A true conservationist

Few are aware that the path snaking into the heart of Munnar’s Eravikulam National Park is known as the “Gouldsbury Track” — in honour of the late British tea planter and conservationist who perhaps did more to preserve wildlife in these hills than anyone else. John Gouldsbury managed a tea estate near Munnar where my father worked. As a boy, I recall him zipping up and down the road past our house on his Francis Barnett motorcycle, a battered hat clamped over his unruly silver-streaked locks with a nervous assistant perched precariously on the pillion.

A World War II veteran who was awarded a Military Cross, JG was a sharpshooter. In the ’60s, I had seen him effortlessly peppering clay pigeons with his shotgun at the annual Thorpe Cup shooting competition. Quite knowledgeable about nature, he competently nurtured and headed the local wildlife and angling associations for several years. And when a proscribed rogue elephant had to be put down, it was he who led the hunt — a task that often saddened him.

Once, I had been trout fishing for hours without success when JG, the expert angler, joined me. In no time he caught several fair-sized trout, generously gifting these to me along with a few fishing flies and tips on angling. Back home, I shamelessly bragged that I had caught all the fish myself. Eravikulam, a remote, mountainous area rich in wildlife, notably the endangered Nilgiri tahr, originally belonged to a local British tea company: JG’s employers. He loved to frequent this beautiful and unsullied haven with his family, sometimes spending Christmas in its splendid isolation.

Thanks to the untiring efforts of local conservationists spearheaded by the indomitable JG, in 1971, Eravikulam was declared a wildlife sanctuary and eventually a National Park in 1978 — Kerala’s first. JG lived to see his cherished dream come true. Before leaving India, he made an impassioned appeal to all concerned (through the visitors’ logbook at Eravikulam) to leave the park’s pristine splendour untouched — a request that has, thankfully, been heeded so far.

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