Contents: Message — The Hon’ble President of India All You Wanted to Know about Natural World Heritage: A Primer — Sonali Ghosh & Vinod B. Mathur A Treasury of Wild Words — Prerna Singh Bindra Writing Outdoors — Stephen Alter Great Himalayan National Park Conservation Area 1. Reflections on the Great Himalayan National Park — Payson Stevens 2. GHNP: The Wilds and Its People — Sanjeeva Pandey Kaziranga National Park 3. Kaziranga Diaries — Sonali Ghosh 4. Kaziranga: The Gem of India — Asad Rahmani 5. Back to the Future: One Hundred Years of Conservation — Bittu Sahgal & Ranjit Barthakur Keoladeo National Park 6. The Keoladeo Ghana of Bharatpur (Rajasthan) — Salim Ali 7. A Bharatpur Aficionado Remembers — Peter Jackson 8. Bharatpur: Brushstrokes from the Past — Ranjit Lal Khangchendzonga National Park 9. Securing Khangchendzonga: Healthy Forests, Happy People — Sandeep Tambe 10. Aspiration — Francis Younghusband Manas Wildlife Sanctuary 11. Manas: Monkeys and Mysteries — E.P. Gee 12. Monuments Men: A Story for Manas — Sonali Ghosh 13. The Magic of Manas — Asad Rahmani Royal Manas National Park 14. Finding Culture through Nature — Tenzin Wangchuk 15. Treasures of the Thunder Dragon — Ashi Dori Wangmo Wangchuck Nanda Devi and Valley of Flowers National Parks 16. In the Shadow of Nanda Devi — Samir Sinha 17. Becoming a Mountain — Stephen Alter 18. On Doing Nothing — Frank S. Smythe Sundarbans National Park 19. The Sundarbans Inheritance: Protecting a People’s Legacy — Bittu Sahgal 20. Sundarban: A Mystical Tiger Swamp — Pradeep Vyas & Cheena Vyas 21. An Epiphany — Amitav Ghosh The Sundarbans 22. The Lord of Mud and Tide — Ruth Padel 23. The Princess of Angtihara — Samia Saif Western Ghats 24. Mountains of the Monsoon — Kamal Bawa & Sandesh Kadur 25. A Wealth of Wildlife — Prerna Singh Bindra 26. Cliff Goats — E.R.C. Davidar 27. Kas Plateau: Tackling the Tourism Tsunami — Prerna Agarwal 28. A Day in Periyar — M. Krishnan 29. Nagarahole: A World of Predators — K. Ullas Karanth 30. Sacred Groves: Memories of What Had Been — Erach Bharucha 31. Silent Valley: Whispers of Reason — Sugatha Kumari 32. A Sojourn through the Sahyadris — Girish Punjabi 33. A More than Memorable Trek — A.J.T. Johnsingh 34. Seasons in the Sun: An Avian Rhapsody — Manoj Nair 35. For All Things Little — Anuranjan Roy Band-e-Amir (Afghanistan) 36. Band-e-Amir National Park: A Sacred Land of Azure Lakes — Abdul Wali Modaqiq & Richard Paley Central Highlands of Sri Lanka 37. Wonders Hidden in the Mist — Dishane Hewavithana, Eric Wikramanayake, Manori Gunawardena & Dhiya Sathananthan 38. Into the Wet: Field Notes from Sri Lanka’s Wet Zone — Ian Lockwood Chitwan National Park (Nepal) 39. Kingdom of the Unicorn — Alex Dudley 40. Chitwan: A Heavenly Abode — Kanchan Thapa Hukaung Valley Wildlife Sanctuary (Myanmar) 41. The Valley of Death — Alan Rabinowitz Lut Desert (Iran) 42. Extreme: The Incredible Ecosystem of Earth’s Hottest Spot — Richard Stone Sagarmatha National Park (Nepal) 43. Mount Everest: Return of the Snow Leopard — Som B. Vale Sichuan Giant Panda Sanctuaries: Wolong, Mt Siguniang and Jiajin Mountains (China) 44. A Mountain of Treasure — George Schaller Western Tien Shan (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan) 45. Tien Shan: Mountain of Heaven — Koustubh Sharma Notes on the Contributors Acknowledgements The World Natural Heritage Sites protect over 286 million hectares of land and sea, including trans-boundary sites, signifying that heritage sites belong to all peoples of the world, irrespective of the territory on which they are located. Wild Treasures is a selection of 45 carefully curated articles, channelling voices past and present to take you on a journey across Asia’s most beautiful landscapes. Wet, evergreen forests of India’s Western Ghats and Sri Lanka; the only mangrove forests, Sundarbans, where tigers roam across India and Bangladesh; the mystical tropical forests of Myanmar where tigers are revered as ‘relatives’ but are equally vulnerable to poaching pressures; the Lut Desert in Iran, the hottest place in the world; the snowy peaks of the Himalayas, the haunt of the elusive grey ghost —the Snow Leopard; Keoladeo, a wetland dense with birds in the dry region of India’s Rajasthan; the rhino’s realm across India’s Manas, Kaziranga; Chitwan in Nepal, and the sacred mountainscape of Khangchendzonga are just some of the places highlighted in this anthology. The voices are equally varied. The pieces in this collection have been penned by writers, poets, ecologists, scientists, foresters, photographers, conservationists —all bonded by a love for nature and our natural heritage. We hope that the book will kindle an appreciation for nature, encourage responsible travel and garner support for these imperilled natural wonders.