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PACCT for Tiger Conservation: Reducing Resource-competition Between People and Tigers

PACCT for tiger conservation

 

Project name:  PACCT for Tiger Conservation: Reducing Resource-competition Between People and Tigers.

Location:  Parsa National Park, Central Nepal

Goal:  ZSL is designing and trialing ‘Participatory Approaches to CorridorCoexistence with Tigers’ (PACCT), a tool box of options that can be applied to the priority human-tiger coexistence (HTC) needs across the landscape.

A key component within PACCT is addressing HTC to reduce buffer zone community’s costs from living alongside Bengal tigers, in terms of livestock predation and the risk of attacks on people. This project will trial this component through addressing underlying resource-competition drivers, by increasing prey availability for tigers within PNP (through participatory habitat management of 20ha of vital grassland and wetland) while protecting livestock from predation (through deploying predator-proof corrals) and facilitating community access to existing HTC relief funds. 

Objective 1: Conduct three meetings with stakeholders and community to identify 30 HTC vulnerable households and introduce PACCT and HTC relief (February 2019 – April 2019)

Objective 2: Support 30 vulnerable households to build predator-proof corrals (July 2019 – December 2019)

Objective 3:  Hold four participatory habitat management workshops (April 2019)

Objective 4:   Management of Halkhoriya lake (April 2019- June 2019)

Objective 5:  Grassland management in PNP (April 2019- December 2019)

Background:  There are now fewer than 4,000 tigers left in the wild. The focal species of the project is Bengal tiger (Panthera tigris tigris), which is Endangered. The project will be implemented in one of Nepal’s key tiger recovery sites and ZSL’s flagship tiger conservation site: Parsa National Park. The tiger numbers in this PA have increased nearly threefold since 2013, to an estimated 17 tiger individuals in 2017. This contributes to Nepal’s National Tiger Recovery Plan (NTRP) which calls for the doubling of tiger numbers by 2022 (125 to 250, based on 2009 figures).  The yet to be published results from the recently completed National Tiger Census in 2018, supported by ZSL, will provide an updated estimate of the tiger population in PNP.

The project contributes to increasing the secure core area within PCC, enabling tiger population increases to be sustained. Resource competition and human-tiger conflict will reduce within and around four communities of the PNP extension area, with at least 2,200 individuals reached through awareness raising, and 30 vulnerable households receiving predator-proof corrals. 20ha of grassland and wetland will be managed for improved habitat quality. This will provide a participatory model for reducing resource competition between people and tigers, and contribute to ZSL’s ongoing work designing, trialling and agreeing PACCT, extending implementation across the Terai Arc Landscape, to enable long-term human-tiger coexistence.

 

Reports will be published below as they become available.