The Tusk That Did the Damage by Tania James

just find your background compelling, especially as a woman stepping into unfamiliar territory.
    SAMINA HAKIM: The territory suits me very well.
    EMMA: Yeah, it looks like poaching has gone way down under your tenure. How’ve you made that happen?
    SAMINA HAKIM: We have increased the number of cases registered, and we have established protection strategies and antipoaching camps.
    EMMA: I’ve heard people say you’re a lot more effective than your predecessor—Mr. P. K. Kurian?
    SAMINA HAKIM: I will not comment on that. Simply I have made wildlife and conservation my topmost priority.
    EMMA: Did Mr. Kurian have a different priority?
    SAMINA HAKIM: No, no, I will not say that. I prefer to focus on positive things, such as, for example, we have been making great strides in protecting forest areas from habitat destruction.We are involving local communities by training them in sustainable extraction methods of nontimber forest products including honey and cardamom, and, as such, we are making the protection of the forest a priority for all people.
    EMMA: I see.
    SAMINA HAKIM: Any more questions? I have limited time today.
    EMMA: Of course, sure …
    (Extended pause.)
    Just switching gears for a second … I was reading about a particular case involving the Shankar Timber Company.
    SAMINA HAKIM:  …
    EMMA: It was about a protest by a number of villagers who were upset that the Forest Department had allowed a timber company to cut down all the trees on what they perceived—
    SAMINA HAKIM: Where did you read this?
    EMMA: I don’t remember where actually.
    SAMINA HAKIM: You know what? These villagers are upset because they see the profit from cutting timber. They want license to do so as well. The Forest Department cannot allow unregulated removal of timber and degradation of the forest. We only give clearance after careful consideration as to whether the outcome is in the public interest.
    EMMA: Were the villagers consulted? Or even warned?
    SAMINA HAKIM: No.
    EMMA: Isn’t that a violation of your conservationist principles, like the involvement of local communities—
    SAMINA HAKIM: I have answered enough. I think we are finished.
    EMMA: There’s nothing more you’d like to add?
    SAMINA HAKIM: Off it. Off the camera, please.
    As we left the office, Teddy peppered me with questions, all to do with where I’d gotten my intel on Shankar Timber. I told him I’d explain later, when Ravi wasn’t waiting by the car.
    I hadn’t planned to bring up the Shankar Timber case, but as the interview went on, and her answers took on the practiced cadence of a recitation (
as such … such as … as such
), I’d realized there was no other way of cracking her Teflon veneer. No way but one. The scandal was fair game; it had been in the news, after all. I hadn’t jumped her while she was at home in a bathrobe. She had to know the topic might come up.
    And yet, judging by her response—the way her hands fused into a gridiron clasp—it was clear she hadn’t foreseen this turn at all.
    Nor had I considered how my questions might affect Ravi, and his opinion of me. It only made sense to keep him in the dark, for the time being.
    An hour later, Ravi, Teddy, and I were strolling through Kavanar Wildlife Park behind Officer Soman and Officer Vasu. Teddy took sound, and I filmed as we filed through the green, all of it undulating just beyond our reach. I’d missed the cool of being behind the camera, hyperattuned to our surroundings and yet detached. There was so much to capture: frothy white bursts of Communist green, so named, Ravi explained, because of its tendency to spread. Macaques rattling the highest branches of the teaks. Nests of silky white orchids sprouting from the branches of trees with roots like lava spills gone solid; red ants threading through a spewage of buffalo dung.
    And then there was Officer Vasu and Officer Soman, both of whom had the quaint, bulbous features of garden gnomes. I paid more attention to