LOCAL NEWS THE RISING NEPAL (DAILY)

BY A STAFF REPORTER

Lalitpur, April 23: A concept of linking different national parks and protected areas in southern Nepal and northern India – thus forming what has been named Terai Arc Landscape (TAL) – was discussed at a consultative meeting here today.

Policy-makers, conservationists, bureaucrats, local politicians, and other stakeholders participated in the meeting that floored the idea of the project and drew suggestions from the participants.

Dubbed as an ambitious project, TAL envisions a vast conservation landscape that extends from the Yamuna River in the west in India to the Bagmati River in the east in the country. The landscape covers a 30,000 square kilometres network of protected areas and forest corridors stretching along the Nepal/India border.

Consultative meeting

The proposed landscape would stretch from the Royal Chitwan National Park and the Parsa Wildlife Reserve to India’s Rajaji Corbett Park. According to World Wildlife Fund’s concept paper, with the landscape, the existing 11 protected areas, some of which are world renowned, will represent core areas to meet the biological needs of some of Asia’s largest endangered species as well as ecological and economic needs of the local people.

"Outside of these protected areas, conservation friendly land-uses such as community forests will provide sustainable natural resources and economic benefits to the local people while simultaneously connecting core areas to allow wildlife population dispersal and the encouragement of biologically viable populations."

"The project will do vital ecological services," said Eric Dinerstein, Chief Scientist of Conservation Science Program. "There would be benefits like prevention from floods, irrigation, natural resources management, among others."

Having mentioned that the programme would enable the conservation of flagship species including tiger, rhino and elephant, Eric said that there should have been around 500 breeding tigers in the proposed landscape area to be recorded as a healthy ecology. "But, the number of tiger right now is not to the mark."

Uday Raj Sharma, Joint Secretary at Ministry of Forests, and Soil Conservation, said that one needs to go out of the national park s to solve its inside problem. He said that the country already has programmes like buffer zones, community forestry, among others, that could make TAL project a success. "All we need to do is put things together and also a legislation."

Speaking during the meeting, Dr. Chandra Prasad Gurung, Country Representative of WWF, Nepal Programme, said that the TAL Project has to do with conservation and dealing with population and poverty. He said that the first phase of the programme would cost around US$ six million. "The timeline for the project is somewhere between five and ten years. But it would take several decades for the project to achieve its final goals."

Pralad Yonzon, Director of Resource Himalaya, said that his team had explored the Churia hills for the proposed TAL project and had found that animals like tigers go as high as 60 meters in the hills and elephants climb the height of 800 metres. "Very soon we will be coming up with the strategy of the project."

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