It all began with a story.

On an early February morning this year, a The Better India feature travelled farther than anyone expected. Somewhere between its first line and its last, it bridged the distance between a conservationist in one part of India and a forest officer in another.

Dr Sarita Subramanian still remembers the moment a forest officer from Chhattisgarh reached out to her. It was not at a wildlife conference or an official review meeting. It happened because he had just finished reading a story published by The Better India about her work inside India’s forests.

“A conscientious and dynamic officer reached out to us because of the story,” she says. “Otherwise, it would have never happened.”

That officer was Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) Varun Jain, posted at Udanti–Sitanadi Tiger Reserve in Chhattisgarh. The landscape where he works is known for its remoteness, its forest–fringe villages, and its fragile wildlife, including the critically endangered wild buffalo population the state has been trying to revive.

For some time, he had been searching for a sustainable way to ease a long-standing worry. Each summer, the forest’s water sources thinned out, pushing animals closer to human settlements and raising the risk of conflict.

The story he read featured the work of Dr Sarita, her husband, and their Earth Brigade Foundation. Their intervention was simple but powerful: solar-powered pumps to help keep water available in some of India’s harshest wildlife landscapes.

Varun says the article introduced him to the couple’s work at the perfect time and helped him see a path forward. One click led to a message that soon grew into a conversation and then into a collaboration. When people who care about the same land find each other, even daunting problems begin to look a little more workable.

The partnership that followed brought eight solar-powered water installations and five electrified forest camps to Udanti–Sitanadi, with more planned for the coming year.

For Dr Sarita and her husband, Dr P V Subramaniam, the officer’s prompt outreach........

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