Kaziranga Director Took on Floods, Poachers & the Wild — Becoming India’s 1st Woman To Win a Major Global Conservation Award

The forests of Kaziranga have long been a testing ground for courage — of guards who wade through waist-deep floods to protect the rhinos, elephants that carry them across swelling rivers, and leaders who must hold it all together when the wild turns unpredictable. Among them is Dr Sonali Ghosh, the Park’s Field Director, whose steady hand and deep empathy have guided this fragile landscape through challenge after challenge.

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Her work has now earned her one of the world’s highest honours in conservation — the IUCN’s Kenton Miller Award.

The recognition — a first for India — celebrates a form of leadership that is as much about compassion as control, as much about listening to people as protecting wildlife.

A childhood shaped by wilderness

Born in Pune in 1975 into a middle-class Bengali family, Dr Sonali grew up across India due to her father’s service in the Indian Army. The frequent relocations exposed her to forests, rivers, and landscapes that became the backdrop of her earliest memories.

She had the opportunity to meet new people and absorb their culture. However, it was the time she spent outdoors, unstructured and abundant, that shaped her bond with the natural world.

Though she calls herself a “late bloomer”, her fascination with nature deepened through her academic journey in life sciences. Her turning point came when she secured a seat at the Wildlife Institute of India (WII), Dehradun, one of the country’s foremost institutions for ecological research and conservation. There, her hidden passion was changed into a lifelong purpose.

The making of a forest officer

When Dr Sonali joined the Indian Forest Service, she found herself returning to the very landscapes that had once trained her — Kaziranga, Manas, and Orang. What had begun as fieldwork was now her responsibility to protect.

As a young officer, she came face-to-face with the harsh realities of conservation: poaching threats, monsoon floods, scarce resources, and the constant strain of managing fragile ecosystems under human pressure.

Those early years shaped her deeply. She learnt what it truly meant to protect India’s forests — not from behind a desk, but from the back of an elephant, inside remote patrol camps, and alongside frontline staff who risk their lives every day.

Shattering stereotypes in a green uniform

On 1 September 2023, Dr Sonali made history as the first woman field director of Kaziranga National Park — a defining moment not just for her, but for India’s conservation movement.

Kaziranga is no ordinary landscape. Spread across the floodplains of the Brahmaputra, it shelters the world’s largest population of the one-horned rhinoceros, along with elephants, tigers, swamp deer and over 500 species of birds. 

Managing such an ecosystem demands far more than administrative skill — it requires ecological insight, crisis management, and unrelenting resolve.

But even as Dr Sonali tackled poaching, encroachments, and floods, she faced another challenge — the quiet, persistent gender bias that shadows women in forestry. She has faced scepticism, casual dismissal, and the constant need to prove herself in a space long dominated by men. 

Early in her career, basic amenities such as clean drinking water and toilets were missing at field posts — challenges her male peers seldom had to think about. Yet, rather than deterring her, these experiences only strengthened her resolve to make the system better for those who came after her.

Leading with heart and purpose

Against the odds, Dr Sonali has transformed how Kaziranga is managed — not only through stronger protection but through empathy, science, and community partnership. Her leadership blends enforcement with inclusion, proving that conservation is most powerful when people and nature thrive together.

Under her watch, the park has seen major strides:

• Stronger wildlife protection protocols, especially for rhinos and tigers
• Community-led conservation, helping local families build sustainable livelihoods that reduce dependence on forest resources
• Better welfare of frontline forest staff, who often work in isolation and high-risk conditions
• Responsible ecotourism initiatives that preserve Kaziranga’s fragile ecology while benefiting nearby villages

Her approach is rooted in coexistence, not control — rooted in the belief that conservation cannot be sustained unless it involves those who live closest to the forest.

A milestone for India — and for every woman in green

Named after the renowned conservationist, Dr Kenton R Miller, the Kenton Miller Award is conferred by the IUCN’s World Commission on Protected Areas. Past recipients have included distinguished figures from Brazil, South Africa, and Australia. In 2025, the honour came to India, for the first time, with Dr Sonali’s name inscribed upon it.

She was chosen for her “innovative contributions” to protected area management, including scientific interventions in habitat conservation, community integration, and the creation of replicable, people-centric conservation models.

In recognising her, the IUCN effectively acknowledged India’s rising leadership in conservation and the individuals who tirelessly serve on its frontlines.
For Dr Sonali, the award is not a destination but a renewed responsibility. She continues to focus on long-term wildlife monitoring, flood preparedness, and mentoring the next generation of conservation leaders, especially young women entering the service.

Even as her days are filled with data, policy meetings, and field deployments, she remains grounded in the same truth that began her journey — an enduring love for the forests that shaped her.