Conservation Area Management Committee of Parche VDC in Kaski and Alliance for Integrated Development in Kapailvastu have won this year’s Equator Prize in the Asia and Pacific region. The The Equator Prize, organized by the Equator Initiative within the United Nations Development Programme, recognises outstanding community efforts to reduce poverty through the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity. The winners were announced on 5 June.
For the last fifteen years Conservation Area Management Committee of Parche has put locals in the centre of all conservation and development activities that resulted in the prosperity of the village and helped it win the prestigious conservation award this year. “Our participatory model of conservation and development has given the village so much and now being recognised for our efforts will motivate us to continue our work,” says Man Bahadur Gurung, chairman of Parche’s Conservation Area Management Committee . “We have followed the unique model of conservation through local participation pioneered by the Annapurna Conservation Area Project (ACAP),” he adds.
The committee works with communities to harvest non-timber forest products, has reduced wildlife poaching and is providing alternative energy access for the local population. More than 200,000 trees have been planted in Parche in the last decade and three micro-hydro units installed at the committee’s initiative provides energy to more than 500 households in the village. The committee is also working to manage water resources for the locals.
“We survived a war and have been managing the local community’s needs in the absence of a locally elected village and district councils,” says Gurung who served as Parche VDC chairman from 1997 to 2001. “People were and will continue to be part of our participatory conservation model.
The second recipient of this year’s Equator Prize is the Alliance for Integrated Development which is a collective of women-led community wetlands user groups that protects and manages the resources of Jagadishpur, a Ramsar site in Kapilvastu, and the largest manmade reservoir in Nepal. The alliance works to create sustainable livelihoods while also maintaining and enhancing biodiversity in this wetland ecosystem. Led primarily by women, the initiative has managed to control illegal hunting, promote organic farming, create a revolving fund, build a functioning and equitable irrigation system, and substantially improve and diversify local livelihoods.
Bhrikuti Rai
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