People, naturally

The Narayani River in Chitwan National Park is at only 180m above sea level, but on a rare clear day last week visitors could see the summit of 7,893m-high Himalchuli right across Nepal, 150km away.

Upstream, the Trisuli, Seti and Kali Gandaki join to form the Narayani in a catchment stretching 46,300 sq km from Dhaulagiri to Langtang — spanning one-third of Nepal’s area.

Glaciers up in those mountains, and even a part of the Tibetan Plateau, feed the Narayani. To see the snows and river together underscores the need to regard the Himalaya not just as a mountain range, but as a composite watershed. This delicate balance between mountains and plains is now destabilised by climate breakdown.

“The climate crisis is a water issue. It is not just about this river, but the mountains and the glaciers we can see from,” said Adil Najam, President of the World Wildlife Fund International during a visit to Chitwan last week. “Water is going to be a frontline climate issue not only for Nepal but for the world itself. This crisis is not long-term, it is immediate-term.”

Water from the Narayani, Rapti and other rivers have been vital in shaping the conservation success story of Chitwan National Park. But Nepal’s oldest nature reserve now suffers from either too much water during monsoon floods, or too little in the dry season as a result of extreme weather caused by climate breakdown.

Insufficient recharge of aquifers and over-extraction of groundwater have caused oxbow lakes and wildlife watering holes inside the Park to dry up, and solar-powered pumps have been installed to replenish some of them.

Nepal tripled its tiger population to nearly 400 in the past 14 years, rhino numbers have rebounded to 752 with near-zero poaching for the past decade, and vulture species have been rescued from the brink of extinction — all this largely due to the efforts of local communities in the buffer zones of parks like Chitwan.

“The biodiversity here was protected because conservation has been collaborative,” said Birendra Mahato, an elected member of the Ratnanagar ward adjacent to the Park. “This involvement of people in the buffer zone, including us from the indigenous communities, has helped reduce poaching and human-wildlife conflict.”

The Tharu, Bote and Musahar indigenous groups that used to live inside what is now the national park followed traditional practices that took into account the behaviour of tigers, rhinos and wild elephants. There were few fatal wildlife attacks.

“We need to revive that traditional knowledge so there is human-wildlife coexistence, not conflict,” Mahato added.

And communities living in the buffer zone will only protect wildlife if they see a benefit from saving them. The proven way to ensure that coexistence is through well-managed and sustainable tourism that lifts local living standards.

The village of Amaltari along the Narayani river has several high-end resorts that employ local people as nature guides, hotel staff and cultural groups performing for tourists. Besides these, the village has 35 women-led homestays where visitors can experience indigenous culture, food and lifestyle.

“Lifting living standards is the most effective way to ensure nature conservation, and this means protecting authentic local heritage to generate income from tourism,” Adil Najam said (Interview, below).

Tourists come to the buffer zone in the western edge of Chitwan National Park in Amaltari for safaris to see tigers, rhinos, the vulture conservation site, or to float down the river to watch the gharial, crocodiles and migratory birds. Chitwan National Park saw 300,000 visitors last year, with Nepalis now outnumbering foreign tourists.

Gita Mahato runs one of the Amaltari homestays and admits that it was not easy in the beginning to ensure that the quality of service was up to mark, and business suffered during and after the pandemic. “But now we have more experience and confidence, our incomes have gone up, and it has restored pride in our culture and helped protect nature,” she added. “It is like a fairy tale.”

Improved living standards have impacted other social aspects: there are schools, children have better nutrition, child marriage has gone down, no one is stealing electricity with hooks anymore, and there are now three beauty parlours in Amaltari.

WWF Nepal helped with seed money to set up the local Hamar Cooperative, which ploughs tourism income into a savings scheme that lends to members. There are no defaulters, and the indigenous Musahar, Bote and Tharu households now have savings.

The municipality has built electric fences to protect the rice and mustard fields from wildlife, and this has eliminated fatalities here from tiger attacks. The community’s Anti-poaching Youth Group and the Park’s military have increased vigilance after the jailbreak of notorious wildlife traffickers in September.

Chitwan and other national parks and buffer zones across Nepal are conducting a massive tiger census this week, installing 1,100 camera traps. The cameras also help to curb poaching, and the total tiger population is expected to exceed 400.

Says Ghana Gurung from WWF Nepal: “This is the best example that protecting one charismatic species that is at the top of the food chain helps to protect biodiversity and the entire ecosystems.”

“Water is the frontline climate issue”

World Wildlife Fund International President Adil Najam was in Chitwan last week, and spoke to Ghana Gurung of WWF Nepal.

Ghana Gurung: What are your impressions after visiting Chitwan National Park?

Adil Najam: I always knew Nepal was special, and the work of WWF Nepal was special, but I just didn’t realise how special. Seeing the work first hand in Chitwan with species protection, zero-poaching and, most importantly, how to work with communities, particularly with indigenous communities so that we turn this rhetoric of nature vs people into truly a bridge of nature and people. Meeting members of indigenous communities and conservation officials, seeing their sense of pride about what has been achieved was very motivating.

So much of what you are doing here in Nepal is relevant to the UN’s SDG goals and WWF’s own 2030 roadmap — especially our core work on species. The challenges are great, but we do not take enough time to appreciate the achievements. We haven’t got to where we want to yet, but we are much further down the road.

Tigers have almost tripled, rhinos more than tripled, zero poaching for many years, and all of this with a grassroots approach working with communities. It is not always easy, their concerns are real, but working with them as partners shows that conservation and people do not need to be contradictions.

You mention challenges. What are some of the difficulties ahead?

When you are working at a high level, the first challenge is keeping it at that level. Unfortunately global challenges like climate change, biodiversity loss are now so great that we have to multiply our efforts multiple times.

Nepal also needs to share what you do here with the rest of the world. Unless we learn from each other, we are not going to solve the planetary crises. I was very happy to see how much the youth are involved in Nepal’s conservation effort, but the challenge will be how to get young people excited about conservation with an aspiration to do more.

Yes, we try to work more with the youth. What were some of the other highlights of the trip?

Clearly, one of the outstanding highlights was the visit to the homestay collective run by indigenous communities, particularly that they are women-led and they have become entrepreneurial, learning new ways to work with nature, designing new livelihoods, by having guests who enjoy nature. The homestay program in Nepal really has ownership and links nature and people.

Nepal is one of the most climate vulnerable countries in the world. What were some of the impacts you noticed?

I think every country now is climate vulnerable. For the developing world, it is a a compounded challenge not only because they were not responsible for the problem, but also because we now face its consequences. Because the world has not done very much on mitigation, the challenges have become more difficult. Besides carbon mitigation, we need to focus on adaptation and address the issue of water.

Climate in the age of adaptation essentially becomes a water issue, and Chitwan has done well to protect its fresh water habitats. It is not just about these rivers, but the mountains and the glaciers we can see from here that feed them. We have compartmentalised problems: this is climate, this is biodiversity, that is plastic. That is not how nature works. There is no solution to the climate challenge without dealing with nature, and vice versa. So, water is going to be a frontline climate issue not only for Nepal but for the world itself. Leadership on climate will have to rest with countries like Nepal in demonstrating ways to build climate resilience. And resilience resides in people.

Given this, what are the strategies we need going forward?

We are seeing resource constraints, and that is not news. But beyond that many of the biggest challenges of our time are at threshold or beyond threshold level — whether they are climate related, loss of nature, or water stress, etc. We are at this pivotal point, and I hope we will invent better ways on how to deal with these crises. As you already do in Nepal, we have to look at ecosystems as integrated and connected, where doing good for one thing has a positive impact on another. We know that with species here in Chitwan — if one species does well, a whole bunch of others also benefit.

And like you do here, we have to work in partnerships with communities, conservation people, other international organisations, the private sector. This is not the time for finding your corner and hiding in it. This is a planetary problem, and we need a 8 billion people solution.

And the writing on the wall in Nepal and elsewhere is that young people are the key to the present and the future. It is really their world. We have to create an environment in which they can thrive to reach their own potential. And we have to give them the sense that although things are difficult, if we do the right things there are solutions.