Saevus

About Saevus

Overview

Saevus is India's premium wildlife and natural history magazine, launched in February 2012 by Saevus Wildlife with the travel-products company Samsonite as its anchor sponsor. Conceived as a magazine that would bring India's extraordinary biodiversity to every home through stunning visuals and compelling stories, Saevus set out to popularise the beauty and diversity of Indian nature and wildlife among Indian citizens. Its editorial team at launch comprised Sree Nandy as editor-in-chief, Sandeep Mall as managing partner, Santanu Nandy as publisher and Dhrotiman Mukherjee as head of photography, and it drew on some of the country's finest wildlife photographers and natural-history writers. Published initially once in two months and later quarterly, the magazine built a reputation for high production values, striking photography and a celebratory vision of conservation expressed in its motto, "Conservation through appreciation". Its official website is saevus.in.

Launch at the Little Rann of Kutch

Saevus was unveiled on 17 February 2012 at the Little Rann of Kutch in Gujarat, in a two-day launch event held amid the wildlife itself. The choice of venue was deliberate and symbolic: the Little Rann of Kutch is famous as the world's last refuge of the Indian wild ass (khur), has been declared the Indian Wild Ass Sanctuary, and is an ecologically important landscape rich in biodiversity — home to cranes, ducks, pelicans, flamingoes, sandgrouse, francolins and the Indian bustard, as well as mammals including the Indian wolf, desert fox and nilgai. The launch event featured sessions by eminent guests including Dr Satya Kumar, professor at the Wildlife Institute of India; Sandesh Kadur, the eminent wildlife photographer; and Subrata Dutta, managing director of Samsonite South Asia. The sessions covered wildlife photography tips, filming wildlife, mountaineering, wildlife conservation and the association of Samsonite with Saevus — a striking example of corporate involvement in promoting wildlife and natural history. A morning safari at the Little Rann gave the assembled guests a first-hand encounter with the landscape the magazine would celebrate.

The team behind the magazine

The founding team brought together editorial, business and photographic expertise. Sree Nandy, the editor-in-chief, articulated the magazine's ambition at the launch, expressing her conviction that Saevus would be more than a wildlife and nature magazine — that it would bring readers closer to "a life that is beyond imagination and surreal", backed by the best wildlife and nature photographers and an editorial team whose passion was nature. Sandeep Mall, the managing partner, described Saevus as a premium wildlife magazine aiming to offer readers "the side of wildlife and nature they have never been exposed to". Santanu Nandy served as publisher, and Dhrotiman Mukherjee headed photography — a crucial role for a magazine whose identity rested on visual excellence. The publishers also planned tie-ups with book retail chains across India to widen the magazine's distribution beyond newsstands and specialty bookstores.

Editorial vision: conservation through appreciation

Saevus's guiding philosophy, "Conservation through appreciation", shaped everything about the magazine. Rather than preaching about environmental doom, the magazine sought to make Indians fall in love with their own natural heritage — to celebrate what its founders called the "bold, beautiful and dynamic India, much of it unseen and unexplored". The idea was born, in the magazine's own telling, "somewhere out there in the wilderness": a dream and a vision to bring India's amazing biodiversity to every home. This celebratory approach distinguished Saevus from the more campaigning style of much Indian environmental journalism. The magazine bet that appreciation would lead to conservation — that readers who marvelled at a photograph of a wild ass at dawn or a flamingo over the Rann would become stakeholders in protecting the landscapes those creatures depend on. It was an optimistic, aesthetically driven theory of change, and it gave the magazine its distinctive voice.

Photography, design and production values

As a premium magazine, Saevus invested heavily in photography and design. It worked with leading Indian wildlife and nature photographers, and its pages were built around large-format, high-impact images — the kind of visual storytelling more familiar from international natural-history magazines than from the Indian newsstand. The September 2012 issue, a "bird's special", illustrates the approach: it carried a stunning cover image of little owls by the wildlife photographer Baiju Patil, alongside articles, illustrations and design work that drew praise from the conservation community. The magazine also carried the work of Rohan Chakravarty, the creator of Green Humour, whose cartoons and illustrations — including a birding guide by the birder Sumit Sen issued as a free supplement — added wit and accessibility to the visual mix. For a generation of Indian wildlife photographers, Saevus provided a rare and prestigious print platform for their work.

Frequency and distribution

At launch, Saevus was published once in two months — a bi-monthly rhythm suited to a premium, photography-led magazine — and was made available on newsstands and in specialty bookstores from March 2012. Over the years the magazine settled into a quarterly rhythm, building a library of issues that now runs to more than thirty editions. Digital platforms extended its reach: listings on e-magazine services carry its issues to readers beyond the print distribution network, and its web portal at saevus.in complements the print magazine with stories on photography, travel, nature, biodiversity and wildlife from India and the world. The magazine invited contributions from wildlife photographers, natural-history specialists and researchers, who could submit original stories based on assignments they had undertaken — making it a participatory platform for the naturalist community rather than a closed shop.

The SAEVUS Eco-Achievers Quiz

Saevus's most far-reaching initiative beyond the printed page has been the SAEVUS Eco-Achievers Quiz, described as the country's favourite wildlife quiz. Launched in 2015 in select metropolitan cities, the quiz grew rapidly, reaching forty cities within two years, and is organised in association with Rotary Clubs across the country between August and January each year, with the champion teams from the city rounds competing in a national finale in Mumbai. The quiz uses an edutainment format to sensitise schoolchildren to the environment, and Saevus reports that some 50,000 children participate in its school programmes every year. The Bhubaneswar edition, organised with the Rotary Club of Bhubaneswar and supported by Tata Motors, illustrates the model: in December 2022, the seventh Bhubaneswar edition at KiiT International School drew thirty-two teams of three students each from standards five to seven, from schools across Bhubaneswar, Cuttack and Puri, competing as champions of the natural world. The quiz has no participation fee, removing barriers to entry for schools.

Community and the naturalist network

Beyond the magazine and the quiz, Saevus positioned itself as a hub for India's wildlife community — photographers, researchers, naturalists, travellers and conservationists. Its portal and social presence showcase the best of photography, travel, nature, biodiversity and wildlife, and its editorial pages have featured contributions from scientists such as those at the Wildlife Institute of India alongside the work of field photographers. By treating wildlife as a subject of beauty, adventure and national pride rather than only of crisis and conflict, the magazine helped broaden the constituency for conservation in India, reaching readers who might never pick up a scientific journal or an activist pamphlet. Its corporate partnerships — beginning with Samsonite as anchor sponsor and continuing with supporters such as Tata Motors for its school programmes — demonstrated a model of conservation communication funded by businesses willing to associate their brands with nature.

Saevus today

Saevus continues as India's premium wildlife and natural history magazine and web portal, celebrating Indian biodiversity through photography, travel writing and natural-history storytelling at saevus.in. Its school quiz programmes continue to reach tens of thousands of children each year, carrying the "conservation through appreciation" philosophy into classrooms across forty cities. In a media landscape where specialist print magazines face severe headwinds, Saevus's combination of a premium print product, a digital portal and a nationwide schools programme has given it multiple legs to stand on. For readers who want to experience India's wild places — from the Little Rann of Kutch where it was born to the forests, wetlands and mountains it has chronicled ever since — the magazine remains the country's most visually ambitious window onto the natural world.