The Protected Landscape Approach - Centre for Mediterranean ...

The Protected Landscape Approach: Linking Nature, Culture and Community
One of the recent landscape conservation initiatives is the Terai Arc Landscape (TAL)
programme, a very ambitious and long-term programme being undertaken by Nepali agencies
with the support of WWF-Nepal (see Box 1). The Terai Arc Landscape initiative proposes to
reconnect 11 protected areas in the territory between Nepal’s Parsa Wildlife Reserve and
India’s Rajaji-Corbett National Parks into a single functioning landscape encompassing habitat
critical for the long-term conservation of tiger, rhino and elephant (WWF-Nepal, 2003). The
TAL strategy plan, which was recently approved by the government, will help further in
developing landscape-level conservation in Nepal. Similarly, the Himal initiative of IUCN has
been proposing the Koshi River basin complex – one of the largest river basins in Nepal, which
encompasses the Koshi river watershed, including the slopes of Mount Everest – as their
landscape conservation complex. This indicates that conservation initiatives have been gaining
momentum in both horizontal (Terai landscape), as well as vertical (Koshi watersheds)
landscape complexes (Figure 3). Since Nepal has a long track record of implementation of
successful participatory and co-management conservation initiatives, there are also high hopes
for the successful implementation of these initiatives.
Box 1.
Case study. Terai Arc Landscape conservation initiative in Nepal
The Terai Arc Landscape (TAL) Programme encompasses one of the most biologically diverse
habitats on the earth and is a part of the Terai Duar Savannah and Grasslands Global 2000 eco-region.
The programme is envisioned to restore and maintain critical forest corridors to connect 11 protected
areas in Nepal and India. The reconnection of protected areas into one secure habitat would provide
the opportunity for tigers, rhinos, elephants and other species to migrate and disperse their genes,
increasing the chances of long-term population survival. This programme presents an ambitious
opportunity to reverse the trend of fragmentation, which, if unaddressed, will leave South Asia’s
rhinos, elephants and tigers in isolated habitats. The vision of the TAL programme stretches from 50
to 100 years of biodiversity conservation.
Available information suggests that in India, the TAL programme is still in a dormant stage.
However, in Nepal, it is being implemented jointly by the Department of Forests (DOF), the
Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation (DNPWC), and the WWF-Nepal Program
in collaboration with local communities and NGOs. Currently TAL Nepal covers an area of over
22,288km 2 of protective and productive areas, including four protected areas – Parsa Wildlife
Reserve, Royal Chitwan National Park, Royal Bardia National Park, and Royal Suklaphanta Wildlife
Reserve. Approximately three million people, 50% of whom subsist below the poverty line, live in
this landscape and depend on its resources for their livelihood.
To date, the TAL programme focuses on five critical areas in the Khata (Bardia) and Basanta
(Kailali) corridors and on three “bottleneck” sites (defined as narrow but important forest areas
between two large forest blocks), namely Dovan VDC, Lamahi Area and Mahadevpuri VDC in
Palpa, Dang and Banke respectively. The TAL programme includes various activities related to park
management and species conservation, community forestry and habitat restoration, anti-poaching,
awareness-raising, income generation and capacity-building of both staff and community organiza -
tions. A community-based organization has been established and is playing a key role in the
programme’s implementation. The TAL programme is using community forestry and buffer zone
management approaches in the corridor forest areas and BZ areas respectively. It is piloting an
integrated strategy that includes enforcement, incentives and education in order to balance the
protection of mega fauna with meeting human needs.
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