It's summertime, with rhododendron blossoms spilling scarlet into the gorges of Jabarkhet Nature Reserve in Mussoorie. Perched high in the mountains serried upwards from the Doon Valley into the spectacular Garhwal Himalayas of Uttarakhand, the park is an intact montane forest ecosystem overhung with old-growth oaks, rhododendron and deodar, that has been painstakingly brought back from the precipice of disaster after being neglected for decades.
"Jabarkhet is an example of what can be achieved despite all odds," says Sejal Worah, programme director of the World Wide Fund for Nature in India, who spent her teenage years wandering through this landscape. Under her direction, Jabarkhet has emerged as a premier example of private forests being managed as successful public resources. This flourishing partnership between enlightened landowner, energetic locals, and expert conservationists also provides sterling metaphor for the pandemic-era phenomenon greatly revitalizing this storied hill station.
When Worah returned from working overseas over a decade ago-her family owns the beautifully situated Padmini Nivas hotel just off Mussoorie's much-maligned Mall Road-she headed straight to the wild areas of her beleaguered little hometown. "Now that I was looking at these places from the perspective of a professional ecologist," she says, “it was clear we were almost at the point of no return. It would have been easy to give up hope. The only alternative was to apply vision, passion, and commitment, and never give up. That's what happened at Jabarkhet, where nature has come all the way back, especially after the quietude induced by COVID-19."
この記事は GQ India の May 2022 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、8,500 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です ? サインイン
この記事は GQ India の May 2022 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、8,500 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です? サインイン
How to Dress for a Concert in Your Thirties
GQ World Humour
MARNI'S FRANCESCO Risso WILL NEVER GROW UP
The eccentric Italian designer is proving that the very serious business of fashion doesn't have to be very serious at all.
WELCOME TO LAUREN HALSEY'S NEIGHBORHOOD
The red-hot 36-year-old artist has achieved global success with a very local approach: applying imaginative, laser-like focus to a few square blocks of her hometown. In doing so, she renders and reflects what it's actually like to live and work in-and never, ever leave-South Central Los Angeles.
MEET THE WILDEST CHARACTER IN THE WORLD'S MOST INFLUENTIAL MUSIC SCENE
Right now, to be the most important new voice in Afrobeats means you might just be the most important new voice in global music, period. That title currently belongs to Asake, a Nigerian singer with bonkers style and a penchant for making speaker-melting hits.
BACK TO THE FUTURE
Goa's buzziest restaurants Praça Prazeres and Larder + Folk traverse the European continent for inspiration.
LEWIS HAMILTON IS CHANGING LANES
The seven-time F1 champ says he still has a world title in him-maybe this year, his final one at Mercedes; maybe next year when he joins Ferrari, a shocking move he tells us he manifested. But it's his passionate work outside of racing-in fashion, in film, in music-that's setting him up to keep making moves after the chequered flag drops on his racing career.
Summer of Sobhita
From Vizag to LA, Sobhita Dhulipala is having a golden run.
THE GQ35 MOST INFLUENTIAL YOUNG INDIANS
It's been 10 heady years since this list was first launched. And this year's edition celebrates India's youth power like never before. These individuals are leaders of powerful tribes, and personalities bearing influence over millions across the globe. They are pioneering business models, defining culture, and disrupting the status quo. They are driving innovation, pushing boundaries, and effecting change. Welcome to the future, today.
The Life-Changing Magic of Asking Kind Strangers to Rate Your Looks Online
On Reddit, a community dedicated to advice on one's appearance has given some men some unexpected confidence-and its moderators are trying to maintain one of the internet's few troll-free places.
Syncretic Jewels
An exhibition by Cartier at the Louvre, Abu Dhabi, highlighted the influence of Islamic art and Indian gems on the French maison's haute joaillerie over the years through more than 400 works from the museum's collection as well as those of partner museums, the Cartier archives, and private collectors.