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

7 months ago 2
ARTICLE AD BOX
 X/@supriyasahuias

A record representation of Sonali Ghosh. Photo: X/@supriyasahuias

GUWAHATI

Sonali Ghosh, the Director of Kaziranga National Park and Tiger Reserve, has go the archetypal Indian to person an planetary grant for innovation successful nationalist parks and protected country sustainability.

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

The WCPA is 1 of six method commissions of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), a 1948-established planetary web dedicated to the conservation of quality and the sustainable usage of earthy resources.

The WCPA specialises successful protected country governance, management, and policy, supporting the instauration and effectual absorption of protected areas globally, including nationalist parks, reserves, and marine protected areas.

Established successful 2006, the Kenton R. Miller Award for Innovation successful National Parks and Protected Area Sustainability is presented each 2 years by the IUCN-WCPA. Named aft a erstwhile Director General of the IUCN, the grant recognises individuals oregon teams whose innovations successful planning, management, finance, governance, monitoring, capableness building, and connection person a important interaction and adjacent designation without anterior planetary awards.

The challenges addressed by awardees see pressures from poaching, clime change, invasive species, and constricted finances.

A connection from the IUCN said Dr. Ghosh was recognised for championing a “model of conservation rooted successful assemblage engagement, awareness-building, and the seamless integration of accepted ecological cognition with modern technological expertise”. The exemplary has been particularly impactful successful the highly biodiverse scenery of Manas and Kaziranga successful Assam, the connection added.

Mr. Larrea, an economist, businessman, environmentalist, and politician, was awarded for bringing successful “sustainability done assorted companies, including tourism, insurance, and the environment”. He is besides the laminitis and president of Grupo Futuro, a holding institution with 19 businesses crossed insurance, aesculapian services, tourism, agriculture, and cleanable energy.

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

Published - October 12, 2025 03:53 p.m. IST

Read Entire Article