Nepal's Chitwan National Park (A Hand Book)

About the Authors Dr. Hemanta Raj Mishra was part of the pioneering team that created Chitwan National Park and other protected areas in Nepal. He has worked with the Government of Nepal, National Trust for Nature Conservation (formerly KMTNC), the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, the Global Environment Facility, and other international organizations. He is the author of the Soul of the Rhino and The Bones of the Tiger-captivating accounts of his early works in Chitwan National Park, which he wrote with Jim Ottaway Jr. In 1987, Mishra received the prestigious J. Paul Getty Conservation Prize for his works in Nepal.

Jim Ottaway Jr is a former American newspaper publisher, writer, and editor, who retired as a senior vice-president of Dow Jones & Co., Inc., chairman of Ottaway Newspapers Inc., and chairman of the World Press Freedom Committee. Ottaway is a long-time supporter of conservation and development in Nepal.

Foreword Nature is god's art. Nowhere is nature's art more apparent than the cloud piercing peaks of the Himalayan Mountains. Equally dramati though less familiar displays of nature's art lie downstream from the mountains, where the land and rivers flatten and give rise to a rid tropical landscape. Here, in the heart of the Terai lies the Chitwan National Park. Made fertile by land irrigated by monsoon rains and melting glaciers, the lands of the Terai are endowed with flora and fauna of great beauty and rarity.

Historically, Chitwan was all but uninhabited. Malarial carrying mosquitoes initially kept people away, and more recently, Chitwan was off limits as the hunting preserve of the Nepalese monarchy. With great foresight, the most recent kings of Nepal formally set aside this region for national parks, preserves for the rich plant and animal life of the Indian subcontinent. However, remote, illegal poaching and squatters converting forest to farms compromised the wilderness ecosystem. As in the world over, the natural balance, the art of nature was threatened.

Hemanta Mishra arrived in Chitwan as a young wildlife biologist in 1967, sent by the Department of Forests to ensure that the balance of nature was restored and protected. Deep in the bush and far away from civilization, he brought his young and beautiful wife, Sushma, to raise a family in the midst of the dense forests and riverine savannas Hemanta lived in Chitwan off and on for almost 30 years. During his long tenure there as a wildlife biologist, he built the park notably to save the Indian Rhino and the Royal Bengal Tiger, and later transplanted 37 rhinos west to the Bardia National Park.

Hemanta's work did not end with large mammal biology. He recorded, as you will see in this book, the variety and the diversity of people, plants, and wildlife in Chitwan.

Preface Fate was my father's nemesis when it came to his aspirations for m future. He dreamed of me following my uncle's example and joining the Nepalese Foreign Service. He was anxious for me to become the Royal Nepalese Ambassador to the court of St. James in the United Kingdom. But my destiny lured me to the jungles of Southern Nepal's Terai. There, I spent most of my adult life in the hot and humid sob tropical jungles of Chitwan, rather than in the hustling metropolis of the frosty streets of London. I first went to the rhinoceros country of the Chitwan region in 1967 as a rookie wildlife officer. The government of Nepal had assigned me to assess the status and future of rhinos in Nepal. That assignment transformed my life. It lured me to study and work for years building the Chitwan National Park and helping to save Nepal's vulnerable and endangered wild species. During my tenure in Chitwan, which stretched over 30 years, I learned not only about plants and animals in the park, but also about people and the history of Chitwan.

In 1991, I wrote the first field guide - Royal Chitwan National Park Wildlife Heritage of Nepal with Margaret Jefferies of New Zealand. That book, which was published in the United State, is out of print, unavailable, or pricy in Nepal. Consequently, in 2010, my colleagues, both inside and outside Nepal, urged me to write a new handbook on the Chitwan National Park. They also asked me to target the book to foreign travelers, Nepali tourists, naturalists, and Nepalese students and workers in conservation who could use it as a field guide. Nevertheless, I have relied heavily on our previous book, even if the style and contents of this book are different. In addition, I also borrowed heavily on two of my previous books, which focus on Chitwan National Park - The Soul of the Rhino and The Bones of the Tiger.

Introduction Currently, Nepal is a nation searching its own soul after a violent revolution that lasted over ten years and killed nearly 15,000 people. It is also a country that no European or outside foreign power ever colonized. Sandwiched between two antagonistic giants of Asia China and India-this small nation is struggling to find a new political consensus and its own niche in the global community of the 21st Century. The United Nation's Human Development Report has ranked Nepal among the 42 poorest countries in the world where most people survive on less than $1.25 a day. However, if its natural beauty and cultural heritage were measures of economic wealth, this nation would rank among the top ten on earth. Thus, it is a country of outstanding beauty in-habited by poor but proud people.

**Contents and Sample Pages**