Ali had considerable influence in conservation related issues in post-independence India especially through Prime Ministers Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi. Indira Gandhi, herself a keen birdwatcher, was influenced by Ali's bird books (a copy of the "Book of Indian Birds" was gifted to her in 1942 by her father Nehru who was in Dehra Dun jail while she herself was imprisoned in Naini Jail) and by the Gandhian birdwatcher Horace Alexander. Ali influenced the designation of the Bharatpur Bird Sanctuary, the Ranganathittu Bird Sanctuary and in decisions that saved the Silent Valley National Park. One of Ali's later interventions at Bharatpur involved the exclusion of cattle and graziers from the sanctuary and this was to prove costly as it resulted in ecological changes that led to a decline in the waterbirds. Some historians have noted that the approach to conservation used by Salim Ali and the BNHS followed an undemocratic process.