As a consequence wildlife populations became isolated within habitat fragments and killing of wild animals trapped in these fragments was widespread by the mid 1950s.Ĭonservation in the early years (1950–1985) Thus, large swathes of land were cleared for agriculture and settlements, resulting in extensive habitat loss and fragmentation (Dinerstein, Reference Dinerstein2003).

The government also settled ex-servicemen and people from the mountains in the terai, through a planned resettlement scheme. But a successful malaria eradication programme in the late 1950s opened the terai and Chitwan valley to an influx of people, including flood victims from adjacent mountain districts and refugees fleeing the conflicts in Burma and Assam. Only the indigenous Tharu tribal people, who have a greater immunity to malaria (Terrenato et al., Reference Terrenato, Shrestha, Dixit, Luzzatto, Modiano, Morpurgo and Arese1988), were able to survive in the lowlands. The valley was protected as a private hunting reserve for the Rana rulers, and the presence of malaria ensured that the alluvial grasslands and forests along the Himalayan foothill region, known as the terai, were sparsely populated by humans (Dinerstein, Reference Dinerstein2003). But, nevertheless, until 1950 the Chitwan valley in Nepal held an estimated 1,000 rhinoceroses (Dinerstein, Reference Dinerstein2003). Later, during 1905–1939 many rhinoceroses were hunted by the British Royal Family (Rookmaker, Reference Rookmaker2004). In the 19th century this rhinoceros was protected by the Rana rulers but individuals could be shot with a permit from the Maharajah or the Prime Minister. The western terai complex consists of Bardia National Park, Suklaphanta Wildlife Reserve, Katerniaghat Wildlife Sanctuary, Dudhwa National Park, Kishanpur Wildlife Sanctuary and Lagga Bagga Forest Reserve. 1 The protected areas and corridors of the Terai Arc Landscape.

The successes and failures of the last 2 decades indicate that new paradigms for protecting rhinoceroses within and outside protected areas are needed, especially with reference to managing this species at a landscape scale.įig. Corridors that were restored under the programme and that connect Bardia and Suklaphanta with protected areas in India are now used by the greater one-horned rhinoceros. In 2001 the Terai Arc Landscape programme was initiated to connect 11 protected areas in Nepal and north-west India and facilitate dispersal of megafauna and manage them as metapopulations. The founder populations increased in number through births but a rise in poaching during the period of civil strife in Nepal during 1996–2006 resulted in a dramatic decline in the populations, including in Chitwan. Between 19 87 rhinoceroses from Chitwan were translocated into Bardia National Park and Suklaphanta Wildlife Reserve in the western terai region to establish founder populations and reduce the threat of local extinction from natural catastrophic events, disease and/or poaching. Until the early 1980s the only surviving population of the greater one-horned rhinoceros Rhinoceros unicornis in Nepal was in Chitwan National Park.