Terai Arc News Today

KATHMANDU — Nepal’s government has bypassed the country’s parliament to issue a controversial ordinance facilitating foreign investment in different sectors of the country, including protected areas, in a move that could have long-term consequences for the country’s hard-won conservation gains, experts say. Although the details of the ordinance, signed into law by President Ram Chandra […]

The new regulation will open up protected areas that are the habitats of species such as tigers and rhinos.

The new draft National Parks and Wildlife Conservation Regulations could open up protected parks and areas to adventure tourism.

This is the second story in a three-part miniseries on Nepal’s development plans around protected areas. Read Part One and Part Two. KATHMANDU — Nepal’s government has proposed zoning of protected areas, where human activities have long been highly restricted, to accommodate “adventure tourism” activities such as canyoning, mountain biking and motorboating. The sweeping changes […]

KATHMANDU — Fifty-six year-old Kaluram Bote has awaited the end of February, which marks a crucial time for gharial breeding in Chitwan, between Nepal’s Terai and hilly regions. Rowing his boat in the Rapti River, he sets off on an early morning hunt for gharial eggs and fetches them back to the breeding center. For […]

KATHMANDU — Nepal’s pioneering landscape-level ecosystem restoration initiative, aimed at creating dispersal space for tigers, has been globally recognized for its efforts to fight and reverse ecosystem degradation. Yet sustaining the success is rife with hurdles such as infrastructure development, human-wildlife conflict, political instability and climate change uncertainties, experts caution. Launched in 2004, the Terai […]

Local communities that teamed up with government and civil society groups to protect and restore 66,800 hectares of forest in Nepal, boosting biodiversity and supporting local communities, have today been honoured as one of seven UN World Restoration Flagships.

The changes are not just legally flawed, but also risk undermining the conservation gains as the Himalayan nation grapples with climate change, say experts.

KATHMANDU — The Nepali government has approved a controversial proposal allowing the construction of large-scale hydropower plants inside the country’s protected areas, in a move conservationists have slammed as a “huge setback.” The policy on “Construction of Physical Infrastructure Inside Protected Areas” was published in the national gazette on Jan. 4. It allows hydropower developers […]

People living around Koshi Tappu Wildlife Reserve in eastern Nepal are preparing to welcome two very special guests on World Tourism Day, Sept. 27.Pushpa and Anjali are greater one-horned rhinos ...