Dr Tirtha Man Maskey, Director General of the Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation, received a special award from WWF Nepal Program and Vaidya's Organization of Industries and Trading Houses (VOITH) amid a ceremony held on 30 December 2005.

Dr. Maskey received the award in recognition of his outstanding contributions and commitment to conservation in Nepal from the implementation of a visionary landscape-level conservation approach to championing the cause of the endangered freshwater Gangetic gharial, promoting ex-situ conservation, influencing national policy, paving the way for the participatory involvement of local communities and coordinating trans-boundary efforts to deter poaching and illegal wildlife trade. Dr. Maskey was also conferred the prestigious Duke of Edinburgh Conservation Medal 2005 recently.

WWF-VOITH also donated equipments and a vehicle to Royal Chitwan National Park to support its anti-poaching effort. On the same occassion Ishswari Aryal, daughter of Narayan Bahadur Khatri, a staff of Parsa Wildlife Reserve, who was killed in Maoist mine ambush on 20 January 2005, also received a scholarship from the Jasutara Foundation.

Source: http://www.wwfnepal.org

Update 02/03/2006: Dr. Maskey has recently retired as Director General of DNPWC. You can read a biographical article on him at Nepali Times