Careers in Restoration: Harshavardhini Angappan

For young Harshavardhini, environmental stewardship was a regular affair, and a career in ecology was supposed to be a natural choice. However, there were obstacles along the way. After working her way through several of them – an unrelated degree she didn’t like, COVID-19 pandemic and gaps in her knowledge – Harsha finally finds herself working with plants and restoring fragile ecosystems in the beautiful Nilgiris. Adaptability, persistence and a willingness to learn are the themes of her story. 

“I wanted a career in ecology from the start, but parental concerns about women’s safety influenced my decision making about where I could go to college, and thus what courses I could study, so I became a chemical engineer instead…” says Harshavardhini Angappan, now a restoration ecologist working with the Keystone Foundation in the Nilgiri mountains. 

Harsha, as she’s known, developed a sensibility towards nature from a young age. “My grandfather was a bit of a plant collector and liked to have trees around. Medicinal plants, Aada toda (Justicia adhatoda), betel nuts, showy aesthetic plants… I grew up helping him take care of them all in the garden”, she recalls.

Her school’s emphasis on conscious living also left an imprint on her. A 3 tier waste segregation system was in place in every corridor of the school. And every summer, the students would go on a nature camp in the scenic hills of nearby Yercaud in the Eastern ghats.

Then, in 2007, when she was in class 6, the school arranged for Harsha and her classmates to volunteer at an NGO that was attempting to revive Salem’s now renowned Mookaneri lake. Motivated mostly by the idea of having fun (and occasionally by the dream of building a beautiful lake), the troupe of kids would gather on weekends, manually digging out soil from the lakebed and forming human chains to heap it on an artificial island, 10 feet high. Harsha was among several such citizen’s groups working to revive the lake. Today, Mookaneri has become a birding spot with 45 such islands, thanks to their effort.  

Some of the islands at Mookaneri Lake, revived by collective citizen effort. Photo: Sueellen72, CC BY-SA 3.0 

End of school is a confusing time for many teenagers. Harsha however had become certain by then that she was doing “something related to the environment after school”, though she did not know what. 

But parental concerns and notions of physical and financial security, and an absence of timely counselling eventually altered her career trajectory.

“My mother wanted me and my twin sister to be financially independent and take care of ourselves. She felt that getting a degree in engineering would give us more opportunities in our career, or higher studies”, says Harsha, adding, “Initially, I considered Environmental engineering, it was the middle ground – it had something to do with the environment, and it was engineering.”

But there was to be another catch. Harsha’s parents wanted her to study in their home state of Tamil Nadu, a place considered relatively safe. 

Options for environmental engineering in the state were limited, and not well recognized. Harsha wasn’t enthused.

“I chose Chemical Engineering, a related field”, she sighs.

The next four years were a struggle. Like countless Indian teenagers forced to study engineering, she discovered she wasn’t interested in it. The subjects were too heavy, and the methods of teaching too rigid and dry.

Harsha realized that if she stuck to this path she would, at best, end up visiting factories and projects for giving them environmental clearances, or worse, get stuck at a desk job. She struggled with her subjects, and spent her time birding, upcycling waste, and creating a butterfly garden on her campus.

When engineering bores you so much that you start pondering other life plans

Perhaps out of sheer boredom, or likely in reaction to the mainstream engineering education inflicted on her, Harsha started toying with another forgotten childhood ambition – starting her own school. After her bachelor’s, she spent a year teaching science and maths to children at a school near Salem.

“Although starting my own school was going to take a lot (of resources), teaching children during that gap year felt great”, she explains. Towards the end of that year, prompted by her mother, she began considering the idea of teaching children about the environment.

But the “environment” is a broad field, and she wasn’t sure where to begin. She realised she had to develop some ecological expertise to answer that question. 

This finally led her to plan for a master’s in Environmental Studies. With an engineering degree in her kitty, it wasn’t difficult to convince the parents this time. The two years long masters’ program gave Harsha a broad overview of biodiversity conservation, water management, environmental economics, environmental policy, science communication, and – in line with her dream of teaching children – conservation education. During this time, she found herself drawn to hands-on environmental work and spent her spare time volunteering at a Wildlife Sanctuary.

A door closes, and another opens

In 2019, Harsha returned to India with the goal of helping her twin sister with her business of manufacturing and selling edible, waste free cutlery. Her stay was meant to be brief, and she planned on returning to Australia to finally embark on a green career.

This, however, was right before the pandemic began, and the lockdowns that followed made sure she could not return.

Not one to be deterred by setbacks, she started looking for volunteering opportunities to be on ground and apply the things she had learnt. On a visit to the Nilgiris, she heard of Keystone Foundation and went knocking on their doors. This was the start of her restoration journey.

Restoration teaches you that Botany and Zoology are actually useful!

Starting as an intern in 2019, Harsha has come to oversee operations at the two Keystone nurseries in the Nilgiris. The success of a restoration initiative hinges a lot on its nursery and the people running it, so she shoulders serious responsibility. Initially, she had found it daunting, even with her master’s degree. 

“I don’t have a background in botany. As kids, we thought subjects like botany and zoology were for people who wanted to be teachers, or IFS or IAS officers”, she laughs, adding, “it was a struggle to learn the names of the species we had in our nursery. On top of that, I didn’t know which plant grows where, since I wasn’t familiar with the forest ecosystem here. Whenever people came looking for plants for a specific niche, I wouldn’t be sure which one would serve the purpose.”

Harsha turned to field guides and botanists from the team to overcome this unfamiliarity. She also spent a lot of time on the field with people from the community, and a lot of it just observing where a particular plant was to be found in the natural environment.

Studies and restoration are often accomplished on ground with botanists and members of the local communities in the Nilgiris. 

Becoming better at restoration

As her familiarity with ecosystems grew, she began playing a larger role in informing restoration strategies by conducting assessments of reference and target sites. Today, she also uses insights from these assessments to inform what needs to be grown back in the nursery to meet restoration targets, when and where to collect seeds, and carry out social surveys for assessing potential threats to restored ecosystems.

Early on in her time at Keystone, Harsha also became an IUCN certified red list assessor, which makes her qualified to carry out red list assessments of threatened and endangered species. After a year of diligent research, studies and data collection, she has published one species in the IUCN red list. 

In all of this, she has had to confront gaps in her own knowledge, and has sought to address those with courses and training.

“I’m grateful for the supportive and encouraging learning environment at Keystone. My colleagues always encouraged me to pursue courses and attend both online and offline conferences, enabling me to deepen my understanding. Field trips to ERA’s member organizations also gave me opportunities for networking and knowledge exchange with fellow professionals in the ecosystem”

Today, Harsha has progressed to become a Certified Ecological Restoration Practitioner in Training (CERPIT), a certificate awarded by the Society for Ecological Restoration to emerging restoration professionals.

It all ties back to the nursery

Her work may now take her to sites far into the Nilgiris, but at the end of the day, Harsha still returns to the nursery. Ensuring a steady supply of the right plants ready to go out into the world requires taking stock of essential resources — soil, water, compost, and planting materials — and planning their procurement in advance. 

After the logistics are taken care of, she moves on to tracking and logging seed germination rates, another critical aspect of nursery work. “It helps us determine the quantum of seeds needed to meet restoration targets,” she explains. 

She then diligently logs the germination data and any new information into the nursery manuals, which also contain guidelines for others to use.

Supportive colleagues and importantly, just plain observation of the natural environment have helped Harsha become better at what she does.

Drawing hope in the age of ecological collapse

A question that often confronts everyone working anywhere in the “environmental sector” is one of hope. Hopelessness can quickly grip many working at the edge of environmental destruction, but Harsha seems cheerful and easygoing, “Every day brings forth new challenges, but rather than feeling discouraged, I motivate myself to push harder. This journey is as rewarding as it is challenging.”

The restoration ecologist at Keystone seems to have anchored herself with a hopeful vision, stating, “Witnessing the transformation of a dead landscape into a thriving forest fills me with a sense of optimism and inspiration. It reminds me that even the most degraded environments can be revitalized with dedication, perseverance, and collective effort. I hope to someday create a restored forest ecosystem on my own.”