Edward Pritchard Gee | |
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Born | 1904 County Durham, United Kingdom |
Died | 1968 |
Residence | Assam, India |
Nationality | British |
Alma mater | Durham School and Emmanuel College, Cambridge |
Occupation | Tea planter |
Known for | discovery of Gee's golden langur, promoting creation of Chitwan National Park |
Notes | |
Gee was described as: "a fairly built heavy man, balding and wears tortoise shell glasses. He repeats everything twice over, the second phrase tumbling out after the first."
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Edward Pritchard Gee (1904–1968) was a Cambridge educated, Anglo-Indian tea-planter and an amateur naturalist in Assam, India. He is credited with the 1953 discovery of Gee's golden langur. He is notable as an early influential wildlife conservationist, especially for his 1959 and 1963 surveys and recommendations resulting in the creation of Chitwan National Park, the first of nine national parks in Nepal.
Gee was the fourth son of Rev. C. G. Gee, Vicar of Lowick and his wife, daughter of a Colonel Briggs of Hylton Castle. As a tea planter, Gee was part of a highly influential group of British landowners very close to the highest levels of provincial power. Soon after India's Independence, Gee was one of the first to assess the threats to endangered species and outline conservation measures to protect them. He believed cattle had no place in a sanctuary and thought they would arouse a sense of surprise, disappointment, and revulsion in tourists who had come looking for wild animals.
Like his contemporaries, Salim Ali and M. Krishnan, Gee was a non-official member of the Indian Board for Wildlife, the apex body that advises the Union Government on wildlife matters. Gee argued in favour of separate wildlife wardens within the Forest Department, who have specific powers in relation to fauna. He wrote extensively on the role of foresters as protectors of wildlife, as he thought it important to rely on their goodwill. He believed conservation success depended on cooperation between foresters and the forest ministers of each state and that the role of the central government was only to advise and assist.