Revised July 23 2008 Nepal I Does National Or

revised july 23, 2008 nepal i. does national or sub-national law or policy recognize terrestrial, riparian or marine ind

Revised July 23, 2008
Nepal
I.
Does national or sub-national law or policy recognize terrestrial,
riparian or marine Indigenous and Community Conserved Areas
(ICCAs)?
The government of Nepal does not legally recognize “indigenous and
community conserved areas” as a designation of terrestrial or riparian
management or as part of the national protected area system. Yet Nepal
is rich in ICCAs, including many customary ICCAs maintained by its
many Indigenous peoples and other local communities. Sacred natural
sites continue to be cared for and protected by many Indigenous
peoples and communities. Many communities also continue to manage
collective commons even though the lands themselves have been
nationalized over the past half century and customary law and
community regulatory practices are no longer legally recognized. Lack
of state recognition and support for these customary institutions and
practices contrasts with the devolution of some natural resource
management authority since the early 1990s to new, nationally-standard
local institutions designed and promoted by the central government and
transnational NGOs in conservation areas1, buffer zones, and the
national forest.2 These state (and NGO) initiated “community”
conservation institutions can be considered to be ICCAs in cases where
communities have full management authority over lands and waters and
manage them in ways that have conservation significance. Yet whether
or not such central government (or NGO) initiated and designed local
institutions should be considered to be ICCAs remains a much debated
issue in international and Nepal conservation circles and among
Indigenous peoples and other local communities. There remain questions
about whether nationally-implemented local institutions are truly
voluntarily adopted by indigenous peoples and local communities,
whether they are cases of community management or instead really
co-management arrangements, whether they embody international human
and indigenous rights standards (including those articulated in ILO
Convention 169 on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples, which Nepal ratified
in 2007), and whether such new institutions and policies fully embody
indigenous and local communities’ conservation values, resource use
and conservation goals, culturally-based understandings about
appropriate means of decision-making and implementation, and
geographies of indigenous homelands and community lands.
Nepal’s protected areas – with the possible exception of Kangchenjunga
Conservation Area (see below) cannot be considered to be ICCAs.
Its nine national parks, three wildlife reserves, and its single
hunting reserve clearly are not ICCAs. They are administered by the
central government with no formal participation by communities. Two of
Nepal’s three conservation areas are co-managed by national NGOs and
the national government and also cannot be considered to be ICCAs. In
one case, Kangchenjunga Conservation Area (KCA), a regional NGO with
predominately indigenous membership now co-manages the protected areas
with the national government, and some Nepal government officials and
NGO staff consider that this constitutes an ICCA. They note that KCA
management authority was “handed over” in September 2006 to a 12
member Conservation Area Management Council composed of 9 elected
indigenous representatives (one each from seven regional, VDC (county
or sub-county) level, User Committees and two members of
settlement-scale “Mothers Groups”), a representative from the district
development committee, a social worker, and a “warden” or
superintendent appointed by the Department of National Parks and
Wildlife Conservation and further observe that following a March 2008
amendment to the KCA regulations the warden now has little role in the
management of the KCA). Skeptics caution that the KCA governance
structure constitutes a co-management arrangement in which indigenous
peoples have a strong role and note that it remains to be seen whether
the government will in effect adopt a purely advisory role such that
the KCA becomes a de facto ICCA.
Within all the conservation areas “Conservation Area Management
Committees” (CAMC; referred to as Conservation Area User Committees,
CAUC, in KCA), a new local institution created by the national
government, have considerable conservation management authority within
multi-village, United States county-sized “Village Development
Committees (VDCs),” and can delegate management to village-scale
sub-committees and user groups. These CAMCs/CAUCs must abide by
national conservation area policies (for example the national ban on
hunting in protected areas) but are otherwise empowered with
considerable authority to devise and implement local conservation
policies.
In the case of the buffer zones, which have been established adjacent
to national parks and wildlife reserves (and which can include
settlement enclaves within national parks), three different scales of
local and community conservation management institutions have been
established. These are a Buffer Zone Management Council with one local
representative from each Buffer Zone Users Committee, one Buffer Zone
Users Committee for each VDC or other area defined by the national
park or wildlife reserve superintendent, and one or more Buffer Zone
Users Groups at the local VDC ward scale (wards vary in size from
neighborhoods of large villages to micro-regions which include
multiple settlements). Community Forests User Groups (CFUGs) have been
established in the national forest at settlement and multi-settlement
VDC scales. As discussed in section III, buffer zone and national
forest institutions are new, standardized national institutions
designed by central government agencies which do not necessarily
acknowledge earlier community and indigenous peoples’ institutions,
policies, and practices. They are based on new local administrative
geographies which often ignore customary village land boundaries and
management of commons and instead group multiple villages into new
administrative units. Buffer zone establishment has also in some cases
provided national park and wildlife reserve administrators with
considerable policy-making, institutional oversight, and budget
allocation authority within the buffer zone. Indigenous peoples in
many buffer zones have objected that buffer zone administration has
extended the role of government protected area administrators into
their community lands and affairs and created what often constitutes a
weak co-management arrangement in which central government officials
dominate decision-making. Also of concern is the common situation in
the lowland buffer zones in which indigenous peoples – including
communities coercively displaced from national parks and wildlife
reserves – constitute only a small minority in a buffer zone where
non-indigenous local elites capture control of local participation in
governance and buffer zone benefits.
Pre-existing “customary” ICCAs (many of which continue in operation),
such as community management of sacred places and collectively used
forests and grasslands, have not been recognized in law or policy. The
category of “religious forests,” which is a legally authorized form of
devolving management authority over forests in the national forest and
in buffer zones, offers a potential means to recognize customary
sacred forests. Customary sacred forests, however, have seldom been
recognized as religious forests within national forests or in buffer
zones. No figures are available on the number or area of religious
forests, in contrast to readily available figures on the number of
community forest users groups and the areas they administer. It
appears there are few.


II.
Does the country recognize ICCAs as a part of the PA network
system?
Nepal does not recognize ICCAs as such as part of the national
protected area system. However, the Nepal protected area system
currently includes conservation areas and buffer zones, both of which,
as previously described, have within them one or more scales of local
administrative institutions (the Conservation Area Management Council
and Conservation Area Management Committees/User Committees in
conservation areas and Buffer Zone Users Councils, Committees, and
Groups in buffer zones). These may be considered non-traditional
ICCAs. In the case of conservation areas, CAMCs/CAUCs and CAUGs have
in the past functioned as ICCAs within protected areas which are
co-managed at the scale of the protected area as a whole by the
national government and a national NGO (the National Trust for Nature
Conservation – formerly the King Mahendra Trust for Nature
Conservation) and also formerly by World Wildlife Fund-Nepal.
The goals, institutional arrangements, and practices of pre-existing,
often still extant ICCAs including sacred places and community-managed
forests, grasslands, and alpine commons, can be legally incorporated
within these local and regional ICCA institutions. However,
pre-existing customary institutions and law are not inherently
recognized within conservation areas or in the rest of the Nepal
protected area system. Conservation Area Management Committees/User
Committees in conservation areas, Buffer Zone Users Committees and
User Groups, and Community Forest Users Groups, may in some cases
incorporate customary ICCA management goals and regulations into their
working plans and rules. There is no guarantee of this, however, and
customary ICCAs may often be ignored when indigenous peoples are
marginalized within multi-ethnic “local” scale “community” management
institutions. Traditional institutional structures and management
practices for indigenous and local community customary ICCAs may often
be undermined and lost. The extent to which this has happened or is a
current risk has not been documented.
Community forests users groups in the national forest are not
recognized as part of the PA network system because in Nepal the
national forest is not regarded as part of the PA network system. The
government of Nepal, unlike some other states, has not reported the
national forest to IUCN’s World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA)
or the World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA) for recognition and
inclusion in the UN List of Protected Areas and the World Data Base on
Protected Areas.
III. If ICCAs are not legally recognized, are there general
policies/laws that recognize indigenous/community territories or
rights to areas or natural resources, under which such communities can
conserve their own sites?
The Nepal government first recognized indigenous peoples as such
(officially adivasi/janajati) by executive order in 1997 and by
national law in 2002. Currently, 59 such peoples have been identified
by the Nepal government. In 2007 the government of Nepal ratified ILO
Convention No. 169 on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples, becoming the
first country in mainland Asia to do so, and also voted in the UN
General Assembly to adopt the UN Declaration on the Rights of
Indigenous Peoples. In early 2008 the government of Nepal agreed to
create autonomous states based on ethnicity in at least some parts of
Nepal, but what the federal map of Nepal will look like, which
indigenous peoples will have autonomous states, and what governance
authority will be delegated to them is not yet decided.
Collective ownership of forests or rangelands by communities is not
recognized in Nepal law. Prior agreements and promises to indigenous
peoples recognizing communal lands (kipat) have not been kept and
these were nationalized beginning in the 1960s. Large areas of such
collective lands have been incorporated in protected areas and the
national forest. Indigenous peoples and other local communities do not
have defined legal rights to the use of natural resources in the areas
in which they reside, but some uses can be authorized by protected
area administrators in some of the national parks and in buffer zones,
as well as in the community forests within the national forest.
The National Parks and Wildlife Conservation Act of 1973 bans many
customary natural resource activities including hunting and grazing.
Very limited natural resource use (such as grass harvesting) is
permitted in some national parks on a fee basis and subject to limited
seasons and quantities. Protests by indigenous peoples have resulted
in some increased access to natural resources in several lowland
national parks and wildlife reserves in recent years, but these
concessions are not considered rights and in some cases have not been
maintained for long. There is no recognition of an inherent right to
use plants and animals in traditional religious activities.
People who live in and around mountain national parks (but not lowland
protected areas), however, are accorded conditional access to
subsistence use of natural resources by the Himalayan National Parks
Regulations of 1979. In several mountain national parks this has
included grazing and collection of deadwood for firewood. Customary
use of natural resources or customary levels of natural resource use
are not, however, rights. The regulations do not specify authorized
natural resource use and the conditions of use in any detail. Within
mountain national parks, management policies have tended to restrict
the range of land uses permitted and often also the level of use of
those permitted uses. Some customary uses – such as felling trees for
timber and for firewood -- have been banned or severely limited in
Himalayan protected areas (including both national parks and
conservation areas).
Protected area laws, policies, regulations, and plans often have been
developed with little participation by indigenous peoples and have
been adopted and implemented without their consent. No formal
participation in protected area management is recognized in any of the
protected areas other than Kangchenjunga Conservation Area. A Sherpa
national park advisory committee established in Sagarmatha (Mt.
Everest) National Park (SNP) in the 1970s was dissolved within a
decade. The current national park management plan calls for this to be
re-established and such an advisory committee may be included in SNP
Regulations which are now under development.
Land Nationalization and community conserved areas
In Nepal almost all forest, all grasslands, and other non-cropped land
such as the alpine areas, lakes, and rivers have been nationalized
under the Private Forests (Birta) Nationalization Act of 1957 (which
has been interpreted to include community owned and managed forests as
private forests subject to nationalization) and the Rangelands
(Pasture Lands) Nationalization Act, 1974. There has been no
subsequent restitution of forest or grasslands to community ownership.
All of the nationalized forest was formerly managed by the Department
of Forests (DoF), and the DoF retains direct or supervisory authority
over the management of the national forest (including shrubland,
grassland, wetland, lacustrine, riverine, and alpine areas within).
Administrative authority over what is now the land in the national
parks, wildlife refuges, conservation areas, hunting reserve, and
buffer zones has been transferred to the Department of National Parks
and Wildlife Conservation (DNPWC), another department within the
Ministry of Forests and Soil Conservation. Another approximately 25%
of the national forest has now been handed over to community
management under DoF supervision as “community forests.” DNPWC is
responsible for administrative oversight of protected areas, including
buffer zones. Neither the DNPWC nor the DoF recognizes any inherent
rights by communities to continue to manage lands according to
customary or traditional institutions and practices. Land management
by customary or traditional institutions, however, continues and in
some cases, as in Sherpa community management of grazing on national
park rangelands, has been tacitly recognized by DNPWC. Since the early
1990s, various new forms of “user committee” or “user group” based
management have been established in buffer zones, conservation areas,
and some national forest areas. These are not based on customary or
traditional institutions or administrative areas. Their policies may
or may not reflect customary practices.
National Parks and Wildlife Conservation Act, Conservation Areas
With the third amendment to the National Parks and Wildlife
Conservation Act in 1989 the DNPWC began to co-manage conservation
areas with NGOs. Until 2006 these NGOs were either the National Trust
for Nature Conservation (formerly the King Mahendra Trust for Nature
Conservation) or the World Wildlife Fund. In September 2006, however,
the national government and WWF-Nepal announced the "hand over" of
legal co-management and effective, de facto management of
Kangchenjunga Conservation Area to a local NGO, the Kangchenjunga
Conservation Area Management Council (KCAMC), the first time that
indigenous peoples have gained co-management or management authority
over a Nepal national government-recognized protected area. Legal
transfer of greater management authority to the Indigenous members of
the KCAMC, however, required an amendment to the DNPWC KCA
Regulations. This was belatedly signed by the Minister of Forests and
Soil Conservation only in March 2008. Local conservation management
within conservation areas is largely carried out by local
institutions. Under conservation area guidelines developed by the
DNPWC in 1999, local administrative bodies known as “Conservation Area
Management Committees” (and called Conservation Area User Committees
in Kangchenjunga Conservation Area) are created and manage forests and
other lands. These are not customary community institutions that
manage village lands. Instead these institutions each administer all
or part of the territory of a so-called “Village Development Committee
(VDC),” a local administrative unit introduced by the Nepal national
government in 1990 which typically combines the customary village
lands of several (and sometimes scores) of settlements. The new
Conservation Area Management Committees/User Committees manage
forests, grasslands, and other lands under the supervision of NGOs and
DNPWC and within national laws. They do not necessarily respect the
customary regulations through which individual settlements formerly
managed forests, grasslands, and sacred places, and there are no
regulations or guidelines requiring or advising them to do so. In
Annapurna Conservation Area, however, Conservation Area Management
Committees in at least some regions have adopted regulations and
practices which recognize customary ICCAs.
National Parks and Wildlife Conservation Act, Buffer Zones:
Under the authority of the fourth amendment to the National Parks and
Wildlife Conservation Act in 1993 the DNPWC has similarly handed over
management authority over lands that include forests, grasslands, and
alpine regions to several new local administrative bodies established
within buffer zones at varying scales (Buffer Zone User Groups at the
ward or settlement level, Buffer Zone User Committees at the VDC level
(or sub-VDC or multiple VDC level as authorized by protected area
superintendents), and a Buffer Zone Management Committee for the
entire buffer zone). The Buffer Zone Management Committee, composed of
the chairs of each of the Buffer Zone User Committees), the
superintendent (chief conservation officer or warden) of the national
park or wildlife reserve, and a district official, co-manages
conservation in the buffer zone. In some cases effective authority may
reside with the superintendent and the BZMC may become in effect an
advisory body. Local administrative units (Buffer Zone Users Groups
and Buffer Zone User Committees) manage forests and grasslands within
the buffer zone. One (or more) Buffer Zone Users Groups administers
one or more of the nine wards within each VDC. Because each ward
typically contains multiple settlements, the use of this new
administrative geography ensures that sacred places and community
managed commons that were formerly administered by particular
individual villages now come under the management of committees that
include members from villages which formerly did not have access
rights to them and who were not involved in the past in their
management. The various buffer zone institutions manage or co-manage
only buffer zone lands, and have no official role in the management of
adjacent national parks or wildlife reserves. In the case of
Sagarmatha National Park, however, the Buffer Zone User Committees and
the Buffer Zone Management Committee have been integrally involved
since 2002 in developing and administering new forest use rules for
the national park forests.
Community-based Management within the National Forest
The Department of Forests has similarly “handed over” management
authority over forests (and shrublands and grasslands) within the
national forest to new local institutions (Community Forest Users
Groups), which can be organized at the hamlet (ward), settlement, or
multi-settlement scale. These institutions manage forests and other
areas under the supervision of district forest offices after adopting
a Department of Forests-approved constitution and five-year
operational plan. This institution enables communities to regain some
degree of authority and control over managing local forests and an
opportunity to adopt new forest management goals and procedures,
including permit and fee systems and regional working plans intended
to maintain sustainable use and provide community and government
revenue. The opportunity to regain a measure of control over and
benefit from local forests may be welcomed by communities, although
the new institutions, procedures, policies, and conservation goals can
be controversial within communities when new conceptions of
conservation, new decision-making processes, and new resource use
allocation, restrictions, and procedures conflict with customary
values, institutions, and practices and when they are considered to
unequally benefit and disadvantage particular individuals and social
groups within what are often politically, socially, ethnically, and
economically differentiated communities.
Community-based Management in National Parks
The Sherpa declaration of all of Sagarmatha National Park and Buffer
Zone as an ICCA, the Khumbu Community Conserved Area (KCCA), is an
invitation to the DNPWC and the Nepal government to respect,
coordinate with, and legally recognize ICCAs. The KCCA encompasses a
1,500 km2 region which Sherpas consider to be a beyul, a sacred,
hidden valley and a Sherpa homeland. The region has many sacred
mountains and other natural sites, including temple forests and
“lama’s” forests which Sherpas strictly protect from any tree-felling
through local ICCAs. Sherpas protect all wildlife within the region,
which as a result has significant populations of endangered and rare
wildlife including snow leopards, musk deer, red panda, and Himalayan
tahr. Sherpa communities, buffer zone institutions, and NGOs also
maintain a number of local/regional customary and new ICCAs which
manage Sherpa livelihood use of forests, alpine areas, and grasslands
within the area of the KCCA.
Although there is not yet a legal basis to recognize the KCCA in SNP
planning and policies as such, Sherpa conservation values and
stewardship of the region, its sacred status for them, and their local
and regional ICCAs could be acknowledged and respect for them could be
coordinated in SNP management plans, policies, and practices. While
future management plans and regulations will be able to be framed with
awareness of and appreciation of the KCCA, the present 2006-2011
Sagarmatha National Park and Buffer Zone Management Plan, which was
devised before the KCCA was declared, proposes the establishment of
national park zoning in a way that could readily be based on Sherpa
ICCAs. The management plan envisions zoning the national park into two
types of zones: “community resource areas” and “special areas.” Buffer
zone residents residing in the enclave settlements within the national
park would have access to some natural resources within these national
park zones (particularly in community resource areas) and may be
involved in the management of forest use, grazing, and other land use
in them. Details of these arrangements, including whether and how
communities participate in management of land use in the new zones,
have yet to be worked out. Zone boundaries also require further
discussion as the “special areas” include much of the forest which
Sherpas rely on for firewood. Sherpa leaders hope that zoning
boundaries will be based on Sherpa land use and management maps which
they are now involved in preparing and which will provide the first
detailed maps of the geography of community and regional ICCAs.
“Special zones” could be used to honor and protect Sherpa sacred
places such as temple and lama’s forest ICCAs. The “community resource
areas” could be demarcated along the lines of existing community use,
and it could be specified that their management continues according to
existing community/buffer zone ICCAs.
Overall Policy
Strengths :
1. Since the late 1980s, the national government of Nepal has
recognized several forms of community-based conservation within its
protected area system and has "handed over" considerable management
authority to local institutions in conservation areas and in buffer
zones in and around national parks and wildlife reserves. Management
authority of a substantial part of the national forest has also been
"handed over" to communities.
2. The current institutions have transferred some degree of
decision-making and management from the central government to
communities in conservation areas, buffer zones, and community forests
within the national forest. They have also increased access by
indigenous peoples and local communities to natural resources (except
within lowland national parks and wildlife refuges). Despite
decentralization, however, the degree to which communities have
authority over policy-making and planning varies. In particular,
communities have been little involved in national park or wildlife
reserve management.
3. Since 1992, three conservation areas have been established,
encompassing 9,827 km2. These constitute three of the four largest
protected areas in Nepal. Annapurna Conservation Area (7,629 km2),
Nepal’s largest protected area, is more than twice the size of any
other protected area in the country and is home to more than 100,000
people living in more than 300 villages. Since 1996, eleven protected
area buffer zones have been established in association with national
parks and wildlife reserves, constituting nearly 5,000 square
kilometers of the 28,999 square kilometer protected area system that
now encompasses 19.7% of Nepal (including buffer zones but not
including the national forest). As of 2005, 153 buffer zone community
forestry user groups had been established. The eight buffer zones
established adjacent to national parks have an area of 4,365 km2 and
encompass 144 VDCs. In 2006 they were inhabited and managed by an
estimated 70,000 households (447,000 people). Approximately 25% of the
national forests, an area of 1.2 million hectares, had been handed
over by 2005 to more than 14,000 community forest management
committees. Some 1.6 million households (7.7 million people), more
than 25% of the population of Nepal, are involved in managing
community forests.
Weaknesses:
There are a number of continuing weaknesses in the current level of
recognition of ICCAs within protected areas and the national forest.
Customary ICCAs have little legal recognition within or outside of
existing protected areas. Indigenous rights recognition is not
integral to protected area governance and management and this is
evident in the lack of legal recognition of indigenous peoples’
territories, collectively-owned land, or customary collective
management of commons and sacred places; the lack of acknowledgement
that indigenous peoples and other local communities have spiritual
relationships with territory, sacred places, and non-human species
which are of conservation importance; and the lack of recognition that
indigenous peoples have rights to customary use and management of
biological resources in accordance with traditional cultural practices
and conservation goals. The Nepal protected area system continues to
be based primarily on state governance of protected areas, with
co-management only of conservation areas and buffer zones, rather than
embodying a diversity of governance approaches as advocated by IUCN
and by the Programme of Work on Protected Areas of the Parties to the
Convention on Biological Diversity.
1. The government of Nepal has legally recognized 59 indigenous
peoples and it ratified ILO Convention 169 on Indigenous and Tribal
Peoples in August 2007, but has not yet legally recognized many of the
indigenous rights specified in it.
2. Nepal’s protected areas (including buffer zones) were established
by government decrees without prior, free, informed consent by
resident indigenous peoples and other local communities. Although
indigenous peoples and other local communities were sometimes
consulted in the process of protected area establishment and
development through the convening of village meetings, this did not
constitute prior consent. In some cases protected areas were
established even though Indigenous peoples indicated they were opposed
to them.
3. Indigenous peoples and other local communities have been physically
displaced from several of Nepal’s national parks and wildlife reserves
. Indigenous peoples reportedly have been involuntarily evicted from
Rara National Park, Chitwan National Park, Bardia National Park, Kosi
Tappu Wildlife Refuge, Suklaphanta Wildlife Reserve, and Parsa
Wildlife Reserve.
4. Indigenous peoples and other local communities have been
"economically displaced" from all of Nepal’s national parks, wildlife
reserves, conservation areas, and hunting reserves, from many of its
buffer zones, and from many areas of its national forest because of
national government imposed bans or restrictions on their customary
access to natural resources (including the use of natural resources
for religious practices). Indigenous peoples often were not consulted
on the implementation of these policies and did not give their free,
informed, prior consent to them. Protected area policies have also
politically, socially, and culturally displaced indigenous peoples and
local communities through undermining their customary laws,
institutions, and practices and ignoring indigenous rights.
5. Indigenous peoples and other local communities were little involved
in decision-making about land management and conservation in protected
areas prior to the 1990s, and since then their involvement has been
limited to conservation areas, buffer zones, and community forests
within the national forest. They remain little involved in the
management of the national parks or the wildlife refuges.
6. The government of Nepal does not recognize indigenous territories,
community territories, or community ownership of land. Nearly all
forests and grasslands have been nationalized in the past half-century
and none has been restored to community ownership.
7. Customary systems of collective management of land, including
forest and rangeland commons, are not recognized in protected areas or
the national forest. New, nationally developed local institutions
introduced in buffer zones, conservation areas, and community forests
often do not incorporate customary community practices of managing
natural resource use or protecting sacred places.
8. Many customary uses (economic and cultural) of biological resources
by indigenous peoples are not fully recognized in protected areas.
Typically some activities are banned while others may be restricted in
season and in level of use.
9. Local administrative units of land management in protected areas
and community forests have been devised and territorially delineated
by the national government and often do not reflect customary or
traditional patterns of community land ownership and administration.
This can undermine customary, settlement-based management of commons
and protection of sacred places by ignoring communities’ customary or
traditional governance institutions, conservation goals, and land use
regulations.
10. Little use has been made thus far of the designation of “religious
forests” in buffer zones or the national forest. This misses an
opportunity to acknowledge pre-existing community conserved areas.
11. There is no national legal basis for the identification and
protection of sacred places or for assurance that indigenous peoples
will continue to have access to and control over their management.
There are likely thousands of sacred forests, mountains, lakes, and
other community conserved areas within the regions inhabited by
indigenous peoples and other local communities. Communities have lost
their ownership of these with land nationalization. Villages often no
longer have control over decisions about the protection of their
sacred sites because new land management institutions in conservation
areas, buffer zones, and community forests are based on regional,
multi-village governance rather than on governance by individual
villages.
12. Until very recently, when co-management authority over
Kangchenjunga Conservation Area was handed over to a local NGO,
indigenous peoples did not manage or co-manage any of Nepal’s
protected areas. The government of Nepal does not recognize any
inherent right for indigenous peoples to be involved in the management
of national parks and wildlife reserves. Following a national
government policy initiative in 2003, however, management or
co-management of some (but not all) national parks, conservation
areas, and wildlife refuges can be "handed over" to NGOs, including
local NGOs. Such NGOs, even when locally created, however, may not
constitute elected, representational governance and may not
incorporate or recognize indigenous peoples' customary governance
institutions and natural resource management practices.
IV.
Overall Comments
1. Nepal has a worldwide reputation for progressive, community-based
conservation in its conservation areas, buffer zones, and national
forest. Nepal has -- in effect, if not by name -- recognized
newly-established community conserved areas within these protected
areas and areas of the national forest. These are, however, recent
institutions established through state devolution of some natural
resource management authority in particular sites. Nepal has yet to
adopt policies which recognize and support “customary” or
“traditional” ICCAs such as sacred places and community-managed
commons in either its current protected area system or its
nationalized forests.
2. A comprehensive recognition of customary ICCAs in Nepal would have
enormous indigenous rights and conservation significance. Indigenous
peoples constitute at least 38% of the country’s population. Most of
these more than eleven million people continue to live in rural areas,
many of them in customary homelands. They and other local communities
historically have respected and conserved a vast number of
collectively-managed forest and grassland commons and sacred places. A
large number of these systems may still be in use despite lack of
legal recognition, and indigenous peoples and local communities may
wish to revive others.
3. Formal recognition of ICCAs throughout the Nepal protected areas
and the national forest would likely require amendments to several
government acts, including the National Parks Act (or a new Protected
Areas Act), the Himalayan National Parks Regulations (and individual
protected area acts), and the Forests Act. Guidelines, regulations,
and rules devised by the DNPWC for national park buffer zones and
conservation areas, and by the DoF for community managed forests,
should also be evaluated and revised to recognize ICCAs and to come
into accord with current IUCN and CBD guidelines for protected area
establishment and management in regions inhabited by indigenous
peoples and local communities.
4. It would be appropriate for the government of Nepal to consider
evaluating the suitability of its national forest for inclusion on the
UN List of Protected Areas. Large areas of the national forest could
be classified as IUCN Category V or VI protected areas, including
areas managed by Community Forest Users Groups
5. Linking national recognition of ICCAs within Nepal’s protected
areas and national forests with enhanced indigenous rights recognition
is also advisable. Although Nepal is often commended for its
recognition of community-based conservation in its protected area
system and its community forestry programs, from the standpoint of
ICCAs and the recognition of the rights of indigenous peoples within
and around protected areas these vary enormously in how well they meet
international standards adopted by IUCN for the establishment and
management of protected areas in regions inhabited by indigenous
peoples. There are important shortcomings with regard to
acknowledgement of the rights of indigenous peoples and customary
community-based conservation even in the most progressive protected
areas in Nepal (the three conservation areas and the buffer zones) and
the Community Forest User Group-managed areas of the national forest.
These shortcomings are more pronounced in the national parks and
wildlife reserves. Key concerns are recognition of collective
territorial governance and collective land ownership, restitution of
lands which have been nationalized, informed consent by indigenous
peoples to the establishment and operation of protected areas, access
to customarily used natural resources for economic and cultural
purposes, community care and protection of sacred places, and the
rights of communities to manage natural resources and participate in
conservation and development on the basis of their own systems of
governance and their knowledge, values, beliefs and practices.
Prepared by:
Dr. Stan Stevens, Associate Professor of Geography, Department of
Geosciences,
University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01003, USA.
Email: [email protected]
1 “Conservation Area” is a type of protected area authorized by Nepal
national government legislation which is dedicated to conservation and
“balanced utilization “ of natural resources. Conservation areas are
co-managed by the state and NGOs or communities and do not have
rangers, game scouts, and an army “protection unit” typical in the
country’s national parks and wildlife reserves.
2 Nepal has designated most of its forests as its “national forest”
under the management of the district forest offices (DFO) and the
supervision of the Ministry of Forests and Soil Conservation. Some
areas of the national forest have been “handed over” to management by
“community forest users groups.” Unlike the practice in some
countries, the “national forest” has not been divided into multiple,
individually demarcated and named national forests.
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