A buffer zone refers to an area bordering a national park or protected area in Nepal that acts as a transitional zone between wilderness habitats and human settlements. Buffer zones play several key roles:
- Protect the integrity of the park by shielding sensitive ecosystems from unsustainable resource extraction, agricultural expansion, and development. They provide a protective barrier keeping human activities at bay.
- Support local communities through sustainable use of forest resources for fodder, medicinal plants, tourism, and other economic opportunities so that dependence on the core protected zone decreases. This reduces illegal poaching or encroachments.
- Fund conservation efforts via revenue-sharing schemes where buffer zone communities receive a percentage of national park entrance fees to finance community development projects like clean energy, trail upgrades, homestays, schools, etc. This incentivizes conservation.
Notable examples include the 380 sq km Buffer Zone around Chitwan National Park constituted in 1996 which contains 48 village districts representing indigenous Tharu and migrant hill groups. Community-based anti-poaching units, nature guides, and handicraft cooperatives demonstrate conservation success through buffer zone strategies. Around Annapurna Conservation Area, 58 buffer zone user committees coordinate tourism and resource access for 65,000 residents. Thus, buffer zones enable nature and human priorities to coexist.
Nepal's Terai lowlands contain several prominent buffer zones encircling flagship rhinoceros and tiger habitats. For example, the 750 sq km area surrounding Bardia National Park serves as an extra shield protecting growing big cat populations from regional outskirts prone to illegal logging, grazing incursions, and poaching gangs based across the porous border with India. By law, the Bardia buffer zone committees cannot undertake new infrastructure expanding the park perimeter without conducting environmental impact assessments and approval from the Wildlife Reserve authorities.
This oversight aims to balance local village needs with maintaining the integrity of the core wildlife corridors used by tigers and rhinos. Specific buffer zone regulations also prohibit planting crops that might attract important prey species like deer away from the park, thereby compromising tiger carrying capacities. Livestock grazing zones are similarly designated further from park boundaries to limit transmission of diseases like canine distemper or competition over grasslands utilized by endangered herbivores.
Around Chitwan, the buffer zone contains dedicated forest patches for wood harvesting and grass collection by indigenous Tharu communities to prevent encroachment into prime rhino habitats. Revenue-sharing provides electricity, clean water, and waste management facilities to villages through collaborative park-people committees. Each buffer zone tailors governance towards regional priorities. However, maintaining ecological functioning of Nepal's Protected Areas remains a consistent priority.