Image credit: Project Team
Conserving Bengaluru’s Nocturnal Habitats: This initiative involves students, researchers, citizens and civic bodies to map nocturnal biodiversity hotspots and pilot shielded lighting retrofits to restore disappearing functional urban Dark-Corridors.
Urban conservation overwhelmingly targets daytime wildlife, leaving night-active ecosystems severely under-protected. Rapid urbanization and unshielded high-Kelvin Artificial Light at Night (ALAN), compounded by noise pollution disrupt circadian rhythms, foraging, breeding, and bioluminescent communication for key nocturnal bioindicators like fireflies and glowworms, while impairing human health. In metropolises like Bengaluru, functional nocturnal biodiversity persists in urban green spaces, yet natural darkness is misperceived as unsafe rather than ecologically vital.
Led by Wild and Dark Earth (WiDE), this project bridges scientific research, empirical pilot retrofits, and civic engagement to prove ecological darkness and public safety can seamlessly coexist. The team will map light trespass (lux) and ambient noise (dB) across nocturnal hotspots to establish a dual-sensory baseline. To address safety, a “Shielded Dark Corridor” pilot on an institutional campus will replace glare-heavy lights with warm-toned (≤2700 K), downward-shielded LEDs, eliminating canopy light spill while maintaining clear ground visibility. Concurrently, 12 schools (6 Government, 6 Private) will join bilingual workshops, night walks, and citizen science logging.
The main output is an open-source Urban Nocturnal Habitat Preservation SOP for campuses, RWAs, and municipal bodies like BBMP, establishing a scalable blueprint for urban human-wildlife coexistence.
. By Wild and Dark Earth, Hareesha AS.
Project Start Date: September 2026
Contact details:
Wild and Dark Earth
- www.wildanddark.org
- mathithumilan@gmail.com
Hareesha AS
- https://hareeshaas.wordpress.com/
- hareesha329as@gmail.com