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 have been proposed under the new draft National Parks and Wildlife Conservation Regulations, which have been in the works for a few months now but not made public yet. Nepal’s protected areas and national parks, especially in the southern plains where the iconic Bengal tigers (Panthera tigris) live, have been conserved as highly restricted and regulated areas where even local people aren’t allowed in without permission. However, the proposed regulation could change all that, conservationists say. According to the proposed regulation, a draft of which was seen by Mongabay, protected area managers will draw up management plans periodically to identify and manage different zones within the protected areas. This includes authorizing park managers to designate some areas under their jurisdiction to be suitable for adventure tourism activities. Such activities could either be conducted by the department itself or by a contractor selected through competitive bidding. “Conducting such activities are clearly against the ethos of national parks and protected areas,” said an official at the Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation, who asked not to be named as he wasn’t authorized to talk to the media. “Protected areas are home to critically threatened species that…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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