ABSTRACT
Conservation initiatives involve a complex interplay of various ecological, socio-political, and economic factors. Ecological resettlement (ER), implemented within the context of nature conservation policies, stands as one of the most contested issues worldwide. This study aims to navigate the domain of ER policy in conservation through discursive institutionalism and a policy arrangement approach. Focusing on Nepal's conservation policy pathways over the last seven decades, we critically analyze policy ideas and narratives, trends, patterns of policy development, institutional arrangements, driving factors, and responses to contemporary ER policies. Methods involved a systematic literature review (n = 271), a comprehensive review of policy documents and project reports (n > 150), and expert interviews (n = 20). Over the past 50 years, >7600 households in Nepal have been displaced in the name of ER and are still persisting despite the rhetoric of participatory conservation. With changes in political regimes, conservation policy has shifted from a hunting-focused approach to landscape-level and transboundary conservation. Initially influenced by internal factors such as economic and political governance, conservation policies were later shaped by international conservation discourse. Also, the operational sphere of such policy ideas and narratives - including actors, resources, discourses, and rules - along with trends, priorities, institutional arrangements, and driving factors of ER policies, has changed over time. Further, the exclusion of deprived communities and the capture of conservation benefits by elites have undermined conservation values. This research stresses the importance of a judicious balance between people's welfare and nature's integrity, emphasizing community-based natural resource management models accredited to a conservation standard. We further urge the revision of displacement-oriented conservation policies to secure the rights of Indigenous people and traditional landholders, thereby ensuring conservation and sustainable development at both national and global levels.
ABSTRACT
Incidences of failure of sustainable ecosystem management policies, especially in the developing world are partly attributable due to a lack of political will and inadequate understanding of ecosystem dynamics (ED) at the local levels. In this study, we endeavor to comprehend the dynamics of two ecosystems - forest and agriculture - by employing a resource-friendly participatory approach based on stake-taking the experiences of indigenous and forest-dependent local stakeholders in three lowland provinces of Nepal and is guided by the theory of socio-ecological concept. An in-depth survey (n = 136) was conducted using semi-structured questionnaires, key informant interviews (n = 9), and focus group discussions (n = 4) for data generation, and generalized linear models were used to test whether understanding of ED is uniform across the socio-ecological landscape. We identified that various attributes of forests and agricultural ecosystems have altered substantially earlier than 30 years (hereafter, earlier decade) relative to the present (hereafter, later decade). Apart from the natural processes including anthropogenic and climatic factors, technological innovations played a significant role in altering ecosystems in the later decade. Understanding of ED among forest-dependent stakeholders significantly varied with respect to gender, occupation, age group, gender-based water fetching responsibility, and water-fetching duration, however, no significant correlation was observed with their level of education across the landscape. The studied ecosystem attributes significantly correlate with water regime changes, signifying that water-centric ecosystem management is crucial. The attributes that observed significant dynamics in the forest ecosystem include changes in forest cover, structure and species composition, the severity of invasive species, wildfires, water regimes, and abundance and behavioral changes in mammals and avifauna. The alteration of crop cultivation and harvesting season which results in a decrease in yield, increased use of chemicals (fertilizers and pesticides), an increase in fallow land, and the proliferation of hybrid variety cultivation in the later decade are significant disparities in the dynamics of the agriculture ecosystem. To withstand the accelerated ED, stakeholders adopt various strategies, however, these strategies are either obtained from unsustainable sources entail high costs and technology, or are detrimental to the ecosystems. In relation, we present specific examples of ecosystem attributes that have significantly experienced changes in the later decade compared to the earlier decades along with plausible future pathways for policy decisions sustaining and stewardship of dynamic ecosystems across the socio-ecological landscape.
