For Himalayan Nature, the phrase "community-based conservation" isn't a label attached after the fact. According to Senior Program Officer Laba K.C., it's the whole operating model: local people aren't treated as beneficiaries of a project handed down to them, they're meant to be custodians and decision-makers in it from the start.
"Conservation is more effective and sustainable when communities are not merely beneficiaries of projects but active decision-makers and long-term custodians of the natural systems on which both people and wildlife depend."
Laba K.C., Senior Program Officer, Himalayan Nature
120 Hectares in Twelve Months
The clearest example of that model in practice is a habitat restoration project for the greater one-horned rhinoceros in the Namuna Buffer Zone Community Forest, inside Chitwan National Park, run with support from the IUCN SOS Fondation Segré.
Alongside the land work, the project installed a solar-powered water-lifting system to replenish Century Ghol, a wetland that rhinos and other wildlife rely on regularly. But the piece Laba kept returning to wasn't the ecological numbers, it was what happened after the project officially ended.
Training more than 60 forest user group members before any field work began, coordinating closely with Chitwan National Park and buffer zone institutions on a shared restoration plan, and building enough local ownership that the restoration and habitat management work has continued well past the project's official completion date. For Laba, that continuation is the real measure of success, not just the hectare count.
Solar Panels, Electric Stoves, and the Climate-Biodiversity Tradeoff
I asked how Himalayan Nature handles moments when climate adaptation work and biodiversity protection pull in different directions. The answer was less about resolving a conflict and more about finding interventions that serve both at once.
Solar-powered water-lifting systems keep water available for wildlife. Solar fencing and solar lamp posts help reduce human-wildlife conflict. Electric autorickshaws now handle patrol and reconnaissance visits inside national parks, cutting reliance on fossil-fuelled vehicles. On the community side, Himalayan Nature promotes electric cooking stoves as an alternative to firewood, a swap that cuts pressure on forest resources and frees up time communities previously spent collecting fuel.
"When climate adaptation and biodiversity objectives appear to conflict, we seek solutions that address community needs without compromising ecological integrity."
Laba K.C., Senior Program Officer, Himalayan Nature
What's Actually Hard About Working Across Nepal
Running programs from the Terai lowlands to the mid-hills means dealing with genuinely different terrain, institutions, and communities within the same organization. Laba named funding as the sharpest current pressure: conservation funding has declined broadly while competition for what remains has intensified, making it harder to sustain existing work while still responding to new conservation needs.
Coordination is its own challenge. Different tiers of government, conservation authorities, and local communities often carry different priorities, and building consensus across all of them takes real, ongoing effort. In the mid-hills specifically, difficult terrain and limited accessibility complicate field implementation and monitoring, while language barriers and local customs in some areas require slower, more deliberate community engagement than a lowland program might need.
What's Next
Himalayan Nature's upcoming priorities lean toward species that don't usually get much attention: the Ganges River Dolphin and the Black-bellied Tern, both highly threatened and comparatively under-studied. The organization is also advancing its Special Conservation Sites and Tree for Tomorrow initiatives, aimed at protecting ecologically significant areas that serve as refuges for threatened species.
A particular focus going forward is the Koshi Bird Observatory, Himalayan Nature's research field station in eastern Nepal, where weekly birdwatching programs already engage local students in field identification and conservation basics. The plan is to grow it into a broader learning hub, with expanded educational programming and a community library stocked with conservation-related materials.
About Himalayan Nature
Himalayan Nature works on biodiversity protection, habitat restoration, and climate adaptation across Nepal's Terai lowlands and mid-hill landscapes. Contact the team at program@himalayannature.org.
Sources & Attribution
- All quotes and figures in this article were provided directly by Laba K.C., Senior Program Officer, Himalayan Nature, in response to written questions from Greenly, October 2026.
- Photograph of a greater one-horned rhinoceros in Chitwan National Park by Bernd Dittrich, used under the Unsplash License.