The Great African Seaforest

(Click on the image for a larger view)

In one of my lengthiest and most detailed illustration projects yet, I got the honour of working closely with the fabulous team at The Seachange Project (creators of the Oscar winning documentary 'My Octopus Teacher')- to create a vision of hope for the Great African Seaforest, a vast expanse of kelp forest in the Atlantic Ocean along the western coast of South Africa. From the glamorous Cape Fur Seal, Cape Clawless Otter and the African Penguin to little known klipfish and limpets, the Great African Seaforest is home to a myriad marine organisms that make the kelp a living, breathing, and a dancing ecosystem! Many of these creatures are threatened by overfishing and anthropogenic disturbances today, and conservationists at the Seachange Project are working towards establishing safe, undisturbed habitats for these species to bounce back.

The illustration is available as a freely downloadable resource on the organization's website here. A massive thanks to the Seachange team (Swati Thiyagarajan, Craig Foster, Carina Frankal, Dani Ehrlich, Jannes Landschoff) for trusting me with the illustration, for having me at Cape Town for a field visit, and for their patience through the project!

Rediscovery of the Golden Mole

Jessie, a South African Border Collie trained to sniff elusive ground moles out by the Endangered Wildlife Trust, rediscovered the De Winton’s Golden Mole, which had been presumed extinct! Here’s a new year reminder for humanity to do better this new year, because Jessie and the mole still seem to be hopeful about us.

I had the pleasure of working with the Endangered Wildlife Trust earlier in 2016, when I designed a mascot ‘Mwitu’ for their Painted Dog conservation initiative. Congratulations to the team for this rediscovery!

Comic from my column with The Hindu Sunday Magazine

Cartoons for the Resilience Evidence Forum

I recently had the opportunity to draw live cartoons at the Resilience Evidence Forum held in Cape Town, joining virtually from India. Here's the gallery of cartoons created on various topics discussed and debated upon at the forum.

Africa and climate change:

The climate resilience trampoline

The dilemmas of standardizing measurements for resilience:

The underwhelming percentage of private investments in resilience:

Western definitions and their lack of applicability or relatability in other regions and cultures:

How war upsets climate resilience:

Globalized versus regionalized definitions and measurements for risk:

The role of art, music and culture in climate evidence and resilience:

Definitions of 'community' in climate resilience:

Climate change and Africa's right to development:

Standardizing measurements and metrics for resilience:

A huge thanks to Corina Angheloiu of the Global Resilience Partnership for the opportunity!

False Bay : Illustration for Save Our Seas

(click on the image for a larger view)

Wedged between the Cape Peninsula and the Hottentot Hollands Mountain of Western Cape, South Africa, the False Bay is a magical ecosystem, teeming with some spectacular and endemic marine life! From African Penguins and Fur Seals to Right Whales and Great White Sharks, this star studded bay is a jewel of the Great African Kelp Forest.

Illustration for Save Our Seas Foundation's gorgeous Shark Education Centre at Kalk Bay, Cape Town. The illustration can be downloaded on their website here. Thanks to Jade Schulz and the team at SOSF for the opportunity!

The Wildlife Map of South Africa

Diamond and gold may well be South Africa's most valued reserves, but this beautiful country's most invaluable treasure is its wildlife! True to its title of 'Rainbow Nation', South Africa boasts of a biogeography as diverse and complex as its multicultural ethnicity: from the savanna forests of Kruger National Park at one end, home to the Big Five; to the unique Cape Floral Kingdom at the other extreme, home to some of the country's rarest endemics. The topographically diverse nation has been designed to harbour a staggering amount of biodiversity by a few crucial factors: oceanic currents from two oceans that meet at its southern tip, and the Great Escarpment that divides the country into the various biomes that we see on the map: the Karoo scrubs of the northwest, the Kalahari desert in the north, the fynbos coastal ecosystem of the southwest, mountain forests of the south, the Drakensberg highlands shared by SA and Lesotho in the east, and the bushveld and savanna forests of the northeast. 

The map brings together more than a hundred of the country's wild animals in one massive illustration, with a special focus on endemic species. Prints are available on my webstore here, shipped worldwide. For orders within India visit my Indian webstore.

(A big thanks to friends and mentors who have hosted me in South Africa: Swati Thiyagarajan and Craig Foster of Seachange with whom I am working on a very exciting illustrated compilation; and Karishma Pais and Brajesh Bajpai!)

Click on the images below for some close-up snippets:

Fynbos

A cartoon on the Fynbos: a shrub biome endemic to the Cape region of South Africa, featuring a Fynbos endemic bird species: the Protea Canary. I am off to South Africa over an exciting assignment, and of course for some wildlife-watching (and my maiden visit to the African continent!). I will see you soon with more cartoons and comics in mid-June.