Ranjini is a PhD student based at the Nature Conservation Foundation in India. She is currently engaging with local stakeholders to understand their perceptions of ecosystem services and the different values placed on these services. Ranjini will be studying the socio-cultural factors impacting the communities' use of ES and the subsequent impact on biodiversity. She works in the trans-himalayan landscape of Spiti and Ladakh in India. Approaching conservation through the lens of ecosystem service use can contribute significantly towards the protection of biodiversity in these habitats, or towards finding options that can better balance the need for economic development with ecological sustainability.