On the Road to Sustainability? A Review of a Half-Century of Biodiversity Conservation Successes in Nepal and Some Thoughts on Future Needs

Heinen, Joel T.; Baral, Nabin; Paudel, Prakash Kumar; Sah, Jay P.

doi:10.5772/intechopen.84617

Cited by 11 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 79 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Many studies suggest that wildlife hunting in Nepal has been common for subsistence consumption and trade for long periods of time (Bhattarai, Wright, & Khatiwada, 2016;Heinen, 1995;Heinen, Yonzon, & Leisure, 1995;Paudel, 2012). The country has made great strides in protecting biodiversity over the past half-century (Heinen, Baral, Paudel, & Sah, 2019) in that nearly 23% of its land area has been set aside as protected areas and associated buffer zones (Paudel, 2013;Paudel & Heinen, 2015a) and the country has recently documented increasing population trends of many critically endangered megafaunal species including tiger, rhino, elephant, and wild buffalo (Heinen & Paudel, 2015;Subedi et al, 2013;Wikramanayake et al, 2011). Reports suggest that poaching of the greater one-horned rhinoceros Rhinoceros unicornis has been reduced drastically and eliminated completely for six 365 day periods since 2011 (Acharya, Thapa, Kuwar, Thapaliya, & Paudel, 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…If the incident occurs inside protected areas and/or their buffer zones, formal procedures are conducted through the respective PAO. Buffer zones are designated areas surrounding protected areas that may include forests, human settlements, and agriculture lands (Heinen et al, 2019). For all other incidents (outside of PAs), DFOs are responsible for carrying out legal actions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Trends, patterns, and networks of illicit wildlife trade in Nepal: A national synthesis

Paudel¹,

Acharya

Baral³

et al. 2020

Conservat Sci and Prac

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Illicit wildlife trade may have devastating consequences for Nepal's wildlife populations given its increasing national and global connectivity and proximity with large Indian and Chinese markets. Despite its potential impacts, our understanding about trends, patterns and networks of illicit wildlife trade in Nepal is very limited. Here, we provide a thorough and comprehensive national assessment of such trade in Nepal using 5 years (2011 through 2015) of data on wildlife seizures and arrests (n = 830) collected from 73 districts. Nearly 87% of arrests included seizures, and globally threatened species were confiscated from 56% of total arrests. There were increasing trends of arrest cases over the time period for all species (p = 0.03), leopards (p = 0.02) and red pandas (p = 0.002), and a decreasing trend for rhinoceros (p = 0.04). Seizures of multiple species—especially tigers, leopards, and pangolin—in arrest cases were suggestive of international organized criminal linkages, whereas individual small‐scale seizures were likely for local, species‐specific markets. The trade networks suggested connections between species core habitats (poaching sites), cities (collection sites), and transit routes between India and China (international markets). Our results show that wildlife trade, except for rhinoceros, is increasing and trade nodes along districts bordering China and India are suggestive of large, international networks.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Trends, patterns, and networks of illicit wildlife trade in Nepal: A national synthesis

Paudel¹,

Acharya

Baral³

et al. 2020

Conservat Sci and Prac

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The Hong Kong government also encouraged cultivation of the species as a conservation measure, and had been planting approximately 10,000 trees per year since 2009. Like many other Asian governments (e.g., Heinen et al 2001Heinen et al , 2019 [27,28], Hong Kong has developed its own Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan (2016-2021) following guidelines under the UN Framework Convention on Biological Diversity, which includes conservation efforts such as the augmentation of wild populations, targeting commercially useful species such as A. sinensis.…”

Section: Government Policies and Funding Related To The Speciesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Challenges in the Conservation of an Over-Harvested Plant Species with High Socioeconomic Values

2019

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Overexploitation to meet commercial demands has threatened the existence of many species. In theory, one can adopt a portfolio of policies and measures from both the supply (i.e., encourage cultivation while punishing poaching) and demand (i.e., education of consumers) sides to achieve sustainable use. Here we examine the effects of governmental policies and measures towards the utilization of Aquilaria sinensis, a threatened species with high cultural and economic values. We found that, despite national protected status and a suite of government initiatives and granted projects to implement cultivation of the species, poaching persisted and even intensified. From the consumer side, current cultural education related to the species was not coupled with equally strong conservation education, which might have inadvertently reinforced the notion that wild-sourced materials are better, and facilitated a luxury goods-like market for wild products. It appeared that the current government portfolio of initiatives was highly skewed towards utilization, and therefore not effective for promoting the long term ecological persistence of the species. This finding is likely not unique to A. sinensis, nor limited to China. A more balanced portfolio of government initiatives to include stronger and more direct conservation measures towards highly exploited species is needed to achieve sustainable use of this species and related species.

show abstract

“…While ethnic heterogeneity can be a barrier to forming CBC programs, rules that allow for inclusion are considered beneficial to sustainable management regimes [14]. Nepal's rules specified the numbers of women and minority members for forest user groups in community forests [15][16][17], buffer zone management committees around parks and reserves, and conservation area management committees (CAMCs) within conservation areas [18].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the case of CAMCs, rules stipulated that meetings should occur at least six times per year (within intervals of no more than two months) and 15 members should be elected for five-year terms [18]. Members may be re-elected to foster institutional memory and under-represented minorities and women must be included as full members.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Regulatory Compliance of Community-Based Conservation Organizations: Empirical Evidence from Annapurna Conservation Area, Nepal

Baral

Heinen

2020

Sustainability

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Community-based conservation in the developing world generally puts more emphasis on voluntary commitments and compliance rather than enforcement of formal laws and regulations for the governance of protected areas. However, as with other forms of organizational management, once institutions are established, they are required to comply with all relevant, legally binding regulations. Furthermore, it is broadly assumed that compliance with established regulations is critical for good governance. In this paper, we review these matters through an empirical study of Conservation Area Management Committees’ degree of compliance with regulations under Nepalese law, within the Annapurna Conservation Area—one of the best-known community-based protected areas worldwide—based on quantitative content analysis of the committees’ meeting minutes from 2008 to 2012. According to the established rules, two to four women and one to five minorities serve as committee members in each instance. On average, fewer members than expected attended meetings, and the number of decisions made per meeting showed a curvilinear relationship with the number of members present as well as their demographic diversity. Of the 13 committees selected for study, only two met the legal mandate of holding six regular meetings annually within two-month intervals. In all the other cases, non-compliance was noted for one to all five years of the committees’ terms. In general, compliance declined over the five-year terms, and some committees were significantly less-compliant than others. Although enforceable decisions were made within both compliant and non-compliant committees, several problems of non-compliance were identified that may affect conservation outcomes. We suggest several possible reasons for non-compliance and argue that these may be symptoms of institutional weaknesses. Organizations that fail to meet their commitments risk liability and may also lose the formal legal authority to govern. Regular monitoring is recommended to address compliance issues.

show abstract

On the Road to Sustainability? A Review of a Half-Century of Biodiversity Conservation Successes in Nepal and Some Thoughts on Future Needs

Cited by 11 publications

References 79 publications

Trends, patterns, and networks of illicit wildlife trade in Nepal: A national synthesis

Trends, patterns, and networks of illicit wildlife trade in Nepal: A national synthesis

Challenges in the Conservation of an Over-Harvested Plant Species with High Socioeconomic Values

Regulatory Compliance of Community-Based Conservation Organizations: Empirical Evidence from Annapurna Conservation Area, Nepal

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About