and began coordinating a new project on “People and Plants”.

Being interested in education and working with young people, I took on the role of an Education Officer with WWF-India and learnt from an excellent mentor, Chandrakant Wakankar. I was also greatly inspired by women like Medha Patkar and Aruna Roy and aspired to be strong, committed, and passionate about a cause.

During a monsoon bike trip to a small hill station in South Gujarat, I fell in love with the tribal district of the Dangs. I found that there was an elusive small wild cat — the rusty-spotted cat — last reported from this area and thought it might be worth exploring. In the days before camera traps, this meant roaming the forests night after night and sitting up at waterholes with a torch. Finally, I did spot it a few times! About a year later, I met the Head of the Department of Environmental Science at the University of Poona, who suggested that I enroll for a Ph.D. A typical day had me waking up at 4.00 a.m. to conduct bird transects and the day would end after midnight, looking for the elusive cat.

After transcribing field notes and a short rest, I generally headed to the village to meet the community. I found my interactions with the community so interesting that I shifted the focus of my research from wildlife to the interactions between people and the forest. Throughout my Ph.D., I was guided and mentored by Dr. Alan Rodgers, who helped to bring scientific temper and reasoned arguments to my chaotic thinking, taught me how to observe, analyse, and write, and, most importantly, demonstrated how you can be serious about your work but still approach it with a sense of fun and joy.

After my PhD, I presented my work at a Parks Congress in Venezuela where I was offered a job with WWF-UK. I spent a few years working as the Head of the Asia/Pacific programme at WWF-UK but the travel to Asia had me itching to live in that part of the world. I designed a project that had me based out of Thailand and working in countries across Asia-Pacific. It was a capacity-building initiative that aimed to build an understanding of the links between conservation and community development. After five years, I was eager to get back to India. So I packed up my bags to come back home to Uttarakhand. From here, I worked as a consultant for three years, exploring new parts of the world, including East Africa. When offered the role of Programme Director at WWF-India, I was ready to settle down and develop new skills as a team manager and leader. More than 15 years later, I am still here, where it all began.