The lowland Teraj region of Nepal is rich in wildlife, but it is also home to nearly eight million people who rely on its natural resources and agriculture. Over the years, human activities have led to the degradation of the environment, placing tigers, elephants and rhinoceroses on the list of endangered species, writes the UN Environment Program (UNEP).
This is why the Government of Nepal, in cooperation with UNEP, launched an initiative in 2001 Terai Arc Landscapes with the intention of restoring the forests of the Terai and halting the loss of biodiversity by providing habitat for endangered species, including the greater one-horned rhinoceros, the Asian elephant, as well as the royal Bengal tiger.
The initiative, which includes measures to reduce human-wildlife conflicts as well as measures to support rural economies, was recently recognized as a leading UN initiative in global reconstruction.
So far, a biodiversity hotspot covering 2.47 million hectares and home to 7.5 million people has been restored. Many rural areas, especially those outside Nepal’s national parks, were severely degraded as a result of deforestation, habitat fragmentation and poaching.
In the corridors between the protected areas, about 65,000 hectares of degraded land have been reforested – 13 times the area of the Nepalese capital Kathmandu. Some 40,000 local community members have partnered with government and civil society groups to run activities including anti-poaching patrols, wildlife monitoring and ecotourism. About 500,000 households benefited from the project.
Thanks to these efforts, nature quickly recovered and is now again storing carbon, conserving water and increasing the resilience of humans and wildlife to climate change.
According to the latest national survey, the tiger population in Nepal has tripled, from 121 individuals in 2009 to 355 in 2022.
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