Biodiversity Conservation: Nepal Leads the Way

Biodiversity provides a nation’s identity.

According to the experts, biodiversity is closely linked to poverty alleviation as it lends support to economic prosperity in the form of agricultural productivity and sustainability, human health and nutrition, indigenous knowledge, gender equality, construction materials, water resources and the aesthetic and cultural well-being of a society.

Three Decades of Biodiversity Conservation

Chitwan National Park

biodiversity conservation should mean the equitable distribution of natural resources and benefits accruing out of these resources to over 60 different ethnic mosaics that comprise the population of Nepal. The government of Nepal has been giving special importance to biological conservation since 1973 when its first national park, Royal Chitwan National Park, was established.

In June 1992, Nepal became a signatory to the Convention on Biodiversity (CBD). Similarly, Nepal added one more feather to its conservation efforts when it approved the Nepal Biodiversity Strategy (NBS) on August 8, 2002.

Nepal has come a long way in terms of biodiversity conservation; 18.33 percent of its total land area is now under protection. In 1989, only around 7.4 percent of the total land area was protected.

Being a tiny country cozily nestled on the lap of the central Himalayan range thus placing the country in a transitional zone between the eastern and western Himalayas, experts contend that Nepal’s rich biodiversity is a reflection of this unique geographical position as well as its altitudinal and climatic variation.

Lush and Rugged

Everest

Nepal’s narrow strip of land and snow clad majestic mountains, including eight of the world’s 14 mountains that rise above 8,000 meters (including the world’s highest peak, Mount Everest, at 8,848 meters), that adorn the Northern belt give Nepal’s weathered rugged look, while the green landscape of the southern floodplains of Terai decorate her with rich biodiversity and water resources.

Although comprising only 0.09 percent of the global land area, Nepal possesses an excessively large diversity of flora and fauna at the genetic, species and ecosystem levels. In Nepal, one can experience 118 types of ecosystem and more than two percent of the world’s flowering plants. Similarly comparing to global levels, Nepal has 8.5 percent of the total species of birds, 4.2 percent of the total species of fishes, 1.1 percent of the total species of amphibians, 1.5 percent of the total species of reptiles, and 4.5 percent of the total species of mammals in the world.

Around 21 percent (3.2 million hectares) of the total land area is cultivated and 12 percent of the total land area (1.75 million hectares) is rangeland. Rice, maize, wheat, millet and potatoes constitute the major crops. Many crop species owe their variability to the presence of 120 wild relatives of the commonly cultivated food plants in Nepal. Several biologists have reported recording plants and animals above 5,000 meters.

“Biodiversity conservation has received highest consideration in Nepal and began with single species conservation,” says Dr. Tirtha Man Maskey, Chief of the Environment Division at the Nepalis Ministry of Forest and Soil Conservation (MFSC). Dr. Maskey also serves as a Focal Point for CBD related activities.

According to Dr. Maskey, conservation activities in Nepal began with the conservation plan for the one-horned Asiatic Rhinoceros when its number fell alarmingly to its lowest level of below 100. Now Nepal boasts a herd of over 600 rhinoceros that it has successfully managed to transfer from the Royal Chitwan National Park to several other parks in western Nepal.

This also applies to several other species of animals including tigers and herds of Asiatic wild elephants that have returned. The Gaur population has also increased substantially, said Dr. Maskey.

This was possible because Nepal was successful in achieving what many countries find simply impossible. Nepal has protected 18.33 percent of its landmass in the form of nine national parks, three animal protection reserves, three protected areas and one hunting reserve that cover an area of 26,921 km2 out of Nepal’s total area of 147,181 km2.

Nepal has created a unique place of its own in South Asia in the area of biodiversity protection and environmental conservation by creating protected areas, national parks and reserves that lend support to Nepal’s unique high mountain ecosystem that covers watersheds, deep gorges, alpine meadows, high mountain glaciers and lakes giving origin to nearly 2000 snow-fed rivers, as well as the unique treasures of flora and fauna that are found richly distributed in the wilderness ranging from as high as 6,000 meters to 150 meters above sea level.

Special Celebrations

In this sense May 22 holds great significance for 186 countries around the world, as they prepare to commemorate International Day for Biological Diversity. This day has had special significance in Nepal since 1994 when the country began observing the day with many special programs and activities.

According to Tulsi Bhakta Praajapati, Environmental Officer at MFSC, the first thing that the people of Nepal will do on the morning of May 22 is listen to a national radio message from the Minister for Forest and Soil Conservation followed by a Biodiversity Exhibition jointly organized by the World Conservation Union (IUCN), World Wildlife Fund (WWF), King Mahendra Trust for Nature Conservation (KMTNC) and MFSC. People will read specially written articles in the national dailies, listen to discussions in Nepal’s community radio station, Radio Sagarmatha, plant seedlings and watch specially prepared television programs in the evening.

“Three decades of biodiversity conservation efforts that began with specific species conservation has paid off in the case of Nepal,” says Dr. Maskey. “Nepal today enjoys a model status in the area of biodiversity conservation in the world. Other countries in the region such as India and China, two of Nepal’s immediate neighbors, have a great deal to learn from the Nepalis experience”.

The Eco-region Concept

According to Laxmi Prasad Manandhar, Conservation Education Officer at the Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation (DNPWC), “a rapidly increasing population and their hunger for more land, their demand for fuel wood, timber and pasture land for their cattle has resulted in the disappearance of the surrounding forest creating pressure on the national parks and conservation areas.”

“Nepal has done such a marvelous job in protecting the wildlife that it has resulted in threatening the surrounding communities and has given way to conflict between the community and the protected areas,” said Mr. Manandhar.

Dr. Maskey totally agrees. Nepal has done well in terms of expanding the habitats available for wild animals and natural resources, but the growth in number of wild species has resulted in a relative shrinkage of these habitats giving rise to conflict between the society and the park people.

To win over the trust of the people and to help fuel the development activities in the buffer zone and the community, the government has been re-investing from 30 to 50 percent of the revenue generated by the national parks and conservation areas. This has helped the community to become aware of the need to protect the forest, natural resources as well as the wild animals despite the occasional threat that they have to bear from their passage.

“Protected areas become islands where long-term survival of species is not possible,” said Dr. Maskey. “Inbreeding begins in an island which ultimately has negative impacts on the expansion of species as their genes get dominated and the species may even become sterile”.

It is for the purpose of creating more space and corridors for the animals to tread safely as well as for more biological flora and fauna to grow that the concept of transboundary collaboration with an eco-region approach has been introduced between Nepal and India. This has resulted in moving from species conservation to ecosystem conservation in the form of more land coming under protection. The overall objective of the eco-region concept is to join national parks in Nepal and India, ultimately giving more room for large animals to roam.

Currently nine national parks in India and four national parks in Nepal have started their collaboration with the Terai Arc Landscape (TAL). The successful collaboration by the neighboring nations has encouraged Nepali conservation experts to plan for a Tri-Nation National Park (TNNP) between Nepal, China and India to protect the Mount Kanchunganga area in the eastern tip of Nepal where all three nations join.

In the meantime, Nepal and China and Nepal and India have already started their transboundary program in the form of joining Sagarmatha National Park, which includes Mt. Everest, and Qomolangma Nature Reserve in Tibet on the peak’s northern slope to form around 42,000 km2, the largest national park in the world.

Sources:

• Nepal Biodiversity Strategy - Ministry of Forest and Soil Conservation (MFSC)
• Conservation Reaches New Heights - Prakash Khanal (1992), IDRC Reports.
• Annual Report of DNPWS- 2001 - 2002
• Nepal Environmental Policy and Action Plan - Integrating Environment and Development - Environment Protection Council- August 1993.

Prakash Khanal is a Nepali science and environmental journalist and former editor of RONAST Science Features as well as General Secretary of the Science Writers Association of Nepal. Your emails will be forwarded to him by contacting the editor at:ScienceTech@islam-online.net.