Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment

Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE), Bangalore, India, was established on 11 January 1996, as a research organization to address environmental challenges of biodiversity loss and conservation for sustainable livelihoods. In the 1980s when conservation biology rose to prominence owing to an increasing awareness of large-scale biodiversity and natural habitat loss, there was also a realization that conservation biology could not ignore the wider societal discourses on the management of natural resources and economic development planning [1]. ATREE therefore, strove to understand interactions between nature and human society and the dynamics therein.

ATREE brought along an effort to institutionalize an interdisciplinary and problem- solution oriented research and teaching paradigm in India [2]. One key element of this effort has been an explicitly normative but broad set of concerns, including equity and democratic governance as integral aspects of conservation and sustainability. Another has been an emphasis on balancing academic rigour with social relevance, the latter achieved not just by speaking to policy makers, but by building collaborations with local communities and activist groups in a number of field sites. Finally, building an explicitly interdisciplinary PhD programme in spite of significant resource and other constraints has built a common perspective.

ATREE was established with the mission of bringing together researchers to do interdisciplinary, applied work to achieve three goals: (a) conserve biological diversity and promote sustainable development, (b) improve the institutional and policy framework for conservation of biodiversity, and (c) strengthen the capacity of government and non-government organizations to use the best knowledge and data to solve conservation problems.

At ATREE research and teaching is based on a clear understanding that the notion of ‘value-neutral science’ is a chimera when applied to environmental issues, since problems always have to be framed in normative terms before they can be explained using the scientific method, and solutions are meaningful only when they address normative concerns [3].  Indeed, ATREE's includes the three normative goals, ‘conservation, sustainability and social justice’, rather than sustainability alone, in describing its mission demonstrates a broader understanding of environmentalism [4] that has resonated with a wide group of actors, especially in a region where environmental justice and poverty alleviation concerns have been paramount.

The mission and goals have evolved over time, and in conjunction with the emergence of environmental problems and thinking about the ways to address these problems. The concept of ecosystem services that included water and carbon sequestration explicitly placed biodiversity in a larger arena. As more post-PhD scientists were recruited, ATREE's activities diversified and structure changed. Two centres, one for Conservation Science and one for Policy and Governance, were created in 2006. In 2007, a PhD programme was launched with affiliation to the Manipal Academy for Higher Education for the degree. Although initially thought of as a biology/conservation biology programme, donor support for a broader vision led to its expansion into a PhD in Conservation Science and Sustainability Studies starting 2008, with grounding in both the social and natural sciences. In early 2009, another interdisciplinary research institution, Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Environment and Development (CISED), also founded by Kamaljit Bawa along with Sharachchandra Lele and some other senior colleagues, merged with ATREE. CISED had its focus on forest, water and energy. This helped to synergise the efforts for more effective implementation and output. ATREE's mission was then re-defined as ‘promoting socially just environmental conservation and sustainable development by generating rigorous interdisciplinary knowledge that engages actively with academia, policy makers, practitioners, activists, students and wider public audiences’, in short, applied interdisciplinary research and teaching. Thus ATREE evolved to have two centres, the Centre for Environment and Development and the Centre for Biodiversity Conservation and 20 research faculty members specializing in varied subjects including environmentalists, geographers, sociologists and hydrologists. In 2019, ATREE launched two more centres, the Centre for Social and Environmental Innovation (CSEI) and the Centre for Policy design (CPD) for scaling up its environmental knowledge to the society and for engaging more with the government towards effective policy design and implementation.

• ATREE was awarded the Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam award for Environment Conservation in 2005 by the Government of Karnataka for its outstanding contributions in environmental conservation and management.
• In 2008, the Stanford Social Innovation Review (Summer 2008) described ATREE as a globally unique conservation and development organization for its pioneering work crossing diverse sectors and linking sound research with strategic action (http://ssir.org/articles/entry/from_the_ground_up).
• In 2009, ATREE was awarded the Ryutaro Hashimoto APFED (Asia Pacific Forum for Environment and Development) Gold Award for its flagship program on "Promoting the ingenious use of a plant invasive, Lantana camara, to enhance the livelihood of the forest dwelling communities in India"
• Since 2011, the Think Tank and Civil Societies Programme at the University of Pennsylvania has ranked ATREE amongst the top 20 environmental think tanks in the world, and #1 or #2 in Asia (http://gotothinktank.com/dev1/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/2011-Global-Go-To-Think-Tanks-Index-Report.pdf).
• In the citation for the first Gunnerus Sustainability Award received by ATREE's founder Dr. Kamaljit S Bawa in 2012, ATREE was described as an ‘innovative, knowledge-based conservation and research organization for sustainability science’(http://www.dknvs.no/kamaljit-s-bawa-winner-of-thegunnerus-sustainability-award/)
• In 2016, ATREE received the Distinguished Service Award from the Society for Conservation Biology (SCB) Asia Section, in recognition of ATREE's extraordinary contributions to conservation of biodiversity and capacity building for sustainable development in India.
• In 2019, ATREE was awarded the Sultan Qaboos Prize for Environmental Preservation, a biennial award sponsored by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the Sultan Qaboos Bin Said of Oman "to afford recognition to outstanding contributions by individuals, groups of individuals, institutes or organizations in the management or preservation of the environment, consistent with the policies, aims and objectives of UNESCO, and in relation to the Organization's programmes in this field."

1. Seidler, R. and K.S. Bawa. 2016. ‘Ecology’. in: J. Adamson, W. A. Gleason & D. N. Pellow (eds.). Keywords for environmental studies, pp. 71–75. New York and London: New York University Press. https://books.google.co.in/books?redir_esc=y&id=stwWCgAAQBAJ&q=ecology#v=snippet&q=ecology&f=false
2. Bawa, Kamal; Balachander, Ganesan (1 April 2016). "Sustainability science at ATREE: exhilaration, bumps, and speed-breakers when rubber meets the road". Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability. 19: 144–152. doi:10.1016/j.cosust.2016.02.004.
3. Lélé, Sharachchandra; Norgaard, Richard B. (1 November 2005). "Practicing Interdisciplinarity". BioScience. 55 (11): 967–975. doi:10.1641/0006-3568(2005)055[0967:PI]2.0.CO;2.
4. Lele S: Environmentalisms, justices, and the limits of Ecosystems Services Frameworks. In The Justices and Injustices of Ecosystems Services. Edited by Sikor T. Earthscan/Routledge; 2013:119-139.