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Contents: Great Himalayan National Park Conservation Area: 1. Reflections on the Great Himalayan National Park/Payson Stevens. 2. GHNP: The Wilds and Its People/Sanjeeva Pandey. Kaziranga National Park: 3.  Kaziranga Diaries/Sonali Ghosh. 4. Kaziranga: The Gem of India/Asad Rahmani. 5. Back to the Future: One Hundred Years of Conservation/Bittu Sahgal  and Ranjit Barthakur. Keoladeo National Park: 6.  The Keoladeo Ghana of Bharatpur (Rajasthan)/Salim Ali. 7. A Bharatpur Aficionado Remembers/Peter Jackson. 8.  Bharatpur: Brushstrokes from the Past/Ranjit Lal. Khangchendzonga National Park: 9.  Securing Khangchendzonga: Healthy Forests, Happy People/Sandeep Tambe. 10. Aspiration/Francis Younghusband. Manas Wildlife Sanctuary: 11.  Manas: Monkeys and Mysteries/E.P. Gee. 12.  Monuments Men: A Story for Manas/Sonali Ghosh. 13.  The Magic of Manas/Asad Rahmani. Royal Manas National Park: 14.  Finding Culture through Nature/Tenzin Wangchuk. 15. Treasures of the Thunder Dragon/Ashi Dori Wangmo Wangchuck. Nanda Devi and Valley of Flowers National Parks: 16.  In the Shadow of Nanda Devi/Samir Sinha. 17.  Becoming a Mountain/Stephen Alter. 18.  On Doing Nothing/Frank S. Smythe. Sundarbans National Park: 19.  The Sundarbans Inheritance: Protecting a People’s Legacy/Bittu Sahgal. 20.  Sundarban: A Mystical Tiger Swamp/Pradeep Vyas  and Cheena Vyas. 21. An Epiphany/Amitav Ghosh. The Sundarbans:  22.  The Lord of Mud and Tide/Ruth Padel. 23.  The Princess of Angtihara/Samia Saif. Western Ghats: 24.  Mountains of the Monsoon/Kamal Bawa and Sandesh Kadur. 25.  A Wealth of Wildlife/Prerna Singh Bindra.  26.  Cliff Goats/E.R.C. Davidar. 27.  Kas Plateau: Tackling the Tourism Tsunami/Prerna Agarwal. 28.  A Day in Periyar/M. Krishnan. 29. Nagarahole: A World of Predators/K. Ullas Karanth. 30.  Sacred Groves: Memories of What Had Been/Erach Bharucha. 31.  Silent Valley: Whispers of Reason/Sugatha Kumari. 32. A Sojourn through the Sahyadris/Girish Punjabi. 33. A More than Memorable Trek/A.J.T. Johnsingh. 34.  Seasons in the Sun: An Avian Rhapsody/Manoj Nair. 35.  For All Things Little/Anuranjan Roy. Band-e-Amir (Afghanistan): 36. Band-e-Amir National Park: A Sacred Land of Azure Lakes/Abdul Wali Modaqiq and Richard Paley. Central Highlands of Sri Lanka: 37. Wonders Hidden in the Mist/Dishane Hewavithana, Eric Wikramanayake, Manori Gunawardena and Dhiya Sathananthan. 38.  Into the Wet: Field Notes from Sri Lanka’s Wet Zone/Ian Lockwood. Chitwan National Park (Nepal): 39. Kingdom of the Unicorn/Alex Dudley. 40. Chitwan: A Heavenly Abode/Kanchan Thapa. Hukaung Valley Wildlife Sanctuary (Myanmar): 41. The Valley of Death/Alan Rabinowitz. Lut Desert (Iran): 42.  Extreme: The Incredible Ecosystem of Earth’s Hottest Spot/Richard Stone. Sagarmatha National Park (Nepal): 43. Mount Everest: Return of the Snow Leopard/Som B. Vale. Sichuan Giant Panda Sanctuaries: Wolong, Mt Siguniang and Jiajin Mountains (China):  44.  A Mountain of Treasure/George Schaller. Western Tien Shan (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan): 45. Tien Shan: Mountain of Heaven/Koustubh Sharma. 

The World Natural Heritage Sites protect over 286 million hectares of land and sea, including trans-boundary sites, signifying that heritage sites belong to all peoples of the world, irrespective of the territory on which they are located. Wild Treasures is a selection of 45 carefully curated articles, channelling voices past and present to take you on a journey across Asia’s most beautiful landscapes. Wet, evergreen forests of India’s Western Ghats and Sri Lanka; the only mangrove forests, Sundarbans, where tigers roam across India and Bangladesh; the mystical tropical forests of Myanmar where tigers are revered as ‘relatives’ but are equally vulnerable to poaching pressures; the Lut Desert in Iran, the hottest place in the world; the snowy peaks of the Himalayas, the haunt of the elusive grey ghost —the Snow Leopard; Keoladeo, a wetland dense with birds in the dry region of India’s Rajasthan; the rhino’s realm across India’s Manas, Kaziranga; Chitwan in Nepal, and the sacred mountainscape of Khangchendzonga are just some of the places highlighted in this anthology. The voices are equally varied. The pieces in this collection have been penned by writers, poets, ecologists, scientists, foresters, photographers, conservationists —all bonded by a love for nature and our natural heritage. We hope that the book will kindle an appreciation for nature, encourage responsible travel and garner support for these imperilled natural wonders.