Association (WPA), an international conservation organisation, which had set up office in Pakistan in 1975. Led by a group of bird enthusiasts, and presided over by Brigadier. Mukhtar Choudary, the WPA started off by breeding pheasants in captivity and by carrying out occasional population surveys. If it was to contribute to conservation of wild birds, the WPA realised that it needed more detailed and precise information on the status of birds in the wild. They contacted Rob Whale, a young Welsh ecologist, who was already helping the organisation breed captive pheasants in Dhodial, near Abbottabad.

Before coming to Pakistan in 1994, Rob Whale had been working on an estate owned by the President of the WPA International, where he was rearing pheasants. Hailing from the lush and beautiful Wales, Whale’s love of wildlife and particularly wild birds was an inheritance from his naturalist grandfather, with whom he used to spend his holidays as a boy. Roaming all over coastal Wales, the two would go bird watching, so that it was no wonder that all Whale ever wanted to do was become a gamekeeper, working closely with nature.

At 16 years of age, he did a game-keeping course and was hired on an estate whose owner, to Whale’s dismay, used to keep live birds as captive ornaments. ‘But all in all it was a wonderful experience and I stayed there for the next three years,’ remembers Whale. It was during his college years in Hampshire that he came into contact with Keith Howman of the WPA who offered him a job on his estate. Here he was able to meet wildlife experts from all over the world, a learning experience for the aspiring conservationist.

After spending a couple of years on the estate and completing his studies, Whale thought it was time he tested hiswings and decided to work in India on the endangered Indian Tragopans. His work and zeal so impressed the WPA in Pakistan that they asked him to come to work in Pakistan. Looking for a job and attracted by the challenge posed by WPA’s pheasantry in Dhodial, Whale decided to move to northern Pakistan. After working with captive wild pheasants, Whale and WPA realised that the best way to start saving pheasants in the wild was to observe and record changes in pheasant numbers and habitat in the northern region and pinpoint the factors responsible for their decline. This proposal, which was supported by the NWFP Wildlife Department and GEF/SGP, turned into an activity that lasted from 1996 to 1999 and became the organisations first conservation project in the wild.

After spending a couple of years on the estate and completing his studies, Whale thought it was time he tested his wings and decided to work in India on the endangered Indian Tragopans. His work and zeal so impressed the WPA in Pakistan that they asked him to come to work in Pakistan. Looking for a job and attracted by the challenge posed by WPA’s pheasantry in Dhodial, Whale decided to move to northern Pakistan. After working with captive wild pheasants, Whale and the WPA realised that the best way to start saving pheasants in the wild was to observe and record changes in pheasant numbers and habitat in the northern region and pinpoint the factors responsible for their decline. This proposal, which was supported by the NWFP Wildlife Department and GEF/SGP, turned into an activity that lasted from 1996 to 1999 and became the organisations first conservation project in the wild.

The survey work was started in the Hazara division of NWFP, an area with the largest pheasant population in Pakistan. The project team proudly claims that methods and echniques used in the pheasant surveys were the first of their kind in Asia, giving rare insight into the ecology and forests of the Hazara region. In the scientific aspects of the pheasant work, Whale has received strong technical support from Dr. Peter Garson in England, who is Chairman of the Pheasant Specialist Group of the IUCN, an international cluster of authoritative specialists including WPA, and Birdlife International. This has given the credibility that Whale needed for his pioneering work to be taken seriously by the international community of biologists.

The team, including Whale and local villagers, traveled extensively throughout the area, spending weeks in forest thickets trying to spot the birds and identify areas with large pheasant populations. The team would ‘flush’ out the birds and then count and record their numbers using trained dogs based on a sample matrix area mapped out on foot.

Another more accurate method used was ‘call count’. During breeding season the male pheasant gives out loud territorial calls, so over a period of seven days field workers would count the calls to give them an approximate idea of the number of birds in a particular area.

It was during one such survey that the team made an important breakthrough that made international headlines. Accompanied by Raza Abbas, a Lahore-based wildlife photographer, the team was looking for the Western Tragopan. After pinpointing an area where locals had spotted Tragopan pheasants deep in the Palas valley forests, they built a makeshift shelter in which Abbas would sit silently for hours waiting to catch a glimpse of the shy bird. As days passed with no sign of the elusive bird, the team was about to give up. But finally, on the day the team was to wrap up its operations and move out, a male Tragopan strutted right past an excited Abbas, giving him ample opportunity to film it in all its glory. The footage has been shown both nationally and internationally to scientists and ecologists. Since this was the first ever known video footage of the Western Tragopan, it created excited ripples amongst conservationists.

But for the team itself the surveys were more than scientific ventures. They were a lasting bonding and sharing experience for the English ecologist and the local villagers. The villagers, born and bred in the wilds of Hazara, were

able to share with Whale their knowledge of the forests and the way it had changed. In return, the university-educated Whale was able to show them how to use state of the art survey techniques. Having built what he believes is a bank of practical field-based expertise, Whale despairs that the NWFP government, which does not have the funds to carry out or sustain such large-scale surveys, might be unable to use wildlife staff and villagers trained in the survey techniques.

Now that the surveys are over, Whale and WPA intend to publish an extensive report of their experiences regarding pheasant populations in northern Pakistan. They believe that they have enough information to be able to discuss pheasant population trends, and to suggest options for future work. As the survey confirmed the decline in pheasant population in Pakistan it suggested allocating protected areas for pheasants and other wildlife. The drafts of these surveys are now ready for publishing. One shows the scientific findings and data and is aimed purely at the scientific and conservationist community. The other part of the report is simpler and is aimed at the layman, discussing the nature of the problem and the reason why saving the diversity in the Himalayan forests is everyone’s business and a national concern. Though he has tried to keep the recommendations realistic, minimising external resources and expensive expert help, Whale still believes that his proposals are ‘highly idealistic’. According to him, ‘What I have done is recommend a lot more work. We have observed the destruction of the environment on a first-hand basis and on certain fronts, we stand helpless until the politicians and higher-ups take the issue seriously.’

To mitigate the destruction of the pheasants and the forests they inhabit, an interesting idea that Whale intends to float is the establishment of a broad-based learning institution and the provision of environmental education to locals. Apart from the pristine but inaccessible Palas Valley, Ayubia National Park has a large pheasant population, where environmental education and eco-tourism can be promoted within the park. The work that Rob Whale has done with the pheasants has earned him the respect and admiration of Pakistani conservationists.

Gradually, feeling more at home amongst the dramatic mountains and wildlife of north Pakistan than in England, Whale has developed a strong bond and affinity with the land. So that when in 1998, after completing the pheasant research, Whale was jobless and faced with the option of leaving Pakistan, he chose to stay on. He joined the WWF, where he is now working on the Himalayan Jungle Project in Palas Valley. The Palas Valley is located in Kohistan, a wild and remote region where there is no government jurisdiction. The Himalayan Jungle Project was initiated by a British conservationist called Guy Duke in 1992. The project has faced the difficult task of earning the trust of the independent and heavily armed locals, who look upon outsiders with suspicion. It is this distrust of outsiders, however, which has helped preserve the forests of Palas Valley – the locals do not allow any contractors to cut down the trees, until they obtain special permission from the entire community through a jirga (the request is often turned down).

In the years he spent in Pakistan, Whale would spend long months in the isolated valleys of Hazara, where his only human contact would be the local villagers. Whale has had ample time and opportunity to closely interact with them. He observed local culture and was fascinated with the dissimilarity between tradition and religion. “It makes me very angry when people don’t see the wisdom of the religion and confuse tradition with religion,” he says. His fascination with Islam prodded him to study the religion in detail for nearly two years. “Someone gave me an English version of the Quran by chance and after studying it I came to the conclusion that it could not have been written by man,’ says Whale. ‘So I woke up one day and realised that I wanted to convert to Islam.”

He converted to Islam in 1998, changing his name to Rab Nawaz. “I had no problems with that,” he says with a laugh. “People find it easier to accept me as one of them with this name and since I am living here I thought I might as well change it. Besides I like the name Rab Nawaz (which translates into ‘Grace of God’).” To complete his naturalisation into Pakistani society, Rab Nawaz married a Pakistani woman in 1999, and they live together in Abbottabad. “It was a completely arranged marriage,” he says. “My friends knew her family and they suggested me to them.” Conversion to Islam and marriage has, he believes, changed him profoundly and for the better.

According to Whale putting out these roots have strengthened his links to his adopted country, particularly Palas valley that has inspired him with its beauty. “Palas valley is very special to me,” explains Whale. “Due to its inaccessibility, its forests and rivers are undisturbed. I can’t explain what draws me to this beautiful valley. Though it is a difficult place to stay and work in and the people are also sometimes hard to deal with, yet it is still very important to me.”

“Pakistan is a beautiful country with a great potential for wildlife conservation and related fields like eco-tourism,” says Rob Whale. “I hope the pheasant report and its research is able to bring all this across to its readers.” The amount of hard work and dedication needed to research and then compile the report stems from Whale’s love of nature and wildlife, a love that has made him travel from Wales to Pakistan and then finally settle down in Hazara. Since he has every intention of staying on in the country, he is becoming an established feature of the mainstream environment and conservation circles in Pakistan. It has now been more than six years since Whale came here, and during this time he has blended in so well that it is hard to distinguish between this blond, blue-eyed Welshman and the Pathans he works with up in the North West Frontier Province.

– Written by Mehjabeen Abidi Habib and Faiza Hasan