Kaziranga Director becomes first Indian to receive IUCN award for innovation in national parks

GUWAHATI

Sonali Ghosh, the Director of Kaziranga National Park and Tiger Reserve, has become the first Indian to receive an international award for innovation in national parks and protected area sustainability.

She received the Kenton R. Miller Award, constituted by the World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA), along with Ecuador’s Roque Simón Sevilla Larrea at a function in Abu Dhabi on October 10.

The WCPA is one of six technical commissions of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), a 1948-established global network dedicated to the conservation of nature and the sustainable use of natural resources.

The WCPA specialises in protected area governance, management, and policy, supporting the creation and effective management of protected areas globally, including national parks, reserves, and marine protected areas.

Established in 2006, the Kenton R. Miller Award for Innovation in National Parks and Protected Area Sustainability is presented every two years by the IUCN-WCPA. Named after a former Director General of the IUCN, the award recognises individuals or teams whose innovations in planning, management, finance, governance, monitoring, capacity building, and communication have a significant impact and peer recognition without prior international awards.

The challenges addressed by awardees include pressures from poaching, climate change, invasive species, and limited finances.

A statement from the IUCN said Dr. Ghosh was recognised for championing a “model of conservation rooted in community engagement, awareness-building, and the seamless integration of traditional ecological knowledge with modern scientific expertise”. The model has been especially impactful in the highly biodiverse landscape of Manas and Kaziranga in Assam, the statement added.

Mr. Larrea, an economist, businessman, environmentalist, and politician, was awarded for bringing in “sustainability through various companies, including tourism, insurance, and the environment”. He is also the founder and president of Grupo Futuro, a holding company with 19 businesses across insurance, medical services, tourism, agriculture, and clean energy.

Past recipients of the Kenton R. Miller Award include Burung Indonesia for community-based bird conservation integrating local knowledge and scientific research, Nizar Youssef Hani of Lebanon’s Shouf Biosphere Reserve for ecosystem restoration and community empowerment post-conflict, and Mexico’s Maria Del Carmen Garcia Rivas for advancing marine protected areas with collaborative governance and scientific monitoring.