consciousness of the beauty of wilderness dawned on the Europeans. These concerns led to the establishment of Yellowstone and other National Parks. Contrary to the claims of Americans Yellowstone was not the world’s first National Park, that honour belongs to Bogd Khan Mountain protected by people as a sacred mountain and then by the government of Mongolia in 13th century. India has its own sacred mountains like Shabarimala in Kerala, Gopalswamy Betta in Karnataka, or Badrinath in Himalayas, though no rulers had officially conferred protected status on them.
Tiger as a conservation icon
In aremarkable turn of events the tiger that was till 1972 hunted with much enjoyment and economic profit by rich and powerful suddenly became a conservation icon to be completely protected and to bring in profit for another set of the rich and powerful through nature- based, tiger-centric tourism. An active member of the group who promoted this metamorphosis of the tiger from a hunted animal to an icon to be protected at all costs was Anne Wnight, an influential member of the Bombay Natural History Society and a Founder Trustee of World wildlife Fund (India}. Anne belonged to the Wright family that had arrived in Kolkata to serve in the Indian Civil and Indian Police Services but whose members had stayed on in India while retaining their British citizenships. They had all been avid hunters till late 1960’s when they began to think of other ways of taking advantage of India’s rich wildlife. The Wright family operates two very profitable tourist resorts, near
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