Rohit Giri  is an Nepalese, Field Biologist, conservationist, aspiring Herpetologist and
Photographer.

My name is Rohit Giri and I am from Pokhara, Nepal. My love and fascination for snakes began
since my early childhood. I was only 12 years old when I rescued my first snake. I was deeply
fascinated by the creatures and thus my curiosity began and I wanted to know more about them. I
found a snake book in my school library, that was when my studies began and I haven’t stopped
since. I have been watching people killing snakes on sight unnecessarily because of fear of being
bitten. While rescuing snakes I came to know that there is actually a problem bigger than
rescuing snakes i.e., perceptions of people towards snakes. I found that people have negative
attitude towards snakes and human-snake conflict in Nepal is one of the major human-wildlife
conflicts. It is very challenging to mitigate human-snake conflict and create a harmonious
relationship. Thus I thought, let’s do something about it, let’s educate them and tryin to mitigate
this conflicts. Snakes are worshiped as gods in Nepal and it has many importances like
ecological importance, medical importance, religious and cultural importance. Some snakes act
as a biological indicator and presence of this species indicates healthy and balanced ecosystem.
They also act as natural pest controls. Most of the people are unaware about these things and are
killing snakes when encounter. Since then, I’m working to address those fears and demystify the
superstitions about snakes. I’m doing a lot of community outreach awareness for the past 5 years
and rescued more than 1000 snakes till date. Apart from rescue works, I do commercial
photography, which helps me to sustain my conservation works. Currently I’m working on
Herpetofauna of Nepal, documenting them, doing research and I have published a fews
scientific papers.