For more than a decade, Janaki Lenin’s identity was that of a film-maker. She was trained to be an editor at the Film and Television Institute of Tamil Nadu, South India. After six weary years of editing advertising commercials and soap operas, she was looking for a change of direction.

Getting involved with Romulus Whitaker opened up new avenues in wildlife film-making. Together they founded Draco Films and produced more than a dozen films for National Geographic Television.

Janaki with members of the team at Namdapha National Park,

one of the remotest spots in India.

A decade later, Janaki finds herself forging a new identity as a book publisher and writer. Her focus, as publisher, is mainly on producing world-class field guides to the fauna of India and making them available in 15 Indian languages at subsidized prices.

She has written on a wide range of wildlife and conservation subjects for national newspapers, wildlife and travel magazines.

She facilitates a working group of primatologists which drafted a national Action Plan for nuisance primates. She is also drafting an action plan for the mitigation of human-elephant conflict in India in collaboration with Asian Nature Conservation Foundation, Bangalore.

Janaki is currently working to enlarge the scope of this initiative to include other animals caught in conflict situations with humans.