Wildlife filmmaker Rita Banerji references the forest like one would an old friend. Her three-decade experience has framed her understanding of the wild, its quirks, its idiosyncrasies, and its habits.
She knows where the light filters softest through the canopy, where the elephants linger after dusk, and can interpret the silence of the forest in ways that few can.
And the films that colour her repository — The Turtle Diaries (2012), The Wild Meat Trail (2009), Flight to Freedom: The Amur Falcon Story (2014), A Shawl to Die For (2008), among others — are a reassurance to the wild, one that almost seems to say, ‘I got your back’.
The Ashoka Fellow was awarded the National Geographic – CMS Prithvi Ratna Award (2017) for her outstanding contribution to nature and conservation filming; the RBS Earth Hero Award (2018) for contribution to the environment through films; and three Panda Awards (also known as the Green Oscars). She cracks the interludes with sensitivity, broaching topics with an empathy for the communities whose lives are closely intertwined with the protagonist species.
A shawl to die for
‘Near mythical’ is how most describe the ‘near threatened’ Tibetan antelope, also called as chiru. The animal’s wool is plucked to weave the exquisite shahtoosh shawl, which fetches around $20,000. In the Indian market, the shawl is sold for anywhere between Rs 50,000 and Rs 4,00,000.
Rita Banerji is a wildlife filmmaker whose documentaries are geared towards spotlighting community conservation.
Despite the trade of the shawl being outlawed (shahtoosh shawl trade was banned globally in 1975 under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), to which India is a signatory), a survey conducted by the Wildlife Trust of India (WTI) and the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) (2001-2002) across the Kashmir valley found that out of the 45,405 surveyed individuals, 14,293 were directly involved in the production of shahtoosh.
Loopholes in the wildlife protection laws of Jammu & Kashmir (which fell under a separate law and allowed the use of chiru derivatives under a license) were the culprits for this continued practice.
In 2023, The Wirereported that the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCB) and the Punjab forest department obtained 186 shahtoosh shawls from shops in Amritsar and Pathankot, while WCCB and Ladakh’s forest officials had seized 213 shahtoosh shawls from traders in Leh.
The GreenHub Fellowship is an opportunity for locals to document their native lands and turn into conservationists.
Why do these illegalities persist? A Shawl to Die For turns the lens to the Kashmir Valley, where shahtoosh making is woven into the DNA of most families. The film explores the impact of the ban on these families, who can be identified as the master weavers of Kashmir, now forced to set their sights on pashmina shawls.
The trade-off weighs heavily on them. As one of them, Mushtaq shares, “Overnight, we went from being called ‘royal artisans’ to ‘criminals’.” The substitute pashmina isn’t as lucrative monetarily as shahtoosh, which was the backbone of the state. After the ban, the conditions of the artisans started deteriorating.
A Shawl to Die For was awarded the ‘Technical Excellence Award for Best Cinematography’ (2009) at the CMS Vatavaran, an international film festival focused on the environment and wildlife.
Rita is a firm believer in the power of a visual vocabulary, and the films produced by her Dusty Foot Productions are a case in point for this.
GreenHub: Where local action helms impact
The forest is talking.
Are you listening?
Born into a family that loved nature — her parents, both professors, taught their children, through example, the importance of giving back to the land that nurtures you — Rita reminisces about how her father would routinely rescue snakes, while her mother went on to do a PhD on rhesus monkeys.
The gulmohar tree outside the home was brimming with weaverbird nests that Rita and her siblings would admire. When in college, her father handed her an old Agfa analogue camera, Rita knew with certainty what she wanted to capture.
Rita Banerji’s documentary films have been awarded at the Panda Awards. (also known as the Green Oscars)
That was her foray into the world of filmmaking. Soon after graduation, Rita went on to join Riverbank Studios, led by renowned conservationist Mike Pandey. Each time she held the camera, she watched as the world transformed into her dictionary; every frame was simply her conversation with her audience.
Through the GreenHub Network she started in 2014 in Tezpur, Assam, she intends to help youth from Northeast India’s fringe villages experience the same creative abandon by giving them the wherewithal to document stories of their land.
During the one-year residential fellowship, youth learn about the environment, wildlife, conservation, and climate sustainability through the medium of filmmaking. They use these skills to make films that shoulder a comeback for conservation.
The Ashoka Fellow was awarded the National Geographic – CMS Prithvi Ratna Award (2017) for her outstanding contribution to nature and conservation filming.
As Rita shares, “The idea is filmmaking that helps you learn from nature. Every being in the forest — right from leaf litter to snails or the canopy — is interdependent. It contributes to the forest. It grows with the forest, and as it grows, it feeds back into the growth of the forest. This collective growth is beautiful, and we can learn from it.”
The wild meat trail
The Nyishi tribes of Arunachal Pradesh have an umbilical link with animals. But not the best one. For years, they’ve hunted them for their meat, fur, feathers, and bones — fated to be consumed, sold, or used for decoration during festivals. The documentary The Wild Meat Trail, which went on to win the Panda Award at Wildscreen 2010, was a window into the tangled realities of the wild meat trade in the Northeast.
The wild meat often makes inroads into the marketplaces across India. And Rita’s first introduction to them left her aghast.
Rita works closely with communities on ground to understand the layered relationships between them and the native species.
In these markets, every bird and animal had a price. The anti-wildlife din of the marketplace is juxtaposed against a report by the WWF, which suggests that the forest cover in India’s Northeast was depleted by 3,698 square kilometres between 2011 to 2021, with a subsequent loss of biodiversity in the region since 1970.
The crew’s travels across the seven Northeast states of India — Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Nagaland, Tripura, Manipur, Meghalaya and Mizoram — revealed how ethnographic traditions were often a smokescreen for hunting down animals.
Rita has documented the realities of turtle conservation and traditional fisheries in Odisha and lived with the women’s seaweed collectors of Gulf of Mannar.
“Hornbills, barbets and many rare species, sold for Rs 500 to 800 per cluster. Civets and squirrels were on sale for under Rs 1,000. A barking deer was sold to a government officer for Rs 6,000. While the meat is mostly traded for local consumption, the gall bladders of Himalayan black bears are retained by hunters as these could be sold at a premium ranging from Rs 3,000 to 15,000 in different parts of the Northeast,” Rita mentioned in an article she authored for Sanctuary Nature Foundation.
As the women selling the bird meat divulged, they were earning about Rs 2,500 a month from vegetables and fruits, and about Rs 15,000 from the sale of wild meat. It explained the bias in their choices.
“It showed us how the poaching industry works across borders. The film pushed us to think beyond how meat is hunted for daily consumption, instead also highlighting its impact on wildlife,” she reasons. Their experiences on the ground also sparked the idea of ‘Under the Canopy’ an ecolub where children could learn about bird identification, work with communities to become more eco-conscious.
‘Solutions are evident. But is there intent?’
Across the films she’s been a part of — The Last Migration(1994), Asia’s first Green Oscar winner that documented rehabilitation of a herd of wild elephants in Sarguja, Chhattisgarh; Shores of Silence (2000) which shed light on the slaughter of whale sharks in Gujarat — Rita’s attempt has been to not just record the protagonist species, but to impact its protection.
Sharing her experiences of filming Right to Survive (2006), Rita recalls having a front row seat to the relationship that exists between Olive Ridley turtles, classified as ‘vulnerable’ and the fishermen of Odisha.
The documentary Right to Survive gave Rita a front row seat to the relationship that exists between Olive Ridley turtles and the fishermen of Odisha.
Since the breeding season coincided with the peak fishing season, it led to conflict. “We learnt that turtle conservation and traditional fishing went hand in hand, but that the larger trawlers were the main concern for both. Additionally, for the traditional fisherfolk if the turtles got entangled in their nets, the only way to release them was by cutting the net. That meant getting compensation,” Rita shares.
The moral heart of the film resided in understanding how both communities could co-exist.
“At the time we were filming in 2007, the forest department used power boats to monitor the Olive Ridley turtles in the sea, spanning a large area. According to the study done by wildlife researchers, the turtles congregate in certain pockets during the mating season. So, instead of trying to send boats all over the place, the solution could be to just monitor the area where the turtle congregation was. This would work, both, for saving the turtles, as well as the traditional fisherfolk,” Rita explains.
She adds, “Solutions are always there. The question is: are we really listening to people who have lived in these coastal areas? Are we working with them or making decisions beyond that?”
The documentary Shores of Silence (2000) shed light on the slaughter of whale sharks in Gujarat.
Does it ever get tiring to work towards conservation in a world where wildlife faces unprecedented threats every day?
Rita smiles.
Acknowledging that, as a wildlife filmmaker, one lives within a spectrum — between communities working on the ground to create change and the urban realities that shape our everyday challenges, Rita emphasises that one can never lose hope.
“If we were to stop, thinking that there is no hope, then there really wouldn’t be any. But if we were to keep working towards our goal, we can be sure that somewhere there will be a turn. We need to work with that faith.”
At the end of the day, conservation isn’t abstract. To Rita, it’s a way of honouring an old friendship, of ensuring the forest’s voice is never silenced.
This story is part of a content series by The Better India and GreenHub.
All pictures courtesy Rita Banerji
