Posted on January, 12 2006

Nepal is a small country that harbours a remarkable amount of wildlife. Tigers, leopards, elephants, rhinos, bears and crocodiles that still live in jungles, grasslands, and wetlands of Terai, the southern plains of Nepal.

The Terai Arc Landscape Project (TAL) has helped thousands of rural poor to improve their lives in sustainable ways, and generated a tremendous support for conservation. Enthusiastic local volunteers now plant thousands of trees and patrol protected areas to reduce poaching.

TAL represents the combined efforts of several partners, for example the Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation (DNPWC) in the Ministry of Forests and Soil Conservation of His Majesty’s Government of Nepal, as well as WWF Nepal Program. These partnerships have meant a much wider reach and thus more impact for TAL. The project connects 11 protected areas of Nepal and India as well as large non-protected areas between them, to plan for the region as a whole and bring the benefits for both people and wildlife.

A new approach to conservation
Imagination and novel solutions - be it saving forests by introducing homemade alternative fuel, or protecting fields from animals by planting a fence that also generates revenue, TAL keeps finding new ways for people and wildlife to coexist.