The hour-long session on 'The Safari', a diary on Ranthambore, written by social activist Sundeep Bhutoria, took the audience virtually to the Rajasthan park and celebrated the brilliance of tiger.

While delivering her speech, conservationist and executive director of Wildlife Protection Society of India (WPSI) Belinda Wright said: "It's a very charming personal record of somebody who is mesmerized by the charisma of tiger, the animal I have been possessed by since years."

At a time, when the tiger population is facing threats from both poaching and habitat destruction, Bhutoria feels there's urgent need of public-private partnerships to protect the forests of India.

However, Wright had her takes. "There were such talks with an international agency to protect the forests of Uttarakhand. But the effort could not touch the finishing lines as forest departments here are very possessive and reluctant to outsource protection jobs to other agencies," she said.

WPSI's central India director Nitin Desai batted for implementation of secret information reward schemes in the Sunderbans also.

"The move will help check local poaching, mostly killing of deer and other prey species of tigers. This initiative has worked well in the central India landscape, where villagers provided info to the department on illegal deer poaching or selling of its meat. Once the culprits were nabbed, the villagers were given Rs 15,000 as reward," added Desai.

Hailing Bhutoria's initiative, Desai said several tourists visit tiger parks across India every year, but not many end up writing a book on them.

But Wright also sounded a word of caution. "The tiger's brilliance, this very spirit, is the reason behind its downfall also. And we should keep this in mind. At parks like Ranthambore and Bandhavgarh, tigers now tend to ignore people busy taking their photographs. This is unfortunate. We should allow tigers space too."

On high-end tourism in the Sunderbans, Wright said considering the delicate nature of the forests, this won't be a good idea. "The existing tourism is low-scale but high-volume. Sunderbans should not be exposed to any further tourism."

The state is planning to start helicopter rides in the Sunderbans to attract more international tourists.

And there were nostalgic moments also. While sharing her views on tiger photography, Wright took a trip down the memory lane to 1970 when she, as a 17-year-old, photographed her first tiger at Dudhwa. "It was a huge male tiger," she recalled.

Bhutoria's book, The Safari, is a travelogue based on his trip to Ranthambore in the winter of 2012. "I sighted as many as 13 tigers during my trip. It's an account of the safaris - the tigers I sighted, the people I met, and the places I visited," he said.

Panellists and audience in the session also expressed their concern over the fate of T-17 tigress of Ranthambore, also known as Sundari, who is now missing. "Sitting in Kolkata, we are discussing an individual big cat in Ranthambore and her family. This is simply great," signed off Wright.