JAIPUR: Belinda Wright doesn't mince words. "I love animals and would do anything for them. Wildlife means everything to me," said Belinda, a prominent wildlife photographer and conservationist, whose first brush with wildlife was when she was barely seven weeks old. Living in a house full of animals in Kolkata, Belinda's childhood was spent bringing up a tiger cub in 1957, a lion cub and leopards. Her holidays were generally spent in the jungles in Bihar with her mother Anne Wright. The founder trustee of World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), Anne was a member of the Tiger Task Force commissioned by late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi to select nine tiger reserves for the launch of Project Tiger in 1973. So wildlife conservation is something that Belinda got in her lineage. In conversation with former honorary wildlife warden Balindu Singh at 'The Write Circle', she shared her experiences. "There is very little focus on preserving our heritage and wildlife in any government. The change of government is a tragic change for conservationists and wildlife lovers. Now there is a committee formed at the Centre to dilute all wildlife laws. All linear development now do not need environmental clearance, which means any road, canal of development adjacent to wildlife reserves would not need environmental clearance. This will sound the death knell for wildlife," said Belinda. Having pioneered investigations into the illegal wildlife trade in the subcontinent, Belinda helped expose the trade in tiger parts, and has been instrumental in the arrest of hundreds of poachers or smugglers. "By now the world knows tigers have been killed and are being killed. For sure they are being killed to fuel the demand from China. In 1967 Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis appeared in a leopard skin coat. Thereafter it became such a fad. Thousands of tiger skins left India. That was the first thing that hit tigers," said Belinda who was also a member of the team that revealed the magnitude of the big cat skin trade in Tibet. "There is only 4% protected area in the country. This magical 4% should be kept sacrosanct at any cost," she emphasized. (Source :Times of India)