1.
International Union for Conservation of Nature
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The International Union for Conservation of Nature is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natural resources. It is involved in gathering and analysis, research, field projects, advocacy, lobbying. IUCNs mission is to influence, encourage and assist societies throughout the world to conserve nature and to ensure that any use of resources is equitable. Over the past decades, IUCN has widened its focus beyond conservation ecology and now incorporates issues related to equality, poverty alleviation. Unlike other international NGOs, IUCN does not itself aim to mobilize the public in support of nature conservation and it tries to influence the actions of governments, business and other stakeholders by providing information and advice, and through lobbying and partnerships. The organization is best known to the public for compiling and publishing the IUCN Red List. IUCN has a membership of over 1200 governmental and non-governmental organizations, some 11,000 scientists and experts participate in the work of IUCN commissions on a voluntary basis. It employs approximately 1000 full-time staff in more than 60 countries and its headquarters are in Gland, Switzerland. IUCN has observer and consultative status at the United Nations, and plays a role in the implementation of several conventions on nature conservation. It was involved in establishing the World Wide Fund for Nature, in the past, IUCN has been criticized for placing the interests of nature over those of indigenous peoples. In recent years, its relations with the business sector have caused controversy. It was previously called the International Union for Protection of Nature, establishment In 1947, the Swiss League for the Protection of Nature organised an international conference on the protection of nature in Brunnen. It is considered to be the first government-organized non-governmental organization, the initiative to set up the new organisation came from UNESCO and especially from its first Director General, the British biologist Julian Huxley. At the time of its founding IUPN was the international organisation focusing on the entire spectrum of nature conservation Early years. Its secretariat was located in Brussels and its first work program focused on saving species and habitats, increasing and applying knowledge, advancing education, promoting international agreements and promoting conservation. Providing a solid base for conservation action was the heart of all activities. IUPN and UNESCO were closely associated and they jointly organized the 1949 Conference on Protection of Nature. In preparation for this conference a list of endangered species was drawn up for the first time
2.
National park
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A national park is a park in use for conservation purposes. Often it is a reserve of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that a sovereign state declares or owns, although individual nations designate their own national parks differently, there is a common idea, the conservation of wild nature for posterity and as a symbol of national pride. An international organization, the International Union for Conservation of Nature, although Yellowstone was not officially termed a national park in its establishing law, it was always termed such in practice and is widely held to be the first and oldest national park in the world. The first area to use national park in its legislation was the USs Mackinac Island. Australias Royal National Park, established in 1879, was the third official national park. In 1895 ownership of Mackinac Island was transferred to the State of Michigan as a state park, as a result, Australias Royal National Park is by some considerations the second oldest national park now in existence. The largest national park in the meeting the IUCN definition is the Northeast Greenland National Park. According to the IUCN,6,555 national parks worldwide met its criteria in 2006, IUCN is still discussing the parameters of defining a national park. National parks are almost always open to visitors, in 1971, these criteria were further expanded upon leading to more clear and defined benchmarks to evaluate a national park. In 1810, the English poet William Wordsworth described the Lake District as a sort of property, in which every man has a right and interest who has an eye to perceive. It was known as Hot Springs Reservation, but no authority was established. Federal control of the area was not clearly established until 1877, John Muir is today referred to as the Father of the National Parks due to his work in Yosemite. He published two articles in The Century Magazine, which formed the base for the subsequent legislation. President Abraham Lincoln signed an Act of Congress on July 1,1864, ceding the Yosemite Valley, according to this bill, private ownership of the land in this area was no longer possible. The state of California was designated to manage the park for use, resort. Leases were permitted for up to ten years and the proceeds were to be used for conservation, a public discussion followed this first legislation of its kind and there was a heated debate over whether the government had the right to create parks. The perceived mismanagement of Yosemite by the Californian state was the reason why Yellowstone at its establishment six years later was put under national control, in 1872, Yellowstone National Park was established as the United States first national park, being also the worlds first national park. In some European countries, however, national protection and nature reserves already existed, such as Drachenfels, Yellowstone was part of a federally governed territory
3.
Nepal
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Nepal, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked central Himalayan country in South Asia. Nepal is divided into 7 provinces and 75 districts and 744 local units including 4 metropolises,13 sub-metropolises,246 municipal councils and 481 village and it has a population of 26.4 million and is the 93rd largest country by area. Bordering China in the north and India in the south, east, Nepal does not border Bangladesh, which is located within only 27 km of its southeastern tip. It neither borders Bhutan due to the Indian state of Sikkim being located in between, Nepal has a diverse geography, including fertile plains, subalpine forested hills, and eight of the worlds ten tallest mountains, including Mount Everest, the highest point on Earth. Kathmandu is the capital and largest city. It is a nation with Nepali as the official language. The territory of Nepal has a history since the Neolithic age. The name Nepal is first recorded in texts from the Vedic Age, the era which founded Hinduism, in the middle of the first millennium BCE, Gautama Buddha, the founder of Buddhism, was born in southern Nepal. Parts of northern Nepal were intertwined with the culture of Tibet, the Kathmandu Valley in central Nepal became known as Nepal proper because of its complex urban civilization. It was the seat of the prosperous Newar confederacy known as Nepal Mandala, the Himalayan branch of the ancient Silk Road was dominated by the valleys traders. The cosmopolitan region developed distinct traditional art and architecture, by the 18th century, the Gorkha Kingdom achieved the unification of Nepal. The Shah dynasty established the Kingdom of Nepal and later formed an alliance with the British Empire, the country was never colonized but served as a buffer state between Imperial China and Colonial India. In the 20th century, Nepal ended its isolation and forged ties with regional powers. Parliamentary democracy was introduced in 1951, but was suspended by Nepalese monarchs in 1960 and 2005. The Nepalese Civil War resulted in the proclamation of a republic in 2008, modern Nepal is a federal secular parliamentary republic. Nepal is a nation, ranking 144th on the Human Development Index in 2016. The country struggles with the transition from a monarchy to a republic and it also suffers from high levels of hunger and poverty. Despite these challenges, Nepal is making progress, with the government declaring its commitment to elevate the nation from least developed country status by 2022
4.
Himalayas
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The Himalayas, or Himalaya, form a mountain range in Asia separating the plains of the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau. The Himalayan range has the Earths highest peaks, including the highest, the Himalayas include over a hundred mountains exceeding 7,200 metres in elevation. By contrast, the highest peak outside Asia – Aconcagua, in the Andes – is 6,961 metres tall. The Himalayas are spread across five countries, Bhutan, India, Nepal, China, the Himalayan range is bordered on the northwest by the Karakoram and Hindu Kush ranges, on the north by the Tibetan Plateau, and on the south by the Indo-Gangetic Plain. Some of the major rivers, the Indus, the Ganges, and the Tsangpo-Brahmaputra, rise in the Himalayas. The Himalayas have profoundly shaped the cultures of South Asia, many Himalayan peaks are sacred in Hinduism and Buddhism. Lifted by the subduction of the Indian tectonic plate under the Eurasian Plate and its western anchor, Nanga Parbat, lies just south of the northernmost bend of Indus river. Its eastern anchor, Namcha Barwa, is just west of the bend of the Tsangpo river. The range varies in width from 400 kilometres in the west to 150 kilometres in the east, the name of the range derives from the Sanskrit Himā-laya, from himá and ā-laya. They are now known as the Himalaya Mountains, usually shortened to the Himalayas, formerly, they were described in the singular as the Himalaya. This was also previously transcribed Himmaleh, as in Emily Dickinsons poetry and Henry David Thoreaus essays. The mountains are known as the Himālaya in Nepali and Hindi, the Himalaya or The Land of Snow in Tibetan, the Hamaleh Mountain Range in Urdu, the flora and fauna of the Himalayas vary with climate, rainfall, altitude, and soils. The climate ranges from tropical at the base of the mountains to permanent ice, the amount of yearly rainfall increases from west to east along the southern front of the range. This diversity of altitude, rainfall and soil conditions combined with the high snow line supports a variety of distinct plant. The extremes of high altitude combined with extreme cold favor extremophile organisms, the unique floral and faunal wealth of the Himalayas is undergoing structural and compositional changes due to climate change. The increase in temperature is shifting various species to higher elevations, the oak forest is being invaded by pine forests in the Garhwal Himalayan region. There are reports of early flowering and fruiting in some species, especially rhododendron, apple. The highest known tree species in the Himalayas is Juniperus tibetica located at 4,900 metres in Southeastern Tibet, the Himalayan range is one of the youngest mountain ranges on the planet and consists mostly of uplifted sedimentary and metamorphic rock
5.
Tibet Autonomous Region
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The Tibet Autonomous Region or Xizang Autonomous Region, called Tibet or Xizang for short, is a province-level autonomous region of the Peoples Republic of China. Within China, Tibet is identified as an autonomous region, the current borders of Tibet were generally established in the eighteenth century and include about half of ethno-cultural Tibet. In 1950, the Peoples Liberation Army defeated the Tibetan army in a battle fought near the city of Chamdo, in 1951, the Tibetan representatives signed a 17-point agreement with the Chinese Central Peoples Government affirming Chinas sovereignty over Tibet and the incorporation of Tibet. The agreement was ratified in Lhasa a few months later, the Dalai Lama fled to India in 1959 and renounced the 17-point agreement. Tibet Autonomous Region was established in 1965, thus making Tibet an administrative division that is equivalent in status to a Chinese province. The Tibet Autonomous Region is located on the Tibetan Plateau, the highest region on earth, in northern Tibet elevations reach an average of over 4,572 metres. Mount Everest is located on Tibets border with Nepal, Chinas provincial-level areas of Xinjiang, Qinghai and Sichuan lie to the north, northeast, and east, respectively, of the Tibet AR. There is also a border with Yunnan province to the southeast. The PRC has border disputes with the Republic of India over the McMahon Line of Arunachal Pradesh, the disputed territory of Aksai Chin is to the west, and its boundary with that region is not defined. The other countries to the south are Myanmar, Bhutan and Nepal. Physically, the Tibet AR may be divided into two parts, the region in the west and north-west, and the river region. On the south the Tibet AR is bounded by the Himalayas, the system at no point narrows to a single range, generally there are three or four across its breadth. Other lakes include Dagze Co, Namtso, and Pagsum Co, the lake region is a wind-swept Alpine grassland. This region is called the Chang Tang or Northern Plateau by the people of Tibet and it is some 1,100 km broad, and covers an area about equal to that of France. Due to its distance from the ocean it is extremely arid. The mountain ranges are spread out, rounded, disconnected, separated by flat valleys. The Tibet AR is dotted over with large and small lakes, generally salt or alkaline, due to the presence of discontinuous permafrost over the Chang Tang, the soil is boggy and covered with tussocks of grass, thus resembling the Siberian tundra. Salt and fresh-water lakes are intermingled, the lakes are generally without outlet, or have only a small effluent
6.
Gosaikunda
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Together with associated lakes, the Gosaikunda Lake complex is 1,030 ha in size and has been designated a Ramsar site on 29 September 2007. The lake melts and sips down to form the Trishuli River, there are 108 lakes in this area, small to medium in size. The challenging Lauribina La pass at an altitude of 4,610 m is on its outskirts, the Gosaikunda area has been delineated as a religious site. Hindu mythology attributes Gosaikunda as the abode of the Hindu deities Shiva, the Hindu scriptures Bhagavata Purana, Vishnu Purana and the epics Ramayana and Mahabharata refer to Samudra manthan, which is directly related to the origin of Gosaikunda. Its waters are considered holy and of significance during the Gangadashahara. Gosaikunda is believed to have created by Lord Shiva when he thrust his Trishul into a mountain to extract water so that he could cool his stinging throat after he had swallowed poison. Gosaikunda is a significant place of interest on the Dhunche-Helambu trekking route and this trek adjoins the famous Langtang Valley trek in the same district. Basic accommodation is quite easily available, tea houses offer a variety of food and snacks. The trek to Gosaikunda starts in Dhunche Village or Syabru Besi in the Langtang Himal, when starting from Dhunche, the first day involves a long steady climb to reach Chandan Bari at an altitude of about 3,200 m. Laurebinayak at about 3,700 m can be reached on the second day, at this point, some trekkers choose to climb ahead to Gosaikunda, though altitude sickness is a concern as the ascent is rather steep. Many trekkers choose to stay at Laurebinayak, which also provides sunset and sunrise views of the Langtang and Ganesh Himal. The descent from Gosaikund to Sundarijal takes about four days and involves a climb to Laurebina La at 4,610 m. Depending on pace, there are options to stay at Thadepati, Mangengoth, Kutumsang, the trails are well marked, except between Ghopte and Thadepati. The Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, The Annotated Ramsar List of Nepal How to go to Gosaikunda
7.
Kathmandu Valley
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The Kathmandu Valley, located in Nepal, lies at the crossroads of ancient civilizations of Asia, and has at least 130 important monuments, including several pilgrimage sites for Hindus and Buddhists. There are seven World Heritage Sites within the valley, historically, the valley and adjoining areas made up a confederation known as the Nepal Mandala. Until the 15th century, Bhaktapur was its capital, when two other capitals, Kathmandu and Lalitpur, were established. After the annexation of the valley by the Gorkha Kingdom, and subsequent conversion of the valley as the capital of their empire, the Kathmandu Valley is the most developed and populated place in Nepal. The majority of offices and headquarters are located in the valley and it is popular with tourists for its unique architecture, and rich culture that includes the highest number of jatras in Nepal. The valley itself was referred to as Nepal Proper by British historians, thousands of people died and tens of thousands of buildings and structures collapsed in Kathmandu Valley in the April 2015 Nepal earthquake. The city of Kathmandu is named after a structure in Durbar Square called by the Sanskrit name Kāsṣtha mandapa Wooden shelter and it was destroyed in the 2015 earthquake. This unique temple, also known as the Maru Sattal, was built in 1596 by King Lakshminarasimha Malla, the entire structure contained no iron nails or supports and was made entirely from wood. Legend has it that the used for this two-story pagoda was obtained from a single tree. The Kathmandu Valley may have been inhabited as early as 300 BCE, the earliest known inscription is dated 185 CE. The oldest firmly dated building in the valley is almost 1,992 years old. As with the tales of the Buddhas visit, there is no evidence supporting Ashoks visit, the Licchavis, whose earliest inscriptions date to 464, were the next rulers of the valley and had close ties with the Gupta Empire of India. His victory in the Battle of Kirtipur was the beginning of his conquest of the valley, the Newars are the indigenous inhabitants and the creators of the historic civilization of the valley. The language is known as Nepal Bhasa. They are understood to be the descendants of the various ethnic, scholars have also described the Newars as a nation. They have developed a division of labour and an urban civilization not seen elsewhere in the Himalayan foothills. They are known for their contributions to art, sculpture, architecture, culture, literature, music, industry, trade, agriculture and cuisine, newa architecture consists of the pagoda, stupa, shikhara, chaitya and other styles. The valleys trademark is the pagoda which may have originated in this area and spread to India, China, Indochina
8.
Alternative energy
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Alternative energy is any energy source that is an alternative to fossil fuel. These alternatives are intended to address concerns about such fossil fuels, such as its carbon dioxide emissions. Marine energy, hydroelectric, wind, geothermal and solar power are all sources of energy. The nature of what constitutes an alternative energy source has changed considerably over time, because of the variety of energy choices and differing goals of their advocates, defining some energy types as alternative is considered very controversial. Historians of economies have examined the key transitions to alternative energies, prior to the shift to an alternative energy, supplies of the dominant energy type became erratic, accompanied by rapid increases in energy prices. In the late period, coal was the new alternative fuel to save the society from overuse of the dominant fuel. The deforestation had resulted in shortage of wood, at that time soft coal appeared as a savior, historian Norman F. Cantor describes how, Europeans had lived in the midst of vast forests throughout the earlier medieval centuries. After 1250 they became so skilled at deforestation that by 1500 AD they were running short of wood for heating and cooking. By 1500 Europe was on the edge of a fuel and nutritional disaster, which it was saved in the century only by the burning of soft coal. In 1917, Alexander Graham Bell advocated ethanol from corn, wheat and other foods as an alternative to coal and oil, for Bell, the problem requiring an alternative was lack of renewability of orthodox energy sources. Since the 1970s, Brazil has had an ethanol fuel program which has allowed the country to become the second largest producer of ethanol. Brazil’s ethanol fuel program uses modern equipment and cheap sugar cane as feedstock, there are no longer light vehicles in Brazil running on pure gasoline. By the end of 2008 there were 35,000 filling stations throughout Brazil with at least one ethanol pump, cellulosic ethanol can be produced from a diverse array of feedstocks, and involves the use of the whole crop. As of 2008, there are nine commercial cellulosic ethanol plants which are operating, or under construction. Second-generation biofuels technologies are able to manufacture biofuels from inedible biomass, as of July 2010, there is one commercial second-generation ethanol plant Inbicon Biomass Refinery, which is operating in Denmark. In the 1970s, President Jimmy Carters administration advocated coal gasification as an alternative to imported oil. The program, including the Synthetic Fuels Corporation was scrapped when petroleum prices plummeted in the 1980s, the carbon footprint and environmental impact of coal gasification are both very high. Hydro electricity captures energy from falling water, nuclear energy uses nuclear fission to release energy stored in the atomic bonds of heavy elements
9.
Monsoon
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Usually, the term monsoon is used to refer to the rainy phase of a seasonally changing pattern, although technically there is also a dry phase. The term is sometimes used for locally heavy but short-term rains. The major monsoon systems of the world consist of the West African and Asia-Australian monsoons, the inclusion of the North and South American monsoons with incomplete wind reversal has been debated. The south-west monsoon winds are called Nairutya Maarut in India, the English monsoon came from Portuguese monção, ultimately from Arabic mawsim and/or Hindi mausam, perhaps partly via early modern Dutch monsun. Strengthening of the Asian monsoon has been linked to the uplift of the Tibetan Plateau after the collision of the Indian sub-continent and Asia around 50 million years ago. Because of studies of records from the Arabian Sea and that of the wind-blown dust in the Loess Plateau of China, testing of this hypothesis awaits deep ocean sampling by the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program. The monsoon has varied significantly in strength since this time, largely linked to climate change. A study of marine plankton suggested that the Indian Monsoon strengthened around 5 million years ago, then, during ice periods, the sea level fell and the Indonesian Seaway closed. When this happened, cold waters in the Pacific were impeded from flowing into the Indian Ocean and it is believed that the resulting increase in sea surface temperatures in the Indian Ocean increased the intensity of monsoons. Five episodes during the Quaternary at 2.22 Ma,1.83 Ma,0.68 Ma,0.45 Ma and 0.04 Ma were identified which showed a weakening of Leeuwin Current. The weakening of the LC would have an effect on the sea surface temperature field in the Indian Ocean, thus these five intervals could probably be those of considerable lowering of SST in the Indian Ocean and would have influenced Indian monsoon intensity. The impact of monsoon on the weather is different from place to place. In some places there is just a likelihood of having a more or less rain. In other places, quasi semi-deserts are turned into green grasslands where all sorts of plants. The Indian Monsoon turns large parts of India from a kind of semi-desert into green lands, see photos only taken 3 months apart in the Western Ghats. In places like this it is crucial for farmers to have the right timing for putting the seeds on the fields, Monsoons are large-scale sea breezes which occur when the temperature on land is significantly warmer or cooler than the temperature of the ocean. These temperature imbalances happen because oceans and land absorb heat in different ways, in contrast, dirt, sand, and rocks have lower heat capacities, and they can only transmit heat into the earth by conduction and not by convection. Therefore, bodies of water stay at an even temperature
10.
Ecosystem
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An ecosystem is a community of living organisms in conjunction with the nonliving components of their environment, interacting as a system. These biotic and abiotic components are regarded as linked together through nutrient cycles, as ecosystems are defined by the network of interactions among organisms, and between organisms and their environment, they can be of any size but usually encompass specific, limited spaces. Energy, water, nitrogen and soil minerals are other essential components of an ecosystem. The energy that flows through ecosystems is obtained primarily from the sun and it generally enters the system through photosynthesis, a process that also captures carbon from the atmosphere. By feeding on plants and on one another, animals play an important role in the movement of matter and they also influence the quantity of plant and microbial biomass present. Ecosystems are controlled both by external and internal factors, other external factors include time and potential biota. Ecosystems are dynamic entities—invariably, they are subject to disturbances and are in the process of recovering from some past disturbance. Ecosystems in similar environments that are located in different parts of the world can have different characteristics simply because they contain different species. The introduction of species can cause substantial shifts in ecosystem function. Internal factors not only control ecosystem processes but are controlled by them and are often subject to feedback loops. Other internal factors include disturbance, succession and the types of species present, although humans exist and operate within ecosystems, their cumulative effects are large enough to influence external factors like climate. Biodiversity affects ecosystem function, as do the processes of disturbance, classifying ecosystems into ecologically homogeneous units is an important step towards effective ecosystem management, but there is no single, agreed-upon way to do this. The term ecosystem was first used in 1935 in a publication by British ecologist Arthur Tansley, Tansley devised the concept to draw attention to the importance of transfers of materials between organisms and their environment. He later refined the term, describing it as The whole system, including not only the organism-complex, but also the whole complex of physical factors forming what we call the environment. Tansley regarded ecosystems not simply as natural units, but as mental isolates, Tansley later defined the spatial extent of ecosystems using the term ecotope. G. Raymond Lindeman took these ideas one step further to suggest that the flow of energy through a lake was the driver of the ecosystem. Most mineral nutrients, on the hand, are recycled within ecosystems. Ecosystems are controlled both by external and internal factors, external factors, also called state factors, control the overall structure of an ecosystem and the way things work within it, but are not themselves influenced by the ecosystem
11.
Bardiya National Park
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The Bardiya National Park, also spelled Bardia, is a protected area in Nepal that was established in 1988 as Royal Bardia National Park. Its northern limits are demarcated by the crest of the Siwalik Hills, the Nepalgunj-Surkhet highway partly forms the southern boundary, but seriously disrupts the protected area. Natural boundaries to human settlements are formed in the west by the Geruwa, a branch of the Karnali River, in 1815, Nepal lost this region to the East India Company through the Sugauli Treaty. For 45 years it was a part of British India and returned to Nepal in 1860 in recognition for supporting the suppression of the Indian Independence movement in 1857, today, this annexed area is still called Naya Muluk meaning new country. An area of 368 km2 was set aside as Royal Hunting Reserve in 1969, in 1982, it was proclaimed as Royal Bardia Wildlife Reserve and extended to include the Babai River Valley in 1984. Finally in 1988, the area was gazetted as national park. The approximately 1500 people who used to live in this valley have been resettled elsewhere, since farming has ceased in the Babai Valley, the natural regenerated vegetation makes the area a prime habitat for wildlife. About 70% of the park is covered with forest, with the balance a mixture of grassland, savannah, the flora recorded in the park comprises 839 species of flora, including 173 vascular plant species comprising 140 dicots,26 monocots, six fern, and one gymnosperm species. The wide range of types in forest and grassland provides excellent habitat for 642 faunal species. The Karnali-Babai river system, their tributaries and myriads of oxbow lakes is habitat for 125 recorded species of fish. A small population of gharial inhabits the rivers, apart from the mugger crocodiles,23 reptile and amphibian species have been recorded. The Bardiya National Park is home to at least 53 mammals including rhinoceros, wild elephant, Bengal tiger, swamp deer, rhinoceros, Translocation of rhinos from Chitwan to Bardia National Park commenced in 1986, with 58 individuals relocated until 2000. From 1994 to 2000, hunters have been unsuccessful at poaching rhinos, in April 2000, there were 67 rhinos in the park, most of them resident in the Babai Valley. In May 2006, a survey was carried out in the Babai River floodplain. Poaching was suspected to be the cause of this decline. Subsequent surveys in 2007 and 2008 have confirmed the disappearance of rhinos from Babai Valley. In different habitats of the Karnali floodplain 25 rhinos were recorded based on observation and indirect signs of rhino dung. They were mostly congregated in the grassland, riverine forest
12.
Chitwan National Park
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Chitwan National Park is the first national park in Nepal. It was established in 1973 and granted the status of a World Heritage Site in 1984 and it covers an area of 932 km2 and is located in the subtropical Inner Terai lowlands of south-central Nepal in the districts of Nawalparasi, Parsa, Chitwan and Makwanpur. In altitude it ranges from about 100 m in the valleys to 815 m in the Churia Hills. In the north and west of the area the Narayani-Rapti river system forms a natural boundary to human settlements. Adjacent to the east of Chitwan National Park is Parsa Wildlife Reserve, since the end of the 19th century Chitwan – Heart of the Jungle – used to be a favorite hunting ground for Nepal’s ruling class during the cool winter seasons. Until the 1950s, the journey from Kathmandu to Nepal’s south was arduous as the area could only be reached by foot and took several weeks. Comfortable camps were set up for the big game hunters and their entourage. In 1950, Chitwan’s forest and grasslands extended over more than 2,600 km2 and was home to about 800 rhinos. When poor farmers from the moved to the Chitwan Valley in search of arable land, the area was subsequently opened for settlement. In 1957, the countrys first conservation law inured to the protection of rhinos, by the end of the 1960s, 70% of Chitwan’s jungles were cleared using DDT, thousands of people had settled there, and only 95 rhinos remained. In 1977, the park was enlarged to its present area of 932 km2. In 1997, a bufferzone of 766.1 km2 was added to the north and west of the Narayani-Rapti river system, the park’s headquarters is in Kasara. Close-by the gharial and turtle conservation breeding centres have been established, Chitwan has a tropical monsoon climate with high humidity all through the year. The area is located in the climatic zone of the Himalayas. During these 14–15 weeks most of the 2,500 mm yearly precipitation falls – it is pouring with rain. After mid-October the monsoon clouds have retreated, humidity drops off, nights cool down to 5 °C /41.0 °F until late December, when it usually rains softly for a few days. The typical vegetation of the Inner Terai is Himalayan subtropical broadleaf forests with predominantly sal trees covering about 70% of the park area. The purest stands of sal occur on well drained ground in the centre
