Karakoram Wildlife Sanctuary

Karakoram Wildlife Sanctuary
Location Leh District, Jammu and Kashmir, India
Governing body Government of India, Government of Jammu and Kashmir

The Karakoram Wildlife Sanctuary is a high altitude wildlife sanctuary located in the easternmost reaches of the Karakoram range in Leh District, Jammu and Kashmir. It is important as one of the few places in India with a migratory population of the Chiru or Tibetan Antelope. This Wildlife Sanctuary has been extensively surveyed by Prof. Chandra Prakash Kala for distribution of vegetation, including plants of medicinal values, across the environmental gradient and habitat types.

Biodiversity

Medicinal Plants

Being cold desert area, the vegetation in Karakoram Wildlife Sanctuary is quite sparse. However, the ecological marginal conditions have employed some remarkable characteristics in these vegetation, which has high medicinal properties. Fifteen rare and endangered medicinal plant species have been discovered by Prof. C.P. Kala from this sanctuary, which are distributed over different habitat types. Arnebia euchroma, Bergenia stracheyi, Ephedra gerardiana, and Hyoscymus Niger are the threatened but medicinally important plants occur in this wildlife sanctuary[1][2]

  1. Kala, Chandra Prakash 2000. Status and conservation of rare and endangered medicinal plants in the Indian trans-Himalaya. Biological Conservation, 93: 371-379.
  2. Kala, Chandra Prakash 2005. Indigenous uses, population density, and conservation of threatened medicinal plants in protected areas of the Indian Himalayas. Conservation Biology, 19 (2): 368-378.


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