Chandra Prakash Kala

Chandra Prakash Kala is an Indian ecologist and professor. His research interests include alpine ecology, conservation biology, indigenous knowledge systems, ethnobotany and medicinal aromatic plants. He is an assistant professor in the faculty area of Ecosystem and Environment Management at the Indian Institute of Forest Management.

Kala was born and grew up in Sumari, a small village of Uttarakhand state in India. He studied life sciences at the Hemwati Nandan Bahuguna Garhwal University, Srinagar before completing a PhD on the ecology and conservation of the Valley of Flowers National Park at the Forest Research Institute (a deemed university), Dehradun.

He has published over 185 research papers and articles and nine books including: The Valley of Flowers: Myth and Reality,Medicinal Plants of Indian Trans-Himalaya,Medicinal Plants of Uttarakhand, and Ecology and Conservation of Valley of Flowers National Park. He writes popular articles regularly in English and Hindi. His decade long studies on the Valley of Flowers National Park laid the foundation stone to declare the Valley of Flowers a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 2005.

Kala has surveyed two major traditional systems of Asian therapies - Ayurveda and the traditional Tibetan medicine. He has studied various natural resource management practices evolved by various tribal communities in northwest, northeast and central India, especially in the states of Arunachal Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu-Kashmir, Uttarakhand, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh. Besides the Valley of Flowers, he surveyed many other high altitude protected areas, including Kedarnath Wild Life Sanctuary, Great Himalayan National Park, Hemis National Park, Karakorum Wildlife Sanctuary, Changthang Wildlife Sanctuary, Kibber Wildlife Sanctuary, Pin Valley National Park and Binsar Wildlife Sanctuary. Kala also has surveyed the Alps including the only national park of Slovenia, Triglav National Park.

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