Namdapha National Park
The fourth largest national park in India is the Namdapha National Park in the north-eastern state of Arunachal Pradesh. Located in the Changlang district near the international border with Myanmar, the park is a diversity hotspot in the Eastern Himalayas. Spread out over an area of 1985 sq km, it is flanked by the Patkai hills to the south and south-east and the Himalayas to the north, and lies close to the Indo-Myanmar China trijunction.
The core area of the park stretches over 1808 sq km, making it the largest protected area in the Eastern Himalayas. The Noa-Dihing river, a tributary of the Brahmaputra, flows westwards through the park. Numerous streams drain into the Noa-Dihing; forest pools and natural salt licks are abundant in the area.
The park, described as a botanist’s dream, is home to more than 150 tropical trees pecies, several of them exclusive to the region. These Natural Wonders of India include the Sumatran pine(Pinus mercusii) and the Delavay’s silver-fir (Abies delavayi), which cannot be found anywhere else in India. Among the rare plants found here is the Blue Vanda orchid (Vanda coerulea), a striking species with large purple-blue flowers that is native to the North-Eastern Himalayan region.
The inaccessibility of the greater part of the park has helped to preserve the forests in their pristine and virgin state. The lush green undergrowths are thick and intertwined cobweb-like with a vast range of vegetation, which changes with altitude. While the lower reaches of the park are sub-tropical, the landscape is replaced by subtropical pine forests, temperate forests, Alpine meadows, and perennial snow on the higher regions.
Namdapha is home to four major big cat species – the tiger, the leopard, the snow leopard, and the clouded leopard. Other carnivores found here include the Asian wild dog or dhole, the Asiatic black bear, the red fox, the spotted linsang, the common palm civet, the Oriental small clawed otter, and the fishing cat. The elephant, wild boar, musk deer, sambar, gaur, hog deer, stump-tailed macaque, slow loris, Hoolock gibbon, and rhesus macaque are some of the herbivores that inhabit the park.
The park has about 425 bird species, including five species of hornbills, numerous species of wren-babblers, the pied falconet, the blue-eared kingfisher, the laughing thrush, the white-winged wood duck, and the Himalayan wood-owl.
Namdapha was declared a national park in 1983 and designated a tiger reserve the same year. It is also on the Tentative Lists of UNESCO World Heritage Sites in India.
