User:Marcus334/Prerna Singh Bindra

Prerna Singh Bindra is an Indian writer, environmental journalist and wildlife conservation activist. She is currently notable as a member of the National Board for Wildlife of the Ministry of Environment and Forests (India). and as Regional Coordinator of the Tiger Program of Panthera, a charity organization devoted to preserving the four big cats and their ecosystems around the globe.

She is a former chairman of Project Tiger and is the former editor of TigerLink, the in-depth monthly journal about tiger conservation from across its range countries.

Early life
Prerna Singh Bindra was born 0n June 11 in Ahmedabad, India. Her father was in the Indian Police Service and her mother was a teacher.

She is an Economics graduate of St. Xavier's College, Mumbai with major studies in Personnel management and Labour welfare.

Career
Prerna started her professional career with the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, as a Research Associate. She also consulted with the Friends of Women's World Banking, where she assessed needs for microfinance for rural women, and helped streamline systems to make microfinance accessible. Prerna started her journalism career working for a national newspaper writing on films, shopping, fashion and theater. She stated; "When I started to write on wildlife and conservation issues, the editor scoffed. No one would read that stuff; do it in your own time, with your own resources he said. There was little room for environment in popular press then, but I persisted, thought of new ways to present a story, packaged it well. Got meaty stuff: essentially gave  the editor little choice. The stories made it to page one  and the editor of a rival daily said they now had a to employ an environment reporter too." That is the power of one's conviction!

Prerna continued her journalism career, writing with a passion for Indian wildlife, for Sanctuary Asia, India's first and one of its leading environmental news magazines.

Prerna is a frequent contributor of timely wildlife conservation articles to The Sunday Guardian.

She has worked with several national periodical publications including India Today, The Asian Age, The Pioneer, Tehelka, The Indian Express and the Times of India. She has been the Managing Editor of Simplifly, the in-flight magazine for Air Deccan.

She broke the story on the killing of ‘Bumbooram’, the famous Ranthambhore tiger that moved former U.S. PresidentBill Clinton to make a global appeal for tiger protection.

She has written well over a thousand articles on nature and wildlife. She has done investigative journalism, including going undercover to expose ivory smuggling and shahtoosh trade and has written a series of nature articles for children.

She is committed to raise the standards for environmental journalists. She has helped organise media workshops on conservation, gives talks to corporations, schools and other public venues. Prerna was a distinguished participant in the 2010 Mussoorie Writers' Festival.

A key thrust of her work is to lobby with governments and media on conservation issues, to impact change on the ground as well as policies at the state and central level. She is a former chairman of Project Tiger and is the editor of TigerLink, the in-depth journal about tigerconservation from across its range countries.

She is currently a member of the National Board for Wildlife of the Ministry of Environment and Forests of India, charges with advising the Prime Minister of India on current wildlife issues. She is currently employed as a freelance writer and is Regional Coordinator of the Tiger Program at Panthera.

Publications
In her book, The King and I: Travels in Tigerland, Prerna follows the big three cats of India through the vast canvas of the forests of India with an insatiable curiosity and lavish powers of observation. She edited Voices in the Wilderness, an anthology of contemporary wildlife writings of over twenty distinguished figures in the field—naturalists, scientists, and authors, whose writings paint a vivid picture of India’s amazing wildlife.

She is the author of a popular blog named Indianaturally which includes some of her published articles and some accounts of her personal activities and opinions.

Awards
Prerna was the 2007 recipient of the Carl Zeiss Award for Excellence in networking and engaging the public at large for the cause of wildlife conservation. She was the 2007 Sanctuary Asia Wildlife Service Award for in-depth and consistent coverage of conservation issues. She was honored in 2011 as an Ashoka ChangemakeHER, a celebration of the world's most influentual and inspiring women.

Personal life
She lives in Gurgaon, Haryana, India.

Notable quote
On 27 March 2011, Prerna was quoted about her feeling of joy while in a forest; "The joy I feel when I am in the forest, one with nature, is beyond description - watching a tiger or an elephant calf at play, listening to the sound of the stream, the robin singing its love song, watching a rainbow streak across a sky, a leaf fall slowly on the forest floor, a squirrel making a nest. I know then that ours is a beautiful world and I will do my best to keep it that way!"

External sources
Unprepared for the cheetah's arrival, Prerna Singh Bindra, 29-2-2012