Conserving large mammals requiring large landscape for ranging and dispersal in human dominated landscape is becoming a daunting task for nepal

This three-year $542,996 Project Grant award from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Asian Elephant Conservation Fund (CFDA 15.621) aims to strengthen human-elephant coexistence in the Chure Terai Madhesh Landscape of Nepal. The grant recipient, the National Trust for Nature Conservation, will implement a multi-faceted program to: 1) Increase human tolerance towards wild elephants through community outreach, behavior change campaigns, and development of a regional human-elephant coexistence plan; 2) Enhance regional cooperation on elephant conservation through cross-border meetings and a regional Asian elephant conservation conference; and 3) Build the capacity of local and provincial authorities to effectively manage human-elephant conflict. The project will directly engage 18,000 people affected by human-elephant conflict and build the skills of 40 local youth as conservation change agents, 60 community leaders, and 45 government officials through cross-border exchanges. The overarching goal is to promote sustainable coexistence between people and elephants across this critical transboundary landscape.

Chure terai madhesh landscape (ctml) of nepal is fragmented but still supports viable populations of asian elephants (230 residential) tigers (355) and rhinoceros (745) and all these populations are increasing. With increasing wild elephant populations in ctml human elephant conflict (HEC) is also on rise. To manage HEC at landscape level requires greater understanding of the problem and concerted efforts with multistakeholder engagement. In 2023 total 12672 cases of human wildlife conflict (HWC) cases recorded in nepal and 2058 were caused by wild elephants. Out of 274 human attacks 44 were from wild elephants. The central ctml that includes chitwan and parsa national parks of nepal valmiki tiger reserve of india and corridor forests supports 80 wild elephants that increased from 13 individuals in 1980S. Habitat fragmentation and loss increased infrastructure development and human population increment has fueled HEC in the landscape. HEC in central ctml has increased abruptly in the recent years. For example out of 2058 HEC cases 40 percent were recorded in central ctml. HEC is largely associated with the behavior of local people towards elephants and response capacity of the authorities to the problem elephants and HEC. Our long term interventions in the western ctml (banke bardia shuklaphanta) through US fish and wildlife service (USFWS) resulted in declined human fatalities increased community tolerance and cooperation on elephant conservation. While such landscape level interventions are not adequately initiated in the central ctml. Therefore this three years long project has been developed to strengthen human elephant coexistence (hecx) in the central ctml.objective 1. Increase human tolerance towards wild elephants in the central complex. Activities are community tolerance survey develop landscape specific hecx plan behavior change campaigns at community level hecx knowledge products development and disseminationobjective 2. Strengthen regional network and transboundary cooperation on elephant conservation. Activities are organize transborder meetings and transborder exchange visits organize regional conference on asian elephant conservationobjective 3. Enhance institutional capacity to manage HEC. Activities are organize political dialogue with provincial and national parliamentary members organize sensitization workshops with local governments organize stakeholder workshops in hecx capacity building for authorities to deal with hecthe project will directly reach with 18000 HEC affected people and indirectly with 500000 people. Forty local youths will be trained as hecx change agents. Sixty community leaders and 45 government officials will have transborder exposure. Fifty forest officials will benefit fromtechnical sessions on HEC mitigation. Similarly 120 political leaders and government officials and local municipalities will benefit from elephant conservation workshops and dialogues. Fifty local youths will benefit from on the job training on elephant monitoring. 100 delegates will benefit from the regional asian elephant conference. HEC plan for central ctml endorsed and implemented by local and provincial governments resulting in increased hecx. The project will directly benefit 100 wild elephants. At the outcome level the project will result in increased tolerance of people towards wildlife elephants and increased coordination and collaboration among stakeholders on elephant conservation. Total budget of the project is USD 542996 of which USD 487326 is requested with USFWS and USD 55670 is confirmed as matched funding by national trust for nature conservation. The project will be implemented by ntnc in collaboration with three tiers of governments community based organizations and local communities.