Ovee H Thorat
Areas of Interest & Expertise
- Political Ecology
- Pastoralism and rangeland ecology
- Interdisciplinary Approaches to Conservation Research
- Dryland Conservation in India
- Context-based Nature Learning
- Commons and commoning
- Gender Dynamics in Livestock-keeping Communities
Biography
Ovee works on questions of power and justice in the field of wildlife conservation in India. Landscapes used extensively by pastoralists communities such as commons, drylands and Himalayan meadows have been the main sites of her work.
For her PhD, she worked in the Banni grasslands in Kutch, Gujarat, to identify the nature and impacts of various interventions made in the region for conservation and development of grasslands. She later studied how livestock keeping enables transitions in an SEZ in Andhra Pradesh. She has worked with Nature Classrooms in Kashmir as a fellow to create context-based nature learning resources with the local school teachers and educators. She was engaged with Anthra, a Pune-based NGO on gender dynamics in livestock-keeping communities and gender-sensitive research.
Prior to this she designed and co-taught a course on Environmental Communication for the undergraduate students at Krea University, Andhra Pradesh as a postdoctoral fellow. She also co-organised and conducted a workshop on Social Science Methods in Conservation Research at Student Conference on Conservation Science (SCCS), Bengaluru, India for five consecutive years. This enabled her to be an active member of the academic community in Bengaluru, which is something that she finds meaningful.
Other areas of her work include camera trapping of small carnivores, nature-literacy surveys, and plant-animal interactions. Gardening and art provides her with comfort and grounding.
Publications
- Sharma, K., Mathur, M., Hiremath, A.J., Vanak, A.T., Ravi, R., Niphadkar, M., Thorat, O. and Jagdish, N. (2024). Modelling the Banni social-ecological system using participatory system dynamics for building insights on invasive species management and stakeholder engagement. Journal of Environmental Management, 371, 122899
- Thorat, O., & Rai, N. D. (2023). Commoning under the new rangeland development paradigm:‘Pastoralisation’ of the Banni grasslands of India. Political Geography, 105, 102924. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2023.102924
- Sundaram, B., Thorat, O., Chinnadurai, V. (2021). Life in a Special Economic Zone: Navigating the TransitionTransformation-Aspiration Continuum. Economic and Political Weekly, 56(48), 36 – 41. https://www.epw.in/journal/2021/48/insight/life-special-economic-zone.html
- Thorat, O., Rai, N. (2018). Contradicciones pastoriles en las praderas de Banni en Kachchh, India. Ecología Política, 55, 92 – 97 (This was a special issue of the journal Ecología Política that focussed on work from Asia) https://www.ecologiapolitica.info/contradicciones-pastoriles-en-las-praderas-de-banni-en-kachchh-india/
- Goswami, R., O. Thorat, V. Aditya & S.N. Karimbumkara (2018). A preliminary checklist of butterflies from the northern Eastern Ghats with notes on new and significant species records including three new reports for peninsular India. Journal of Threatened Taxa, 10(13), 12769 – 12791. https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.3730.10.13.12769 – 12791
- Thorat, O. (2017). Shaping Landscapes through Development Interventions. Seminar, 695, 46 – 52. https://www.india-seminar.com/2017/695/695_ovee_thorat.htm
- Joshi, P., Misher, C., & Thorat, O. (2016). New Record of Agamid Lizard Trapelus agilis (Olivier, 1804) (Squamata: Agamidae) from Gujarat, India. Russian Journal of Herpetology, 24(1), 78 – 80. https://doi.org/10.30906/1026 – 2296-2019 – 24‑1 – 78-80
- Thorat, O., Mukherjee, R., Ramanujam, V., Aditya, V., Devy, M. S. (2016). Patterns of herbivory on Macaranga peltata- a pioneer species in the mid-elevation forests of the Western Ghats, India. Current Science, 111(5), 9 – 11. https://www.jstor.org/stable/24908571
- Kumara, H.; Thorat, O.; Kumar S.; Sasi R.; and Ashwin, H. P (2014). Small Carnivores of Biligiri Rangaswamy Tiger Reserve, Karnataka, India. Journal of Threatened Taxa, 6(12), 6534 – 6543. https://doi.org/10.11609/JoTT.o3766.6534 – 43
- Thorat, O. and Smetacek, P. (2012). Interspecific courtship solicitation by a female Danaus genutia Cramer, 1779 in the Sundarbans, West Bengal, India (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae, Danainae). NEVA (Nachrichten des Entomologischen Vereins Apollo), N. F. 33 (2÷3), 71 – 72. https://www.zobodat.at/pdf/NEVA_33_0071-0072.pdf
Books
- Thorat, O. H., Nerlekar, A. N. and Joshi, P. N. (2019). Grasses of Banni (bilingual). BAIF Development Research Foundation, Pune, 168 pp. ISBN: 978−81−935449−2−1 O.
- Open-access soft copy https://www.researchgate.net/publication/338701050_Grasses_of_Banni/link/5fe5cd8692851c13feb93bff/download/ Hardcopy at https://media.baif.org.in/product/grasses-of-banni/
This bilingual booklet provides detailed information on 40 grass species found in Banni – one of the largest grasslands in India. It contains field photos, images of key features, and microscopic parts to aid easy identification. It also provides an introduction to grasses, a simple key for the species, and information about their local names and uses, making this an invaluable resource for researchers as well as anyone interested in knowing more about this group of plants.
Popular articles
- A Walk Through an Old Government School in a Narrow Street of Srinagar. Co-authored with Nipun Prabhakar. Live Wire.https://livewire.thewire.in/campus/in-photos-a-walk-through-an-old-governmentschool-in-a-narrow-street-of-srinagar/
- “Cross Connections: Time to Rethink Human-Wildlife Conflict” From conflict to interaction – calling for a nuanced understanding of human-wildlife encounters. Roundglass Sustain. https://sustain.round.glass/conservation/rethinking-human-wildlife-conflict/
- “The Ever-Changing Lives of the Soligas in BR Hills”. In south-eastern Karnataka, indigenous communities like the Soliga renegotiate their relationship with their forest home. Roundglass Sustain. https://sustain.round.glass/people/ever-changing-lives-soligas-br-hills/
- “Foxy Tales: Look Before You Leap.” In the Kutch district of Gujarat, the clever desert fox survives a harsh habitat and outsmarts those who pursue it. Species section. Roundglass Sustain. https://sustain.round.glass/species/desert-fox/
- “The grass is greener here.” Living Landscapes. Co-authored with Anusree, A. S. Saevus.
Numerous Marathi articles on environment-related issues and travel in newspapers Lokmat, Divya Marathi, Loksatta, and Maharashtra Times. Links to Marathi articles https://marathi.thewire.in/birds-friendly-neighbors-of-mumbaikars
https://www.loksatta.com/lokprabha/vishesha/forest-1313964/
- Photo and text contributions to Sanctuary Asia’s coffee-table book on Chattisgarh, and The Other Mahabaleshwar by Anand Pendharkar.
- Wrote for All India Radio’s Marathi channel Asmita on science, environment, and conservation-related topics in 2018 – 2019.
Report contributions
Impact of the COVID-19 lockdown on pastoralists of India. Centre for Pastoralism, Delhi, 2021.
https://centreforpastoralism.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Impact-of-the-Covid-19-Lockdown-on-Pastoralists-of-India‑2.pdf
Conference Papers
- Thorat, O. (2025, February). Neither Here, Nor There: Challenges faced by migratory Bakarwal community in Jammu and Kashmir, presented in the panel titled ‘Pastoral Politics: Navigating Land, Conservation, and Livelihoods’ in Living Lightly Utsav, Bengaluru.
- Thorat, O. and Rai, N. D. (2018, June). Wasteland to Commons: Problems and Promises of Development Interventions in the Banni grasslands of Gujarat. This was a part of the panel Drylands and “New” Accumulations of Wealth at POLLEN18: Political Ecology, the Green Economy, and Alternative Sustainabilities at Oslo Metropolitan University, Norway.
- Thorat, O. (2016, October) Challenges of Managing a Grassland India over the Last Two Decades during a workshop on Ecosystembased Adaptations in Arid Areas conducted in Beijing by the Chinese Academy of Science, China.
- Thorat, O. and Rai, N. D. (2015, March). Transformation of a coupled human-grassland system under development interventions in Banni grasslands of Kachchh, Gujarat during a workshop on Critical Perspectives on the Financialisation of Nature– Theory, Politics and Practice organized by STEPS centre and Centre for Global Political Economy, University of Sussex, UK.
- Thorat, O. (2012, August) Patterns of People and Protected Area Interactions in and around Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve, Rajasthan: Combination of Rapid Surveys, Remote Sensing, and GIS at the 2nd Asia regional conference of the Society for Conservation Biology, India,