Prativa Kaspal was born in the ancoent City of Devotees, Bhaktapur Nepal, enriched with unique cultures and monuments, popular for king curd (Juju Dhau a type of buffalo yogurt). She completed her Masters degree investigating the ecology of the Chinese pangolin, the indigenous use of pangolin products and attitudes towards pangolin conservation. She bears five years of experience with community approaches to the conservation of the endangered fishing cat in the wetlands of southern Nepal. Together with her colleague, an article on fishing cat has been published in The Journal of Threatened Taxa.
Her research interests are in the combination of the acquisition of ecological knowledge and community involvement to achieve conservation of wildlife in Nepal.
She works for the non-profit Women for Conservation, a small team of qualified, experienced and passionate women that remain always attentive to women involvement in environment and biodiversity conservation.
She has been granted conservation awards for undertaking fishing cat research and building and boosting up community conservation models with substantial capacity building programs for the sustainability of the conservation effort in the long run.
Currently, she and her team are working on a project that intends to intensify community fishing cat conservation programs with some additional ecological research to implement necessary conservation actions and ensure their continuation into the future with minimum outside input. It aims to encompass and implement several conservation approaches which will serve not only the fishing cat and its habitat but also directly benefit the diverse communities on the ground.
Since 2015, Prativa has also been an assistant lecturer at the Bhaktapur Multiple Campus, Tribhuwan University, engaging her students in research projects and outreach activities.
Fishing Cat Conservation Alliance 