Anurag Karekar: The Monsoon-Migrating Naturalist Behind Naturalist Explorers

Founder · Ecotourism Curator · Senior Naturalist Specialty: Urban, Forest & Marine Ecology · Climate Science

## A City’s Disconnect and One Student’s Answer

Mumbai is one of the most biodiverse cities on Earth. It has leopards in its national park, flamingos in its creek, sea slugs on its shores, and a mangrove system that quietly protects millions of people from flooding. Most of its residents have no idea.

As a teenager, Anurag Karekar saw this gap — the chasm between the city and its own wild — and couldn’t stop thinking about it. When he enrolled in a Bachelor’s degree in Zoology at Bhavan’s College, Andheri, he found a second problem: there were almost no support structures to help students actually build a career in life sciences. The knowledge was there. The pathway wasn’t.

So he built one. In 2015, fresh out of graduation, Anurag became one of the founding members of the NaturalisT Foundation — a Mumbai-based not-for-profit dedicated to nature education, trails, and public engagement with wildlife. He was 23. The organisation went on to introduce thousands of Mumbai citizens to the species quietly inhabiting the city’s wild pockets.

> “Once you see it, you cannot unsee it. That’s the magic — we live our lives oblivious to a world beyond mankind. It just takes some patience and curiosity to open a whole new world.”




## Projects, Podcasts, and a Pandemic

The early years of NaturalisT Foundation were defined by a restless, inventive energy that has always characterised Anurag’s work. Project Nature4All brought environmental education directly to BMC school children. Project Propolis advocated low-impact living in residential complexes across Mumbai. Green City Trails opened up the urban wilderness to ordinary citizens who’d never thought to look for it.

He also worked with Sanctuary Green Teacher Awardee Nikita Pimple to co-develop a marine conservation curriculum for the students of Rishi Valmiki Eco School. He ran vermicomposting and waste management workshops for adults. He became, in parallel, a self-taught sustainable living practitioner — someone who believed, and still believes, that conservation begins in the choices we make every day, not in policy documents.

When the pandemic arrived in 2020 and closed every trail, Anurag didn’t stop. He launched Voice of the Wild — India’s first multilingual nature and wildlife conservation podcast — in English, Hindi (Jungle ki Aawaz), Marathi (Vanarai chi Vani), and Gujarati (Aaranya). The four language versions were not direct translations; each tackled the same conservation topics through a different cultural lens. During the lockdown, the podcast became a critical tool for rallying public support against the controversial Environmental Impact Assessment Draft 2020

> “We live our life oblivious to a world beyond mankind. Nature conservation is a selfish endeavour — we protect it because we need it.”






## Seven Years in the Islands

At some point, the Andaman & Nicobar Islands called — and Anurag answered. He spent seven years working in the archipelago, including time in Little Andaman and the remote Nicobar group, ecosystems that most naturalists and most Indians never reach.

The Andamans shaped Anurag as a field naturalist in ways that Mumbai couldn’t. These are islands where the coral reefs are still largely intact, where the forest meets the sea in ways that blur any boundary between ecosystem types, and where the wildlife — both marine and terrestrial — exists at a scale and density that resets your baseline for what nature looks like when left alone.

He became a free diver. On a routine snorkelling session with guests — sea turtles, lionfish, stingrays, the usual extraordinary cast — he kept exploring deeper, further, until he found himself face to face with his first shark underwater: a banded bamboo shark. He free dived close enough for a selfie. That sentence tells you everything about how Anurag operates in the field.

He also began working towards setting up the Habitat Institute Activity Centre on Havelock Island — a project designed to promote responsibly immersive wildlife experiences in the Andamans. Conservation in Anurag’s hands has always been practical, place-based, and rooted in direct encounter.

> “I free dived so close to the bamboo shark I could take a selfie. That was a first lifer I didn’t expect to get that way.”







## Recognition and What It Means

In 2020, Sanctuary Asia awarded Anurag the Young Naturalist Award — a recognition given to youth leaders who set an example for peers and older generations alike through their conservation entrepreneurship. At the time, he was among only three recipients that year, alongside names that would go on to become prominent in India’s conservation landscape.

In 2022, the Indian Responsible Tourism Awards recognised him as a Grassroots Hero — a category that honours people doing conservation and community work on the ground, without fanfare, in specific places with specific communities. In 2026, he served on the jury of the same awards, specifically on the panel examining the Western Ghats — balancing biodiversity, tourism, and community participation in one of India’s most ecologically critical landscapes.

The arc from awardee to juror in six years is a measure of how quickly Anurag has moved — and of what the field has seen in him. A WWF-India Fellow, a Diploma holder in Environmental Law and Policy from National Law University Delhi, a multilingual communicator fluent in English, Hindi, and Marathi. The credentials accumulate. But they’re secondary to the work.

## The Leaf Cutter Bee and What Comes Next

Ask Anurag for his spirit animal and he doesn’t reach for a charismatic megafauna. He picks the Leaf Cutter Bee. Can’t stay still, loves to build, always biting off the next challenge. The field nickname the team gave him — Luffy, after the restless, rubbery protagonist of One Piece — tracks the same quality. He is someone who keeps moving, keeps building, keeps finding new problems worth solving.

From NaturalisT Foundation to Naturalist Explorers, the through line is consistent: close the gap between people and the natural world. Get them outside. Give them an encounter they can’t explain away or dismiss. Let the wild do its own work once the door is open.

In his field bag, alongside the standard first aid kit, he carries a shark tooth and a three-litre hydration pack. The shark tooth is not an accessory. It’s a reminder that the ocean is still out there — strange, vast, and largely unseeable from Mumbai’s crowded shores — waiting for anyone curious enough to look beneath the surface.

That’s the whole project, really. Anurag Karekar has spent over a decade building the doors. The wild does the rest.


> “Every single cent I get goes straight into conservation. I don’t give a rip whose money it is. I’ll use it and spend it on nature. — Steve Irwin, Anurag’s favourite quote”