Rom Whitaker, popularly known as the snake man of India, has been working with reptiles here since the 1960s.

His conservationist career began with the campaign for the preservation of Silent Valley (which became an icon of the conservation movement in India). He was then instrumental in banning the exploitative snake skin industry and set up a tribal cooperative for Irula tribal snake hunters.

India's first reptile park, the Madras Snake Park and India's crocodile gene bank, the Madras Crocodile Bank were also started by him.

Rom has traveled to several developing countries like Bangladesh, Mozambique, Papua New Guinea, Malaysia and Indonesia as a wildlife management consultant for the United Nations.

He has written books, scientific papers and popular articles, and produced and presented movies. He lives with his life partner, Janaki Lenin, on a farm south of the city of Chennai, India.

He has established field stations in the Andaman Islands and the Western Ghats to foster research. The various organizations he set up - the Madras Snake Park, Madras Crocodile Bank and Agumbe Rainforest Research Station - have functioned as resources for conservation education.

A former filmmaker, Janaki Lenin, currently tries to make a living publishing books while spending more time doing what she loves best - writing. 

Although she helped Rom in his conservation efforts for more than a decade, she was not an active conservationist until she stumbled on human-wildlife conflict mitigation. The action plan for the mitigation of elephant human conflict in India provides current knowledge of the factors that influence conflict, an assessment of the different conflict mitigation measures that have been tried, and a synthesis of the two in a decision-making framework. Janaki now believes she has finally found the hook she needed to enter the field! She is currently the Regional Chair of the IUCN/SSC Crocodile Specialist Group for South Asia and Iran.