|
|
 |
 |
|
| Background |
Annapurna Conservation Area (ACA) is a designated protected area located in western Nepal. ACA spreads over 7629 sq. km which is about five percent of the total area of Nepal. It is well known for its remarkable physical setting, ranging from an elevation of less than 1000 meters to 8091 meters and featuring Annapurna I, the eighth highest peak in the world. Two distinct climatic regions occur in ACA: The southern Annapurna region with about 4,000 mm of annual rainfall is the area of highest precipitation in the country while the northern, trans-Himalayan Annapurna region receives only 250 - 500 mm annually. The great diversity of habitats within ACA has produced an outstanding diversity of plants and animals, including 1140 species of plant, 101 species of mammals, 478 species of birds, and many of Nepal’s 700 medicinal plants. Many rare and endangered species of mammals and birds such as the snow leopard, musk deer, and Tibetan argali live here. ACA houses five of six pheasants found in Nepal. The King Mahendra Trust for Nature Conservation, a national environmental NGO, manages ACA through official mandate from His Majesty’s Government of Nepal.
More than 120,000 people from five major ethnic and tribal groups live here. Most of the inhabitants are subsistence farmers, depending and surviving on the natural resources for fuel, food, timber and medicine. Due to its great scenic beauty, development in tourism infrastructure and relatively easy accessibility, ACA has become the most popular trekking destination in Nepal. Approximately 70,000 trekking tourists, which is over 62 percent of the total trekkers of Nepal, visited ACA in 2000.
|
|
| The reasons behind success |
Since ACA is ecologically and culturally diverse, integration of acitivities was done according to the specific needs of a particular site. This made the intervention highly efficient. The gradual expansion of the working area helped to build confidence in the ACA management team.
There are more reasons behind ACAP's success: First, the project was designed through intensive consultations with the local community. The ACAP team conducted a feasibility study in which the results of these discussions were well incorporated. The study team identified several problems and also observed successful resource management schemes practised by the local people that were more effective than those implemented by government and other agencies. Therefore, considerable emphasis was given on strong community structures in the villages of ACA from the start up phase. Existing traditional groups were regularly consulted, empowered and trained. This has paved the way for a functional set of new local institutions such as Conservation Area Management Committees or Micro Hydro Management Committees.
Traditional women’s groups known as Mothers' Groups are a unique and strong component in all villages of ACA . They are trained through adult literacy classes, exposure visits to villages with good practices, workshops such as skill development, income generation, reproductive health, nutrition, leadership etc. Hence mothers' groups are involved in activities such as improving village trails, improving sanitation, planting trees or controlling illegal hunting. This has expanded the conventional responsibility of women from domestic to social work. It has increased their work burden at a certain level. But meanwhile, development of infrastructure such as drinking water, day-care centres for children etc. has generally eased that burden.
Most of the ethnic groups in ACA traditionally have local committees led by a village headman. These committees are responsible for settling most of the issues related to the village such as forest use, organizing traditional rituals, deciding on village conflicts etc. Local institutions within ACAP such as conservation committees or micro hydro management committees are created based on the traditional local committees.
Awareness and education of the local community is the key component of all ACA activities. As a result, effective actions have been taken by the local people themselves to conserve and develop their village.
ACAP was initiated with a long time frame, compared to other development projects that have relatively short time frames of three to five years. This has given ACAP ample opportunity to attain good results. Reforestation is one of the best examples: During the start up phase people were encouraged to plant trees on degraded community land and private farmland. But they were hesitant to start plantation because they did not exactly know the outcome. ACAP briefed them about benefits of the plantation such as less dependency on forest resources, decrease in landslides, easy availability of firewood and fodder. At present, the local people are getting all these benefits. This increased trust in the project and made the implementation of other project components more efficient. Since it takes at least eight years to grow an alder tree plantation ready for harvest, ACAP might not have had the opportunity to perceive these impacts if it were a short term project.
Most of the donor funded rural development projects in Nepal stop functioning once the donor withdraws the funding. However, the situation is different when projects are allowed to gradually become financially self-reliant. Community management of micro hydro power is one of the outstanding examples: The micro hydro management committee collects fees for electricity. The income generated from this is used for management, repair and maintenance.The surplus fund is kept in a bank for major maintenance or improvements of the system. At present, all the micro hydro management committees in ACA are self-reliant.
His Majesty’s Government of Nepal has a strong interest and commitment in the area for biodiversity conservation and sustainable development. Consequently, legal designation of ACA as a conservation area and endorsement of conservation area regulations have helped to make the approach successful.
Management of the ACA projects by the well established, national environmental NGO “King Mahendra Trust for Nature Conservation” (KMTNC) made the planning and implementation more effective and efficient. A team of professional Nepalese staff leads the KMTNC. There is a relatively flexible bureaucratic system with a clear chain of command.The KMTNC aims for a people-centred approach, hence the project activities are focused on good governance and decentralization.
|
|
|
|
|
