Back to the wild

The author visits Uttarakhand's first private nature reserve and finds out how a nearly lost forest was revived

The first few minutes into the Jabarkhet Nature Reserve take some getting used to. After all, you are still so close to civilisation; as the crow flies, you can see Landour's famous landmark - the TV tower - less than 100 metre away. The next instant, you are gawking at the photo of a grown male leopard - standing at the exact same place you are - who was there just 10 hours ago! The photo is a snapshot from one of the eight camera traps that have been installed at the 110-acre forest off Dhanolti Road, Mussoorie. The cameras have captured pictures of barking deer, goral, yellow-throated martens, leopard cat, langur, black bear, and porcupine too.

"Not too long ago, one of our cameras also spotted a sambar, the handsome horned deer that is not even a part of the wildlife here," says Virendra Panwar, the 21-year-old nature guide of the reserve. The deer must have ventured uphill from the plains, he explains, and gone back after sometime. The incident is of significant value because it is an indication that the reserve is being accepted by the wildlife as a forest they are safe in. Other attractions include over 100 species of birds, over 300 varieties of flowers and 60 species of mushrooms and fungi. The forest itself is a mixed one and includes oak, rhododendron, chestnut, walnut, deodar, pine, and several varieties of shrubs and herbs.

The hauntingly-beautiful bird calls and natural ecosystem were under threat until very recently, however. Although cutting of trees and lopping of branches had been banned, the forest suffered from overgrazing of the cattle from nearby villages and a lot of human activity, which left mountains of trash behind. J P Jain, the owner of the estate, worked relentlessly towards maintaining the forest by engaging with local communities, but after his death in 2007, the management became a big challenge since his descendants don't stay in Mussoorie. There were also forest fires and poaching of local animals and birds.

In 2013, the estate's owner, Vipul Jain, with environmentalist and WWF India Programme Director Sejal Worah, made the forest Uttarakhand's first private nature reserve. The 600 kg of trash is gone, water sources have been revived, ground vegetation is reclaiming lost ground and the forest is alive once more.

The reserve invites nature lovers and bird watchers to any of the eight trails into the forest, with guides who are from local villages. Since it opened a year ago, there has been a steady stream of visitors to spend a few hours away from Mussoorie, fast becoming infamous for rampant construction, a boring Mall Road, staid shopping options and, would you believe it, traffic jams.

While the reserve offers a dip into serenity for visitors, for Worah and her team, it is a chance to showcase what positive human intervention can do. "We wanted to showcase how tourism can also mean conserving nature. Hopefully, we will become a model for the state," she says.