Wildest India

Covering 200000km sq Indias Thar desert is one of the harshest places on Earth Desiccating winds and near permanent drought has earned this unforgiving land another name the region of death Temperatures soar to 50C and less than 5cm of rain falls each year Yet the Thar is a hotspot for nature and home to some of the toughest and rarest creatures on earth

The Ganges is the longest river in India It flows from the glaciers of the worlds highest mountains the Himalayas to the largest bay in the world the Bay of Bengal Its a lifeline to wild animals from Indias onehorned rhinoceros and the river dolphin to families of smoothcoated otters and the bizarre longnosed gharial

The Himalayas run across 2500km of north India Outside Asia no peaks reach above 7km but along the Himalayan range over 100 mountains exceed this height It is the tallest mountain range on the planet by a long shot While the Himalayas rugged highlands offer little direct refuge to humans in the shadow below over a billion people in India rely on the mountains for survival

Stretching for a thousand miles along Indias west coast the western Ghats are a spine of mountains that lay claim to being one of the most biodiverse places in the world On the eastern side of the mountains in their rain shadow tigers and wild dogs compete for prey in the dry forests While the western Ghats hold the key to life across southern India

Northeast India is an anthropological paradise there is no other place on Earth with so many different ethnic groups The forest slopes are filled with mysterious tribes whose lives are dictated by the ebb and flow of the rain and the seasonal fruits of the forest In these largely unexplored and isolated areas people scarcely known to the western world continue a way of life steeped in ancient