Subhash C Sharma

Down the memory lane

The very mention of GHNP stirs nostalgia. And when there is an event on the horizon such as the proposed GHNPCA Meet at Sai Ropa on 4-5 September, a trip down the memory lane becomes inevitable.

So how did it all come about? Who were the forerunners, the trailblazers who trudged the hills, vales and slopes of the Beas catchment, and trekked the eerie wildernesses of Tirthan/Sainj and Sainj, exploring their rich biodiversity in all its beauty and wonder? Were not those maiden footprints the first stepping stones, if not milestones, that helped the present GHNP breathe into existence? 

One harkens back to 1969, when an athletic, bearded and handsomely balding Canadian ornithologist, Dr Anthony J Gaston, with his inseparable green binoculars dangling from his neck, set foot in Manali and fell in love with the winged beauties of the Himalayas, captivated in particular by the “purple Grandalas swirling against the sky”.  As he trekked and travelled, an idea of launching a multi-disciplinary research project in the Western Himalayas was already stirring in his mind.

Despite delays and hiccups, the project took off and culminated in a 159-page document titled ‘Report of the Himachal Wildlife Project 1981’. It was a collaborative effort involving botanists, zoologists, and an anthropologist from the ZSI, BNHS and universities in India and abroad, spearheaded by Dr Gaston from Canadian Wildlife Service, Ottawa.  Dr Peter Garson (Dept of Zoology, University of Newcastle, UK and Malcom L. Hunter, Jr. (School of Forest Resources, University of Maine, USA) were the other team leaders who later edited the report.

And no ordinary report was it: a pioneering and important document born of painstaking field surveys that recorded the biodiversity of Western Himalayas, the environment, wildlife, and people, alongside a checklist of 176 bird species. More significantly, guided by these observations, the team examined the question of the most suitable site for a National Park in the region, then brewing in bureaucratic corridors of Delhi and Shimla. Though nascent yet, given the fame of Manali, tilted the scales in its favour. But this report offered authentic, scientific, and well-reasoned evidence in favour of the Tirthan/Sainj valley where GHNP now stands in its majesty, mystique and wonder. This document placed the HP Forest Department on firm footing to put forward a proposal for Tirthan/Sainj to the Centre. The rest is history.

As the Friends of GHNPCA Meet convenes at Sai Ropa on 4-5 September to exchange ideas and chart a renewed blueprint for conservation, perhaps it is fitting to recall those early footprints of Gaston’s team of 19 (in which this Palampurwala too had a small part) who contributed their bit to making this happen.

That said, it is one thing to help birth a child; but to keep it healthy and hearty requires firm yet loving aftercare. It is thanks to the inspired and dedicated efforts of foresters like Dr Sanjeeva Pandey, who later bore the mantle, that GHNP has remained largely unscathed, shielded from the invasive footprints of urbanisation.

Today, GHNP throbs with life in all its awe-inspiring diversity. It rises as a glowing ode to nature’s wondrous bounty: a beacon that draws the tourist, challenges the trekker’s endurance, and unveils its magnificent heart to mesmerise all who pause to behold.

I wish the proposed meeting of the minds at Sai Ropa every success.

Subhash C Sharma

Palampur, 28 August 2026