Institutional application of ‘buffer zones’ around areas of importance for biological
conservation has grown significantly since the 1980’s - perhaps nowhere as much as in Nepal,
where 24% of the nation’s total land area is allocated under such a program. In practice, the
intention of a buffer zone is to simultaneously alleviate the pressures from human
development on conservation areas and to address the socio-economic requirements of
affected populations. While the buffer zone concept has been hailed by many for its
consideration of indigenous rights, it is far from the magic elixir that some would hope. We
spent 3 months in Kathmandu, Nepal over the summer of 2016 interviewing members of
government and local environmental organizations to glean insight into what has been learned
from 20 years implementing the buffer zone concept. The timing of our study couldn't be more
critical, as the Nepalese government in early 2016 declared a new buffer zone around
Shivapuri-Nagarjun National Park (SNNP), located less than 10 miles north of the nation’s
capital, Kathmandu. SNNP protects many regionally and internationally important ecological
and cultural assets, but its most significant purpose is as the source of Kathmandu’s primary
water supply. We hypothesized that the urbanization of the Kathmandu Valley (KTMV) is going
to present new and unprecedented challenges for sustainable and equitable land management
in a buffer zone program. From the rapid, unplanned urbanization of the capital, in conjunction
with strict rights on access of resources, we sought evidence to support the assumption that
the government would rely on buffer zone communities for successful management and
protection of the SNNP region. With the aid of a local translator, we spoke with dozens of
community members living in the park and in the proposed buffer zone to get a sense for their
ways of living and their perspectives on the conservation policies that have impacted them.