Guardian of the Glow: How Sriram Murali is Fighting to Save India's Forgotten Fireflies!

In the dense forests of Tamil Nadu's Anamalai Tiger Reserve, a phenomenon unfolds as darkness settles. Trees come alive with millions of tiny lights, pulsating in synchrony—a spectacle so magnificent it defies belief. For most visitors, this mesmerising display of fireflies might simply be a fleeting wonder of nature. But for Sriram Murali, a conservationist, filmmaker and wildlife photographer, it sparked a mission that would change the course of his life.

Growing up in Pollachi, a small town in Tamil Nadu, Murali had little exposure to astronomy or nocturnal ecosystems. It wasn't until he was studying in the United States that he developed a profound connection to the night sky. "I got to see a sky full of stars, and that was the first time astronomy felt so personal," Murali recalls. This experience ignited his passion for dark skies, leading him to create short films about light pollution and its far-reaching impacts.

And then he went on to do the unusual 

The COVID-19 lockdowns of 2020 and 2021 brought Murali back to his hometown, where he began searching for dark skies to photograph. "The darker it got, the more stars I could see, and at the edge of the forest here, I saw hundreds of fireflies," he says. "It was really fascinating because I hadn't seen fireflies in a very, very long time."

What began as a simple fascination soon transformed into something more profound. Murali heard stories about entire forests illuminated by fireflies, and while working alongside the forest department, he witnessed a spectacle that would change his perspective forever.

"Each tree would have about 10 lakh fireflies," he explains, gesturing to a photograph behind him showing trees aglow with tiny lights. "This photo that I have behind me—there's one particular place that happened a few years ago. There were fireflies as far as the eyes could see in all directions." This very photographer also won him the prestigious Wildlife Photographer of the Year in the Behaviour: Invertebrates category hosted by the Natural History Museum.

More remarkable still was the fact that this phenomenon had remained largely undocumented. "To think that something just 40 kilometres from my home, which has existed for millions of years, has gone undocumented like this," says the firefly specialist group member of the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) Species Survival Commission.

But it was not just a beautiful-looking natural phenomenon

As Murali delved deeper into studying these insects, he discovered something troubling: increasing ambient light from nearby towns was spilling into the tiger reserve, threatening the fireflies' existence.

"Fireflies, they flash to communicate, especially to find mates," he explains. "The male fireflies are perched on the trees. They flash together to attract females of the same species." But these bioluminescent signals become ineffective when competing with artificial light. "If the lighting gets as bright as the moonlight, they do not flash. Mating does not happen. The population dies out in a couple of years."

Through careful observation, Murali and his team discovered that light pollution in the tiger reserve has tripled in the last decade—from 15% above natural darkness levels in 2016 to about 50% in 2022. "These are lights coming from 50 kilometres away, 100 kilometres away," he notes with concern. "We're not putting any lights in the tiger reserve, but light travels, just keeps travelling, and has no bounds."

A drive to save the flagship species continues 

For Murali, fireflies are more than just a beautiful natural phenomenon—they are indicators of ecosystem health, particularly at night.

"So like how the tigers are a flagship species for conservation in India," he explains, "the fireflies are an indicator of how good a nocturnal environment is, and fireflies would be the first to die out when the nocturnal system environment is starting to degrade."

This realisation led Murali to found Wild and Dark Earth, an NGO dedicated to conserving nocturnal habitats in India. Sriram quit his job at Google to start this NGO for the better good. The name itself reflects his philosophy: "A naturally dark place is also a naturally wild place—where there is no development, there's no light, and the place has a lot of biodiversity, a lot of life during the day as well."

A beacon of hope

Rather than merely documenting the problem, Murali is actively working on solutions. His team recently received a grant from the National Geographic Society to study how lighting impacts fireflies and develop guidelines for environmentally friendly lighting.

"LEDs are both the bane and boom of light pollution," he explains. "They are very energy efficient, so people started lighting spaces five times as required, or three times more, way more than what is required."

His proposed solutions include using warmer-colored lights (2700-3000 Kelvin instead of 5000-6000 Kelvin), shielding lights to direct them downward, reducing brightness during late-night hours, and implementing motion sensors.

"Just following these basic lighting guidelines," he says, "it starts with the municipalities, the local towns, and then the larger corporations, the bigger cities."

The collaboration that makes the mission stronger

Murali's work would not be possible without collaboration with the local tribal communities, which have lived in these forests for generations. "They have a very close relationship with nature," he says. More than any forest official, more than any book that you will see, they have a much better knowledge of the wild."

For these communities, the firefly phenomenon is simply part of life. As Murali recounts, "I was talking to a tribal person who also happens to be a forest guard. I asked him, 'You've been seeing this for a long time, hasn't it surprised or fascinated you?' He said, 'For us, our kids, an airplane fascinates us more than these fireflies, because to them that is exotic, an airplane not fireflies.'"

By involving these communities in his conservation efforts, Murali creates a win-win situation. "When you include them in the process, it gives them that feeling that they're part of this bigger conservation effort. We learn a lot and they are also part of the process—they feel included."

The power of an image

As both a conservationist and a photographer, Murali understands the power of visual storytelling. The breathtaking photograph of fireflies illuminating the forest behind him has changed conversations about nighttime environments and tiger reserves. "It has started changing that mindset," he says. "You can speak on and on about fireflies or the night, but you need images, be it photos like this or videos. Photos are a good opening to this conversation." His photography has indeed opened doors, helping forest officials and policymakers recognise that tiger reserves are about more than just tigers—they're complex ecosystems that include countless species, many active at night.

The way forward 

With his team at Wild and Dark Earth, which includes photographer Chandrasekar Rathnam, entomologist Dr. Mathi Thumilan, and finance lead Sreedhar Seetharam, Murali continues to build a community focused on making nature accessible to all while protecting it for future generations.

Currently, they're planning an experiment to demonstrate the effectiveness of environmentally friendly lighting at properties adjacent to tiger reserves, hoping to show that human safety and wildlife conservation can coexist.

In a world where light pollution continues to increase at an alarming rate, Murali's work serves as a reminder that sometimes the most meaningful conservation efforts begin with simply looking up at the night sky—or in this case, at the tiny lights that have illuminated our forests for millions of years.

As development pushes ever closer to India's wild spaces, Murali's mission to preserve darkness for these light-bearing insects becomes increasingly urgent. In saving the fireflies, we might just save something essential about our relationship with the natural world itself.