How A Chandigarh Museum Is Nurturing India–NZ Friendship

The Museum of Trees in Chandigarh, an unconventional project that preserves sacred, rare, and culturally significant trees through cloning and scientific propagation, has become an unexpected bridge between India and New Zealand.

Curated by retired IAS officer D.S. Jaspal and supported by the Chandigarh Nature and Health Society and India’s Ministry of Culture, the museum opened to the public in 2020. Today, it houses several hundred species, including genetic copies of trees sacred to Sikhism.

Aman Jaspal, Co-Founder and Assistant Curator of the museum, is currently in New Zealand as part of Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal’s high-powered business delegation.

Representing India in the official Indian Business & Investment Delegation, Jaspal aims to strengthen India–New Zealand cooperation in sustainability, culture, and investment partnerships.

During the visit, he presented a copy of Tryst with Trees, a book based on the Museum of Trees project.

The museum itself has recently taken on a global dimension. Its “Kiwi Grove” features native New Zealand species such as kauri, totara, and black beech.

In late October, a manuka sapling was planted at the museum — a symbolic gesture of ecological friendship between the two nations. The team described it as an effort to connect biodiversity, cultural memory, and people-to-people ties.

That connection runs deep. Sameena Jaspal, a co-founder of the museum with professional and personal ties to New Zealand, has been instrumental in developing the Kiwi Grove.

The museum’s advanced propagation techniques, including plant-breeding and quarantine facilities, have made it possible to nurture southern-hemisphere species on Indian soil.

Beyond symbolism, cultural exchanges like the Kiwi Grove serve a strategic purpose. They foster goodwill, open doors for research and conservation partnerships, and highlight each country’s natural strengths, from New Zealand’s forestry and agriculture to India’s biodiversity and innovation.

Such people-to-people links align closely with the ongoing India–New Zealand Free Trade Agreement negotiations launched in March 2025. With both countries emphasising labour mobility, education, and cultural exchange as pillars of the deal, initiatives like the Kiwi Grove build the social foundation for stronger economic cooperation.

Small in size but large in meaning, the Kiwi Grove stands as a living metaphor for growing ties, a shared space where diplomacy takes root, and trade talks find their human and ecological touchpoints.

Both Aman and Sameena Jaspal, based in Chandigarh, also run an immigration consultancy facilitating mobility between India and New Zealand — yet another example of how their work continues to nurture movement, connection, and collaboration between the two nations.