The Team
Our highly experienced team provides customised guidance to landowners every step of the way. Our approach is to combine science with traditional knowledge and our lived experience as grassroot ecologists. We are a hands-on team who know land management and understand wildlife intuitively. Our core team has spent decades living off the grid and largely off the land. Over the past two decades members of ilā have been instrumental in establishing and running some of India’s leading restoration projects.
Sandilya Theuerkauf
Sandilya Theuerkauf is a restoration expert and conservation practitioner who grew up in the rainforest of the western ghats. Sandy is an instrumental member who developed and created the Gurukula Botanical Sanctuary (GBS). The sanctuary is arguably India's leading plant conservation initiative. He has extensive lived experience with nature conservation, sustainability, rewilding and restoration. Sandy has also taught nature appreciation to many generations of young people.
Siddharth Rao
Siddharth Rao is a conservation biologist and development practitioner with over twenty years of experience working in various capacities spanning conservation practice, ecological research, and media. His work focuses on restoration ecology, community-led- conservation, environmental justice, markets for conservation, carnivore ecology, herpetology, and conservation outreach and education. Siddharth is a founding trustee of the adavi trust and founding member of the Ecological Restoration Alliance, India (ERA). He is a 2015 Kinship Conservation Fellow.
