Which is India’s first national park and how did it become a conservation pioneer?

Long before India became home to dozens of protected forests and wildlife sanctuaries, one place that stood out in the foothills of the Himalayas quietly made history. Established in 1936, Jim Corbett National Park, then called Hailey National Park, became the first national park in India. Tucked inside the Nainital district of present-day Uttarakhand, this stretch of hills, riverine belts, marshes, grasslands and a large lake marked the country’s earliest attempt at organised wildlife protection. Today, Corbett remains one of India’s most iconic reserves, but its journey to becoming the nation’s first national park is far richer and more layered than most travellers realise.

There is a point where every story begins. For Jim Corbett, it began in the early 1900s, when British officials s