Indian conservationists Barkha Subba and Parveen Shaikh have won the prestigious 2026 Whitley Awards for their work in protecting the habitat of the Himalayan salamander and conserving nesting sites of the endangered Indian skimmer along the Chambal river through community-led efforts.
Subba, a scientific adviser at the Darjeeling-based Federation of Societies for Environmental Protection (FOSEP), will lead the first coordinated grassroots effort to secure the future of the Himalayan salamander in Darjeeling.
The Himalayan salamander is a lizard-like amphibian species found only in eastern Nepal and the Darjeeling region of India. It is the only species of salamander found in Nepal. Although it resembles a lizard, it lacks scales on its body.
Shaikh, a scientist at the Bombay Natural History Society, was recognised for her community-led “Guardians of the Skimmer” initiative on the Chambal river. Through the recruitment of local nest guardians and continuous scientific monitoring, nest survival has increased to 27% from 14%, with the local population growing to about 1,000 individuals last year from 400 in 2017, the Whitley Fund for Nature (WFN) said.
India is home to more than 90% of the global population of about 3,000 Indian skimmers, known for their bright orange bills and for skimming the surface of rivers to catch fish. The birds nest on sandbars—mid-river islands that appear seasonally—and even small changes in river flow patterns can result in complete nesting failure.
{{/usCountry}}India is home to more than 90% of the global population of about 3,000 Indian skimmers, known for their bright orange bills and for skimming the surface of rivers to catch fish. The birds nest on sandbars—mid-river islands that appear seasonally—and even small changes in river flow patterns can result in complete nesting failure.
{{/usCountry}}Often called the “Green Oscars,” the Whitley Award recognises grassroots conservation leaders in the Global South. Run by the UK charity Whitley Fund for Nature (WFN), it provides winners with £50,000 in project funding over one year to scale up local solutions to biodiversity loss.
Barkha Subba and the Himalayan Salamander
Subba’s project plans to restore habitat, remove invasive species, screen for the deadly chytrid fungal disease, and engage local people in awareness programmes promoting sustainable land use and eco-friendly tourism.
“The main threat is habitat loss due to rapid urbanisation, expanding tourism, wetland modification and invasive species,” Subba, who is in London to receive the award on Wednesday, said.
Approximately 30 breeding sites of the Himalayan salamander remain locally, many of which lie outside protected areas. With her Whitley Award, Subba said she will focus on seven of the most critical breeding sites of the rare and evolutionarily distinct amphibian.
Endemic to India, Nepal and Bhutan, the Himalayan salamander, which can grow up to 17 cm in length and live for up to 11 years, was once widely distributed across Darjeeling’s cool, shaded wetlands and forest fringes. Meeting a salamander “feels like meeting a messenger from deep evolutionary time – a reminder of how long nature has endured and how quickly we can lose it,” Subba said in a statement.
Salamanders return to their natal site to breed and lay eggs—a process known as philopatry, which makes them highly vulnerable to changes in habitat and wetland health.
“The habitat of the Himalayan salamander in the Darjeeling tea landscape is undergoing complex changes. Cheaper Nepal tea, often marketed as ‘Himalayan tea’, has increased competition for estates at a time when climate change, erratic rainfall and ageing plantations have pushed down yields. Legacy estates are being acquired by companies focused on profits and also diversifying into tea tourism to remain economically viable. At the same time, the region faces growing environmental challenges, including landslides, soil erosion, and shrinking freshwater sources linked to development,” a statement from the UK-based Whitley Fund for Nature (WFN) said.
The wetlands where Himalayan salamanders breed are culturally revered water bodies, associated with local deities and rituals. In many villages, disturbing them has historically been discouraged. This respect extends to all life supported by these wetlands, including the Himalayan salamander, according to Subba, who comes from an Indigenous community in Darjeeling and describes the salamander as resembling “a tiny dragon that swims quietly in a mountain pond.”
Globally, wetlands are disappearing faster than any other ecosystem, and one-fifth could be lost by 2050.
Parveen Shaikh and the Indian Skimmer
With the Whitley Award, Shaikh plans to strengthen protection at Chambal and expand the initiative to key sites around Prayagraj, where the Ganges and the Yamuna rivers converge.
Once widely distributed across Southeast Asia, the Indian skimmer has disappeared from most of its historic range amid the large-scale degradation of river habitats. Globally, wetlands are disappearing faster than any other ecosystem, with rivers showing an increasingly disrupted water cycle. Only one-third of river basins had normal conditions in 2024, according to a UN report, with two-thirds either dangerously low in water or unusually high.
“Local guardians help identify new sandbars, monitor nests, and prevent disturbance during the breeding season. Some now proudly refer to the skimmers as ‘our birds’, which reflects a growing sense of ownership. This change in perception from indifference to stewardship has been one of the most meaningful outcomes of the project,” Shaikh said in a statement.
“Our work is in the Chambal. We want to try and expand it to Yamuna and Ganga and try similar initiatives there,” Parveen said from London. “A minimum flow rate in all these rivers is needed during peak nesting season to keep the sandbars isolated from the banks,” she added.