Harshada Gauns

Harshada grew up in Goa's Khazans. These traditional coastal wetlands are home to rich wildlife alongside busy farming and fishing, Khazans supply every ingredient in Goa's famous fish curry rice. In 2018, Harshada founded AERO- Arannya Environment Research Organisation on a single belief: conservation only works when communities own it. In the Khazans, coexistence is not new. It is a 3,000-year-old system, still visible in festivals like Mange Thapni, where villagers honour mugger crocodiles as guardians of their fields. Today, abandoned farms are putting that system at risk.

Through her Champions project, Harshada and her team will train local youth as Khazan Heritage Champions. These young people will gather traditional farming knowledge, biodiversity data and community stories, turn them into learning resources and lead awareness campaigns in their own villages. The project will survey biodiversity across the seasons in 12 Khazans in Bicholim taluka and 28 in Tiswadi, and study human-wildlife interactions with mugger crocodiles and smooth-coated otters. It will also track salinity at sluice gates, breaches in bunds and land use, and record oral histories. At the same time, it will bring farmers, fishers, gram sabhas and government departments together to identify gaps, draw up management plans and discuss funding and subsidies. The aim is to revive abandoned farms, salt-tolerant rice varieties such as Korgut, and traditions like Mange Thapni, for the crocodiles, the otters and the people who have always shared this space.