Sangita Iyer

Sangita Iyer is an Indian-born Canadian author, broadcast journalist, writer, biologist and documentary filmmaker. She is known for her advocacy on wildlife conservation, especially for wild elephants, and for exposing the atrocities against Asian elephants by religious institutions. Iyer has been featured in the BBC News. She 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.

Iyer's debut documentary film, Gods in Shackles, was based on the treatment of captive elephants in Kerala. The film was nominated at the United Nations General Assembly, featured at the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) and has received over a dozen international film festival awards. The documentary was inspired by the encounters and witnesses gathered by Iyer. Here recently released book, Gods in Shackles - What Elephants Can Teach us About Empathy, Resilience and Freedom ranked the #1 Best Seller list on Amazon, since its release on February 8, 2022. She is also 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 was born in Kerala, India. She has worked in Kenya, where she taught biology and ecology to Nairobi high school students in the early 1980s, and in Bermuda as the primetime news anchor and nature and wildlife reporter for the ABC/CBS affiliate, the Bermuda Broadcasting Company. She currently lives in Toronto, Canada, where she has served as a videographer and host for Rogers TV network.