Two decades on, Nepal’s conservationists search for new ‘dream’ generation

In September 2006, a helicopter crash in Nepal killed 24 people, including the forest minister and several pioneering conservationists who had just handed community management of the Kanchenjunga Conservation Area to local villages. Among the dead were Harka and Chandra Gurung and Mingma Norbu Sherpa, architects of Nepal's community-based conservation model, along with senior government officials, a Finnish diplomat, a USAID official, and seven WWF staff.

Twenty years on, Nepal's tiger population has more than tripled to 429 and forest cover has grown six percentage points, but surviving colleagues describe the years since as replacement rather than renewal. Conservationists interviewed disagree on the cause, with some citing a lack of new visionary leadership and others pointing to political instability or incomplete cross-ministry collaboration on livelihoods.

Ecologist Shiv Raj Bhatta argues buffer zones around parks should be handed more fully to community control, calling that unfinished business from the 2006 vision. Others, including former ministry secretary Krishna Chandra Paudel, say a new dream exists in tying conservation to household income, disputing the idea that ambition itself has stalled.

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