Description British conservationist Laurence Rose travelled to India to hear first-hand accounts of indigenous people’s special relationships with the wildlife around them. The Warli people living in the urban forests of Mumbai and the Maldhari pastoralists of Gujarat live harmoniously alongside some of the allegedly most dangerous animals in the world. In Mumbai, it is the leopard, living at the highest 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 govern life among India’s big cats, discovering that even the tiger is revered as much as it is feared. Along the way, he describes encounters with wildlife in exquisite language and vivid detail. He compares and contrasts the situation in the UK and India, in an unflinching but ultimately hopeful first-hand account of the impact that rapid change is having on the nature, people and landscapes of both countries.
