Forest and People
From prior exploitation to partnership with nature
Living with the Park Today
Roads, hydropower, and horticulture have transformed outer valleys since the 1970s. Inside GHNP, the absence of roads keeps treks long and wild, with annual visitors typically fewer than a thousand. Around the Park, people continue to adapt—blending subsistence traditions with new livelihoods in tourism, orchard work, and services. The future of protection lies in keeping communities central: fair opportunities, strong cultural identity, and a living landscape where sacred groves, songs, and stories endure.
Friends of GHNP: A New Partnership
In 2000, Friends of the Great Himalayan National Park formed as a volunteer support group to bridge communities, the Park administration, and well‑wishers in India and abroad. Co‑founded by Park Director Sanjeeva Pandey and artist‑scientist Payson Stevens, the Friends helped design the Park’s first logo (a Western Tragopan painting by Timothy Greenwood), launched the first website, produced conservation posters, and supported ecotourism training.
Women’s Savings & Credit Groups sold vermicompost, apricot oil, hand‑woven products, local beans, and walnuts—first at the Kullu Dussehra exhibition stall, and later at souvenir shops in Sai Ropa, Larjee, and Manali. Street Theatre carried conservation messages to villages, with over 350 performances. Community‑based ecotourism trained local men—many former herb collectors—as guides and porters, linking livelihoods to conservation.
These efforts also fed into GHNP’s World Heritage nomination and a wider appreciation of the Park’s biodiversity. The approach was simple: protect nature, respect culture, celebrate community.
Creation of the Great Himalayan National Park
The modern conservation history of the Great Himalayan National Park Conservation Area began in the late 1970s, when A. J. Gaston, Peter Garson, and Mac Hunter launched the Himachal Wildlife Project—one of India’s first systematic scientific wildlife surveys. Supported by WWF-India, the World Pheasant Association, the Zoological Survey of India, and the Himachal Pradesh Forest Department, the project focused on Himachal Pradesh because of its exceptionally high forest cover and its extensive, relatively undisturbed moist temperate forests, among the richest wildlife habitats in the Western Himalaya. Fieldwork in 1979–1980 revealed intact wildlife populations in the remote Sainj and Tirthan valleys, heavy grazing pressures in Solang and Hamta, and confirmed the Jiwanal–Sainj–Tirthan landscape as a prime conservation zone—findings that laid the scientific foundation for declaring a national park. This momentum carried into the 1980s and 1990s: the Notification of Intention in 1984 (revised the same year), the first Management Plan in 1987, and the launch of settlement proceedings in 1988.
Through the early 1990s, the Himachal Wildlife Project–III and subsequent research—culminating in the Wildlife Institute of India’s Conservation of Biodiversity (CoB) Project under the World Bank–funded FREEP programme (1994–2002)—expanded ecological knowledge and strengthened protection proposals. These accumulated efforts led to the final notification of GHNP on 28 May 1999, accompanied by new participatory management initiatives and micro-credit schemes through Women’s Savings and Credit Groups. In the early 2000s, as the Park’s global profile grew, informal support networks such as Friends of GHNP (USA, Canada, Europe) and the local NGO SAHARA emerged, helping develop the first official GHNP website and ushering in a new era of outreach, community collaboration, and international conservation support for the Park.
Settlement of Rights and Conservation Transition
The Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 requires National Parks to exclude biotic use. In 1999, rights recorded under the 1886 Anderson Settlement for the GHNP area were compensated as per law. Fewer than 400 inheritors received compensation. At the same time, thousands of seasonal herb collectors and graziers—many without recorded rights—had been entering the high pastures for years. As these unrecorded uses stopped, resentment grew. Overgrazing, snaring of pheasants and wild ungulates, and the overlap of gucchi collection with pheasant breeding seasons had already stressed wildlife.
The transition to strict protection brings real livelihood challenges, but also long‑term ecological benefits: recovering habitats, more secure headwaters, and potential for community‑based alternatives. The Park’s story is now about building fair partnerships—recognizing history while protecting biodiversity for future generations.
Timeline: 1886 Settlement → 1972 WLPA → 1984 GHNP created → 1999 compensation.
Medicinal Plants
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Knowledge of Forest Herbs
Local knowledge of forest herbs is rich and living. People prepare drinks from yew (Rakhal) bark and leaves, and refreshing decoctions from the high-altitude rhododendron (Rhododendron anthopogon). Herbs like Valeriana jatamansi, Dactylorhiza hatagirea, Hippophae, Viola spp., Aconitum violaceum, Salvia moorcroftiana, Jurinea macrocephala, Rheum emodi, Bergenia ciliata, and Picrorhiza kurroa have long been part of daily remedies and ritual.
Traditionally, herb collection began after Bees Bhadon (around October) with ceremonies that respected plant life cycles. Market demand, roads, and new pharmacological value changed that rhythm. Species like Himalayan Yew (a source of anti‑cancer compounds) and Trillium govanianum (Nag Chatri) saw sharp commercial extraction. Gucchi (morels), a prized edible fungus, emerges more vigorously after ground fires—an incentive that can harm forests if unmanaged. The challenge is to conserve species while sustaining cultural knowledge and fair local benefits.
Religion and Sacred Ecology
Here, mountains, rivers, forests, and lakes are living abodes of gods. Sacred groves (Devbans) protect venerable deodars and yews near temples and villages. Along forest trails, sacred trees bear brass mohras—the metal faces of local deities—where travellers bow before beginning a long climb. The artistry of mohras, parasols, and palanquins reflects a refined religious aesthetic and a community’s shared wealth and identity.
Festivals and fairs animate this sacred geography. The Gur—the human spokesperson of the deity—enters trance, hears people’s questions, and offers counsel. Village gods travel in procession to seasonal gatherings and to the headwaters of the Sainj, Tirthan, JiwaNal, and Parvati rivers. In October, during Kullu Dussehra, deities from inner valleys assemble in Kullu town for a week-long celebration as autumn sets in.
Human Story: In Shakti village, a teacher known as Shastriji began classes in a cave in 1989—teaching students from Grades I–V until a school building arrived in 2002. His story, and the cave above the Sainj River, capture the resilience that runs through these valleys.
Traditional Lifestyles
Villages on GHNP’s western periphery preserve some of the most intact mountain architecture in the Western Himalaya. The Kath‑Kuni style uses interlocked deodar wood and stone to build resilient homes and temples that have withstood earthquakes and cloudbursts. Water mills still turn along clear streams; handlooms sit in sunlit verandas; barns and granaries breathe with the seasons.
Daily life balances continuity and change. Women weave on outdoor looms. Ground floors serve as cowsheds, with living spaces above opening to sweeping mountain views. Traditional foods include rice and wheat, millets like buckwheat and barley, maize, amaranth and finger millet, alongside seasonal fruits and meat. Cooperative labour traditions such as Juwari—villagers planting paddy together—keep fields vibrant, especially with the locally loved Lal Dhaan (red rice). With road connectivity and declining availability of timber, cement and iron have entered new construction, and public distribution has introduced faster-growing grain varieties. The result is a landscape where tradition adapts rather than disappears.
Juwari — joint work, shared harvest, stronger community.
Forests, People, and Change
For centuries, people of the Western Himalaya lived closely with their forests—grazing flocks, gathering firewood and timber, weaving bamboo, collecting herbs, and hunting for subsistence. Under Mughal and earlier Raj-era polities, forests were largely compact, and the focus of rulers was agricultural revenue. British colonial rule marked a decisive shift. Forests were demarcated into Reserved, Demarcated Protected, Protected, and Unclassed categories. Lines were drawn on landscapes that had long moved with community rhythms. Forest Settlement Reports recorded state-granted “rights and concessions,” often narrowing access. Resistance followed: to many villagers the new forest bureaucracy curtailed customary freedoms.
After independence, much of the legal and silvicultural framework continued, even as India added a new layer of protection through the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972. National Parks and Wildlife Sanctuaries excluded biotic interference. GHNP, like other Protected Areas, reflects this top‑down legacy even as the National Forest Policy of 1988 emphasizes participatory management. The story today is about reconciling protection with people’s knowledge and needs.
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Colonial demarcation reshaped customary access.
-
Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 created strict PA categories.
-
Forest Policy, 1988 foregrounds people’s participation.
“To villagers, the forest bureaucracy was a villain impinging on their freedom to use forest resources.”
Castes and Livelihoods
Settlements in the Upper Beas Basin and Seraj Valley began over two millennia ago, moving upriver over generations. Agrarian communities such as the Kanets (later identifying as Rajputs), Brahmins, and Dalit service castes shaped work that was inseparable from the forest. Priests tended temples built in wood and stone; woodcutters, carpenters, masons, and basket weavers worked with deodar, stone, and ringal bamboo; graziers moved with sheep and goats across seasonal pastures. The caste hierarchy mirrored land tenure and access to natural resources—and with it, a deep reservoir of traditional ecological knowledge.
In the 19th and 20th centuries, migration and markets accelerated change. With new roads and expanding demand, timber and medicinal plants became commodities. Local resource use expanded beyond subsistence to supply far-off markets. Even as livelihoods diversified, cultural life—village deities, sacred groves, songs, and seasonal festivals—remained strong reference points of identity and place.
Sensitivity note (internal): Present caste references factually and respectfully, emphasizing changing livelihoods and the continuity of cultural heritage.
Kulantpitha — “The End of the Habitable World.”
A traveller’s phrase capturing the dramatic feel of Seraj’s high valleys.
Forests, People, and Change
For centuries, people of the Western Himalaya lived closely with their forests—grazing flocks, gathering firewood and timber, weaving bamboo, collecting herbs, and hunting for subsistence. Under Mughal and earlier Raj-era polities, forests were largely compact, and the focus of rulers was agricultural revenue. British colonial rule marked a decisive shift. Forests were demarcated into Reserved, Demarcated Protected, Protected, and Unclassed categories. Lines were drawn on landscapes that had long moved with community rhythms. Forest Settlement Reports recorded state-granted “rights and concessions,” often narrowing access. Resistance followed: to many villagers the new forest bureaucracy curtailed customary freedoms.
After independence, much of the legal and silvicultural framework continued, even as India added a new layer of protection through the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972. National Parks and Wildlife Sanctuaries excluded biotic interference. GHNP, like other Protected Areas, reflects this top‑down legacy even as the National Forest Policy of 1988 emphasizes participatory management. The story today is about reconciling protection with people’s knowledge and needs.
​
-
Colonial demarcation reshaped customary access.
-
Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 created strict PA categories.
-
Forest Policy, 1988 foregrounds people’s participation.
“To villagers, the forest bureaucracy was a villain impinging on their freedom to use forest resources.”
Castes and Livelihoods
Settlements in the Upper Beas Basin and Seraj Valley began over two millennia ago, moving upriver over generations. Agrarian communities such as the Kanets (later identifying as Rajputs), Brahmins, and Dalit service castes shaped work that was inseparable from the forest. Priests tended temples built in wood and stone; woodcutters, carpenters, masons, and basket weavers worked with deodar, stone, and ringal bamboo; graziers moved with sheep and goats across seasonal pastures. The caste hierarchy mirrored land tenure and access to natural resources—and with it, a deep reservoir of traditional ecological knowledge.
In the 19th and 20th centuries, migration and markets accelerated change. With new roads and expanding demand, timber and medicinal plants became commodities. Local resource use expanded beyond subsistence to supply far-off markets. Even as livelihoods diversified, cultural life—village deities, sacred groves, songs, and seasonal festivals—remained strong reference points of identity and place.
Sensitivity note (internal): Present caste references factually and respectfully, emphasizing changing livelihoods and the continuity of cultural heritage.
Kulantpitha — “The End of the Habitable World.”
A traveller’s phrase capturing the dramatic feel of Seraj’s high valleys.
Settlement of Rights and Conservation Transition
The Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 requires National Parks to exclude biotic use. In 1999, rights recorded under the 1886 Anderson Settlement for the GHNP area were compensated as per law. Fewer than 400 inheritors received compensation. At the same time, thousands of seasonal herb collectors and graziers—many without recorded rights—had been entering the high pastures for years. As these unrecorded uses stopped, resentment grew. Overgrazing, snaring of pheasants and wild ungulates, and the overlap of gucchi collection with pheasant breeding seasons had already stressed wildlife.
The transition to strict protection brings real livelihood challenges, but also long‑term ecological benefits: recovering habitats, more secure headwaters, and potential for community‑based alternatives. The Park’s story is now about building fair partnerships—recognizing history while protecting biodiversity for future generations.
Timeline: 1886 Settlement → 1972 WLPA → 1984 GHNP created → 1999 compensation.
Creation of the Great Himalayan National Park:
The modern conservation history of the Great Himalayan National Park Conservation Area began in the late 1970s, when A. J. Gaston, Peter Garson, and Mac Hunter launched the Himachal Wildlife Project—one of India’s first systematic scientific wildlife surveys. Supported by WWF-India, the World Pheasant Association, the Zoological Survey of India, and the Himachal Pradesh Forest Department, the project focused on Himachal Pradesh because of its exceptionally high forest cover and its extensive, relatively undisturbed moist temperate forests, among the richest wildlife habitats in the Western Himalaya. Fieldwork in 1979–1980 revealed intact wildlife populations in the remote Sainj and Tirthan valleys, heavy grazing pressures in Solang and Hamta, and confirmed the Jiwanal–Sainj–Tirthan landscape as a prime conservation zone—findings that laid the scientific foundation for declaring a national park. This momentum carried into the 1980s and 1990s: the Notification of Intention in 1984 (revised the same year), the first Management Plan in 1987, and the launch of settlement proceedings in 1988.
Through the early 1990s, the Himachal Wildlife Project–III and subsequent research—culminating in the Wildlife Institute of India’s Conservation of Biodiversity (CoB) Project under the World Bank–funded FREEP programme (1994–2002)—expanded ecological knowledge and strengthened protection proposals. These accumulated efforts led to the final notification of GHNP on 28 May 1999, accompanied by new participatory management initiatives and micro-credit schemes through Women’s Savings and Credit Groups. In the early 2000s, as the Park’s global profile grew, informal support networks such as Friends of GHNP (USA, Canada, Europe) and the local NGO SAHARA emerged, helping develop the first official GHNP website and ushering in a new era of outreach, community collaboration, and international conservation support for the Park.
Friends of GHNP: A New Partnership
In 2000, Friends of the Great Himalayan National Park formed as a volunteer support group to bridge communities, the Park administration, and well‑wishers in India and abroad. Co‑founded by Park Director Sanjeeva Pandey and artist‑scientist Payson Stevens, the Friends helped design the Park’s first logo (a Western Tragopan painting by Timothy Greenwood), launched the first website, produced conservation posters, and supported ecotourism training.
Women’s Savings & Credit Groups sold vermicompost, apricot oil, hand‑woven products, local beans, and walnuts—first at the Kullu Dussehra exhibition stall, and later at souvenir shops in Sai Ropa, Larjee, and Manali. Street Theatre carried conservation messages to villages, with over 350 performances. Community‑based ecotourism trained local men—many former herb collectors—as guides and porters, linking livelihoods to conservation.
These efforts also fed into GHNP’s World Heritage nomination and a wider appreciation of the Park’s biodiversity. The approach was simple: protect nature, respect culture, celebrate community.
Living with the Park Today
Roads, hydropower, and horticulture have transformed outer valleys since the 1970s. Inside GHNP, the absence of roads keeps treks long and wild, with annual visitors typically fewer than a thousand. Around the Park, people continue to adapt—blending subsistence traditions with new livelihoods in tourism, orchard work, and services. The future of protection lies in keeping communities central: fair opportunities, strong cultural identity, and a living landscape where sacred groves, songs, and stories endure.