New Nepal King a passionate environmentalist

He has largely shunned public life but has been involved significantly with conservation and nature groups

KATHMANDU - Nepal's newly crowned King Gyanendra is a soft-spoken conservationist who has shunned the public spotlight.

Nepal's State Council named him Regent - or acting King - on Saturday after his nephew, Crown Prince Dipendra, killed nearly every member of the royal family on Friday night.

The Crown Prince, who shot himself, became King.

On his first day, Regent Gyanendra took on the grim task of leading the funeral procession for his brother King Birendra and seven other royal family members.

The Regent then succeeded King Dipendra after he died early yesterday.

The post of the constitutional monarch is largely ceremonial since the kingship was stripped of power in 1990 through a popular people's movement. However, the royals remain highly popular.

Journalist Mana Ranjanj Josse, who had written extensively about the royal family, said King Gyanendra was a close confidant of his late brother but had a vastly different personality.

'People who deal with him will find him to be a no-nonsense, firm man,' he said.

In a quirk of fate, he was crowned King once before when he was three years old.

In 1951, the late King Birendra's grandfather, King Tribhuwan, joined a people's revolution against the Rana clan, who were the true rulers behind the throne at the time.

King Tribhuwan fled to India and the Ranas named the toddler as King in a bid to keep power.

However, the Rana family relinquished power after King Tribhuwan returned to Nepal with India's support.

King Gyanendra, the second of three sons of the late King Mahendra and Queen Indra Rajya Laxmi, is a passionate environmentalist.

Since 1994, he has been the chairman of the King Mahendra Trust for Nature Conservation, Nepal's largest conservation group.

He has also been involved in many World Wildlife Fund conservation programmes in Nepal, working to protect flora and fauna.

He was also the chairman of the Lumbini Development Trust between 1986 and 1991, working for the preservation of the birthplace of Buddha.

Educated at India's St Joseph School in Darjeeling and Nepal's Tribhuwan University, he was fond of writing lyrics under the pen name G. Shah.

After the restoration of democracy in Nepal in 1990, Prince Gyanendra stayed out of public life, making just a handful of appearances during conservation campaigns and public functions where all royal family members were present.

His only son, Prince Paras, had been a source of public embarrassment for the royal family.

He allegedly beat up people, including police officers, and was a suspect in a hit-and-run death but was never charged. --AP