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ALUMNI NEWS


Shahriar Caesar Rahman

Winner of the Whitley Award 2018, Shahriar Caesar Rahman: Tortoises in trouble: community conservation of Asia’s largest tortoise, Bangladesh. Shahriar Caesar Rahman's speech at the Whitley Awards 2018: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1OAUnkB0NY

Shahriar Caesar Rahman has completed his B.Sc. in Environmental Science from School of Environmental Science and Management at Independent University, Banladesh. Shahriar Caesar Rahman works in the remote Chittagong Hill Tracts in Bangladesh, which is part of the Indo-Burma Biodiversity Hotspot. In this hostile environment, entrenched in complex insurgent issues, he has conducted biodiversity surveys in the area which resulted in the most comprehensive wildlife survey done in the region. He documented 26 globally-threatened species persisting in the Sangu Reserve Forest. Shahriar also discovered the critically endangered Arakan forest turtle and keeled box turtle for the first time in Bangladesh, as well as rediscovered populations of the largest tortoise in Asia: the Asian giant tortoise, which was thought to be extirpated from Bangladesh. In 2015, he initiated the Schools for Conservation programme, which established four primary schools in the remotest villages of the Sangu Reserve Forest. In exchange for these primary schools, the villagers agreed to cease hunting the Asian giant tortoise and fourteen other highly threatened wildlife species. The survey data show a reduction of turtle hunting by 80%. While the hunting mitigation programme has proven to be successful, it is not enough to ensure the long-term survival of this species and its habitat. Shahriar is also the winner of Future for Nature Award 2017.