14 Facts About Sangita Iyer

Sangita Iyer is an Indian-born Canadian author, broadcast journalist, writer, biologist and documentary filmmaker.

Sangita Iyer is known for her advocacy on wildlife conservation, especially for wild elephants, and for exposing the atrocities against Asian elephants by religious institutions.

Sangita Iyer is the founding executive director and president of the Voice for Asian Elephants Society, which was created in 2016 with the aim of protecting wild and captive elephants of India.

Sangita Iyer is a National Geographic explorer, and has produced a 26-part short documentary series about Asian elephants, using the National Geographic Society storytelling award.

Sangita Iyer pursued her career in journalism in 1999 as a health and environmental journalist.

Sangita Iyer completed her MA degree in environmental education and communication in 2012.

Sangita Iyer produced reports related to nature and wildlife for Discovery Channel science-news programme Daily Planet.

Sangita Iyer co-founded the Bermuda Environmental Alliance in 2009 and she founded the Voice for Asian Elephants Society in 2016.

In 2013, Sangita Iyer began to document the elephants in Kerala that are exploited by religious institutions, and created the documentary film Gods in Shackles which portrays the suffering faced by the temple elephants during cultural festivals.

Sangita Iyer decided to make the film after witnessing the torture faced by the elephants during a trip to India in December 2013.

Sangita Iyer is the first woman to have made a documentary about captive elephants in Kerala.

Sangita Iyer received the 2016 Nari Shakti Puraskar award from the then Indian President Pranab Mukherjee.

In November 2019, a petition was filed by Viswa Gaja Seva Samithi organisation in the Kerala High Court to prevent Sangita Iyer from conducting a mahout training summit called "Gentle Giants Summit" at a government-owned elephant rehabilitation centre in Thiruvananthapuram.

However, Sangita Iyer presented her Overseas Citizenship of India card, affording her the privileges of Indian citizens, and the Kerala Forest Department had granted her the use of its emblem in their partnership on the summit.