Jabarkhet: can private reserves restore wildlife and keep tourism gentle?

“The path on the left leads to a fairly wide plateau for the hills and makes a very pleasant resort for a picnic… There is plenty of room for a good foot race and the surrounding scenery is magnificent from most points. The ponies… can go all the way.”

– Masuri, Landour, Dehra Dun, John Northam Guide, 1884

A bird with a red body and a mohawk sings sweetly, its sound wafting over us. Its head is black and its body is orange, but despite its colors, it blends in seamlessly with the leaves around it. This is because the leaves are thick and their variety gives them different colors. There are oaks and deodars and rhododendrons and walnut trees, and where the red sibia dives after finishing its song, there are ferns nodding their heads and thick leaf litter that no one sweeps. There are scythes in the sky above our heads: Himalayan griffon vultures soar slowly across the world.

When you think of wildlife tourism in India, the options are predetermined. There are safaris in tiger reserves or National Parks where you enter with Gypsy cars at set times and never get off. These are the most well-known forms of wildlife tourism, but it is not unheard of for star animals such as tigers or elephants to crowd out. There are also trails and hideouts you can walk through, often on community land, as part of other guided tours.

This is usually for the hardcore wildlife lover out for a special sighting of a rare bird. Might there be a third option, where you can wander through restored woodland at your own pace, away from mass tourism and where wildlife always gets the first right of way? Can you actually have a trash-free picnic and that too without emptying your pockets?

full of wildlife

In 2025, Jabarkhet Nature Reserve (JNR) near Mussoorie turns ten years old. This is Uttarakhand’s first privately owned and operated nature reserve and aims to protect wildlife and habitat as the primary objective.

The 1907 Mussoorie Guide describes the hills around Dehradun as teeming with wildlife:

“These hills are covered with thick forests consisting mainly of Sal forests. [Shorea robusta] and Sain [this could potentially refer to the crocodile bark tree or the Terminalia tomentosa]. Pines grow on the high hills, and these were the home of many wild animals; tigers, leopards, sloth bears, hyenas, deer, pigs and porcupines were abundant in the forests.”

Similar sightings are possible at JNR today: leopard, barking deer, goral, yellow-throated marten, leopard cat, jungle cat, black bear, porcupine, wild boar, red fox, jackal, black-naped hare, civet and sambar. But it wasn’t an easy journey.

Private reserves are popular in Africa. But as ‘eco-tourism’ labels are used in arbitrary ways in India, perhaps responsible private reserves are more about potential than reality. In examining how wildlife returns to JNR and balances tourism needs with conservation, a model can be traced for private reserves in India.

A slowing way of taking

More than 40 years ago, alarmed by massive deforestation in the hills, the government called for a ban on felling of trees above 1,000 meters in (then) Uttar Pradesh. The Jain family, who owned the Jabarkhet Estate in the 1960s, along with the forest department, created a work plan for the area. The forest was divided into sections, dead trees were cut down and new ones were planted. Over the years even this was discontinued and the Site remained unused and largely unmanaged.

Jabarkhet, once described by Northam as a ‘picnic’ spot in 1889, became increasingly crowded in the areas in between. At that time, many different people used Jabarkhet Estate to collect forest products, as a recreation area and also for hunting. In 2010 it was clear that the region needed management.

“We removed 500 kilos of garbage and 3 tons of grass from the slopes” Eupatorium JNR co-founder Sejal Worah said: “Before we did this, in the intervening years the forest had been heavily exploited with little management. I was heartbroken to see the place where I grew up littered with garbage.”

If JNR’s fortunes were to reverse, it would both benefit and suffer from its proximity to tourism-saturated Mussoorie. Mussoorie is so full of hotels and getaways that it’s easy to forget that it takes its name from its natural beauty, the red-fruited masuri bush. The challenge then was to create a kind of tourism that didn’t take more from the mountain, that didn’t promise helipads, fake fountains and adventure sports, but rather a slower paced exploration of the Himalayas.

And if eco-tourism was to happen, the benefits had to reach the local population. However, this was not easy at all due to the suspicion of the local people; They were used to seeing outsiders ‘developing’ one natural area after another.

The reserve, which now offers trails with affordable tickets, started by selecting people from surrounding villages, training them as guides and employing them in restoration and maintenance work. This was something new for the region; It was a combination of traditional skills such as getting to know mountains in depth and learning English bird names.

“I didn’t think my passion for wildlife could turn into a business. I always want to do this,” said naturalist Virendra Singh of JNR. Her favorite wildlife memory is seeing a leopard kitten sunbathing on a rock at JNR while the world was on lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic.

A leopard cub sunbathing. | Photo Credit: Jabarkhet Nature Reserve

An important shelter

There may be more to see, but this can only happen if we protect natural habitats without shears or with artificial beautification. In 1848, malacologist and snail collector William Benson found a brown land snail (bradybaena radicicola) on the slopes around Jabarkhet. Since JNR can be protected, it can also be studied.

True to its Himalayan roots, the region is incredibly diverse: insectivorous sunflowers, ground orchids, more than 40 species of ferns and more than a hundred species of fungi, dozens of species of grasses, more than 300 species of flowers and more than 150 species of birds in nearly 100 acres of land.

This becomes even more significant when we realize that places known for their natural beauty, be it the Himalayas or the Aravallis, are increasingly being logged for mining and other commercial projects.

Expansion of roads for activities such as tourism in the Himalayas causes landslides every year. According to Aravallis, the Supreme Court recently adopted a definition of hill that would exclude geologically significant slopes and ridges and pave the way for land uses that do not respect natural topographies or histories. This means that any habitat we can save at the landscape level will be an important stepping stone or refuge for wildlife.

Could we see a rise in private reserves in India, where wildlife gets the right of way and natural history can return to the present day?

Neha Sinha is a conservation biologist and author. Wild Capital: Exploring Nature in Delhi (2026).