When Sabanam Pathak joined the forest service in 1991, few believed a woman would have the smarts or tenacity to help communities threatened by deforestation. During her long career as a forest ranger, she has proved her skeptics wrong, engaging rural women and other marginalized people to protect wildlife and bring forests back to life. She has worked intensively with the Chepang ethnic group, even learning their language so she could teach them animal husbandry and commercial agriculture. Her guiding belief is that if people see the forest is theirs, they will feel responsible to protect it.
