Anil K Malhotra and wife Pamela have created history by turning their 300 acres of land into a sanctuary. This selfless act of humanity began in 1991 when Anil and Pamela Malhotra visited India and acquired 55 acres of waste land to convert it into a private sanctuary. This 55 acres of land which is not a sanctuary is located in Karnataka’s Kodagu district on a mountain range named Brahmagiri in Western Ghats. They couple have named it Malhotras’ Save Animals Initiative Sanctuary which today proudly inhabits various elephants, tigers, leopards, deer, snakes, birds and other creatures ; most of them rare and threatened.
It was their undying love for nature that made them contribute to the society by building a private sanctuary for species that are facing the threat of extinction due to loss of habitat and mindless actions of man. The couple faced their share of hurdles in order to shape their dream into reality, which entailed 25 years of hard and challenging struggle. Having failed at getting land in North of India, due to property laws, they did not give up their search and found their piece of land in South India. They started their dream of building a sanctuary on a meager 55 acres land, slowly and steadily they started acquiring land in the nearby areas that others had discarded as wasteland. They started building the forest by planting various indigenous species of trees and rest was taken care of by nature itself. To prevent the wildlife from extinction they have extensively created awareness among locals to stop hunting and poaching.
As per the couple, this is just the beginning of their act as sentinels of the environment. They are now trying to convince the Multnational Companies to invest in buying land that they would turn into a forest under their CSR activities. Let’s hope that the light shown by these two people would spread afar and more people to join hands with them in their cause.
News Sources: Times Of India
Image Sources: I.T.P
A very selfless act and top of it a very motivating and rightly chosen article. Keep up the good work.