Swati Thiyagarajan
Nature Storyteller
Swati is an award-winning conservation and wildlife journalist. Former Environment Editor at NDTV, she pioneered environment reporting on Indian television with her show Born Wild. She is the author of Born Wild: Journeys into the Wild Hearts of India and Africa. Swati co-directed The Animal Communicator and was Associate Producer of the Oscar-winning My Octopus Teacher.
She works with the Sea Change Project focusing on preserving the Great African Seaforest, and recently executive produced Pangolin: Kulu’s Journey on Netflix. She is also Environment Segment Head at DeKoder and serves on the advisory board of the Senckenberg Ocean Species Alliance.
Stories By Swati Thiyagarajan
Kelp forests are on the cover of TIME magazine – a first in the publication’s 103-year history. The Great African Seaforest, one of the most biodiverse and least-known ecosystems on the planet, is now in front of a global audience.
Tracking a caracal along the shoreline reveals how we’ve lost the “language of the wild” – and why reclaiming it is key to nature connection and conservation.
The Sea Change Project reflects on its first time attending the United Nations Ocean Conference (UNOC3) in Nice, where kelp forests gained long-overdue political recognition. From inspiring side events to landmark pledges for marine protection, the week sparked renewed hope, connection, and commitment to our blue planet.
Our planet has a fever. It’s sweating and sick. Last year was the hottest year on record, with average temperatures rising past the 1.5ºC threshold agreed upon by the 195 signatories to the Paris Agreement.
I watched the mountainside writhe in orange. Stark against the deepening sky, the dance of fire looked deadly and unavoidable. Heroic efforts by helicopters and firefighters wrestled the great beast down, only for it to start ravening on the next range a few miles over. This deadly waltz of fire and firefighters continued for ten days in the fag-end of 2023. Thankfully, there was no loss of human life or property.
When we originally formed SCP it was a way for us to produce the occasional creative project while immersing ourselves in the kelp forests which we named the Great African Seaforest. As a group we realised that by giving our kelp forests a name we were giving it an unique identity and a presence that connected it to the kelp forests of the world, but also distinguished it as a particular ecosystem found on the shores of Southern Africa.
