For 118 years, Kaziranga, the land of the one-horned rhino, never had a woman at its helm. On September 1, 2023, that changed. IFS officer Sonali Ghosh became the park’s first woman Field Director — a new chapter in India’s conservation story.
Born into an Army family, Sonali grew up with discipline, resilience, and a love for the wild. Her initiation came at the Wildlife Institute of India, where field training left a lifelong mark.
In 2003, she topped her Indian Forest Service batch. Armed with degrees in forestry, wildlife science, environmental law, and systems management, she went further still with a PhD mapping tiger habitats in the Indo-Bhutan landscape.
Her journey wasn’t without detours. She endured a tough early posting in Assam’s remote forests, a stint in taxation that left her restless, and even a personal setback that cost her three years. But every trial deepened her resolve.
She protected golden langurs in Chakrashila Sanctuary. In Manas, she helped revive a park scarred by conflict, reintroducing rhinos and rescuing tigers. She even oversaw the first successful rehabilitation of captive-bred clouded leopards in the wild.
Her brilliance earned her the Whitley Award — the “Green Oscar". But for Sonali, awards were never the goal. The goal was always Assam’s wild heart — Kaziranga.
In the 1960s, Kaziranga’s rhinos were on the brink, with barely 300 left in the wild. Today, nearly 3,000 roam free — a turnaround driven by relentless protection.
In September 2023, as Field Director, she took bold steps: expanded patrols, strengthened intelligence, and supported the burning of 2,479 seized rhino horns — a fiery message that horns have no value outside a rhino’s life.
Her greatest strength? People — Kaziranga’s guards, its foot soldiers. In 2023, she welcomed 2,500 new recruits, including 300 women called Van Durgas — warrior goddesses of the forest.
When the Brahmaputra floods struck, she didn’t just watch from afar. She built artificial highlands, carved safe corridors, and led rescues — pulling calves and deer from swirling waters, giving them another chance at life.
Under her watch, drones scanned the skies, elephants patrolled marshes, and communities were brought closer to conservation, because Sonali knew Kaziranga’s future depended on people becoming its allies.
Today, as the sun sets over Kaziranga’s tall elephant grass, the one-horned rhino stands taller, freer, safer. And in that silence echoes a woman’s promise: to protect, to endure, to never give up.