Born and raised in the forest-fringe village of Tholpetty in Wayanad, Kerala, Muneer is an anthropologist and naturalist whose work bridges lived experience and scholarly inquiry. As the lead of the Ecosystem & Wildlife Programme at the Hume Centre for Ecology and Wildlife Biology and a PhD researcher, he explores the nuanced relationships between humans and elephants through a multispecies ethnographic lens.

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Muneer’s project moves beyond viewing Wayanad as a site of conflict to understanding it as a landscape where people and elephants continuously negotiate space. It is about adaptive, relational ways of living with elephants drawing on memory, sensory cues, and cultural practices to balance risk and care. His work focuses on using participatory theatre and narrative storytelling, within the communities, between different communities and to the outside world. By engaging with indigenous knowledge, his project will empower youth, media professionals, and community members to reimagine shared living with wildlife. In doing so, Muneer’s work reframes coexistence as interspecies kinship shaped by responsiveness, rather than imposed separation.