As landscapes heal, Nepal’s most iconic animals stage a comeback
Launched in 2001, the initiative has secured habitat for threatened species including the greater one-horned rhinoceros and the Asian elephant as well as the royal Bengal tiger. A key element is the restoration of seven corridors to connect more strictly protected areas, including wildlife refuges in neighbouring India.
“The transboundary Terai Arc Landscape serves not only as a biological hotspot. It also serves as a true testament to the effectiveness of the landscape approach of conservation,” says Birendra Prasad Mahato, Minister of Forests and Environment of Nepal. “We are incredibly grateful for this recognition from the UN and are encouraged to continue tackling existing and new challenges faced by our forests, wildlife and communities.”
The Terai Arc Landscape initiative is reviving a biodiversity hotspot that covers 2.47 million hectares and is home to 7.5 million people. Many of its rural areas, especially those outside Nepal’s national parks, had been seriously degraded as a result of deforestation, fragmentation, encroachment and poaching.
In the corridors between protected areas alone, about 65,000 hectares of degraded land has since been reforested, 13 times the size of the Nepalese capital, Kathmandu. Some 40,000 local community members have teamed up with government and civil society groups to run activities including anti-poaching patrols, wildlife monitoring and ecotourism. About 500,000 households have benefited from the project.
Nature has quickly rebounded, capturing carbon, storing water and increasing the resilience of human and wildlife populations in the face of climate change. Camera traps and radio collars have helped detect tigers, elephants, rhinos, leopards, hyenas and many other species shuttling between previously isolated protected areas. These movements are helping to maintain genetic diversity and reduce the risk of extinction. Nepal's tiger population has tripled, rising from 121 in 2009 to 355 in 2022, according to the latest national survey.
“The Terai Arc Landscape initiative does not protect nature by pulling people out of it but by bringing people and nature closer together,” says Inger Andersen, Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
“After decades of uncontrolled exploitation and degradation, resources are now urgently needed to rebuild that connection and restore vital ecosystems. This is key to tackling climate change, biodiversity loss and rampant pollution,” Andersen says.
A good example of the restoration push is the Khata Corridor, a 200-hectare mosaic of forests, grasslands, villages and farmlands that connects Bardia National Park in western Nepal with the Katarniaghat Wildlife Sanctuary in India.
Officials had to win over communities who relied on the area’s natural resources, some of whom were skeptical about restoration. They did that in part by developing alternative energy sources, such as biogas to cut reliance on firewood. Teams also supported new economic activities, including tourist homestays and sustainable furniture making.
As the pressure on the land has eased, restoration activities have kicked on. Tree nurseries have supplied seedlings for the reforestation of an expanding number of community forests, and cattle grazing has been regulated so the forest can recover naturally. As a result, forest cover in the corridor has risen from barely 1 square kilometre to about 100 square kilometres in just two decades.
"I think that was the challenge, to show if we can do those integrated approaches together, where people see their lives being improved because of conservation,” says Ghana S. Gurung, Country Director of WWF Nepal, a key partner in the landscape initiative.
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