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Examining Marginalized Communities and Local Conservation Institutions: The Case of Nepal’s Annapurna Conservation Area

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Abstract

In developing countries, participatory conservation initiatives have been criticized for many reasons, mainly for excluding marginalized groups which have led to unequal benefits. Using concepts from the literature on participation, conservation, and political ecology, this research explored the participation of marginal groups, i.e., poor, women, lower caste, and landless, in management institutions in Nepal’s Annapurna Conservation Area. Field work for this research was conducted through the use of interviews and participant observation during August–October 2010. Results show that although marginal groups were involved in local management institutions, their representation was minimal and had not led to meaningful participation or empowerment to influence the decisions being made in conservation and development programs. Our study findings indicate that the involvement of marginal groups in local initiatives is complex and influenced by several factors. The study concludes that the Annapurna Conservation Area Project needs to re-orient its conservation projects by adopting a more inclusive form of participation and move beyond the quota system.

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Notes

  1. The term institution in this paper is defined as a community based organizational structure such as associations, committees and village government (Cleaver 2005).

  2. Where the elite members of the community capture all the benefits of participatory conservation initiatives.

  3. Economic status was measured using land holding and ability to support livelihood needs with daily income (Spiteri and Nepal 2008).

  4. Nepal consists of a social hierarchy based on the Hindu religion. Each individual, by birth, belongs to one of the four varna or classes. The four caste divisions are Brahmins (priests or scholars), Chhetri (rulers and warriors), Vaisya (Merchant or traders), and Sudra (farmers, artisans, and laborers). Below all this are the Dalits or the untouchables. In this paper, lower caste usually refers to the Dalits. The National Dalit Commission defines Dalits as “those communities who, by virtue of caste based discrimination and so called untouchability, are most backward in the social, economic, educational, political, and religious spheres, and are deprived of human dignity and social justice” (Pradhan and Shrestha 2005, p. 3).

  5. The number when totaled comes to more than 44 because there was an overlap between the members and the different management groups.

  6. Although there are many other management committees under ACAP (health post committee, day care center committee, road construction committee, school committee, etc.) these five committees were chosen, because they were related to natural resources and women’s empowerment; both issues were relevant to the research. The CAMC is the local institution under the ACAP required by the 1996 Conservation Area Management Regulation and legally recognized under the Conservation Area Management Act. Under the CAMC are many different sub-committees. These five were chosen because they were related to natural resource management and gender. The Ama Samuha/mothers’ group is a women only group. The MAS assists the CAMC in conservation and development activities. Each of the 9 wards has one or more WAS responsible for their ward. Each committee consists of 15–20 members, generally with a president, vice president, secretary, and a treasurer. These committee members are selected from each of the 9 wards within a VDC by the community members and then elected into their official position by the committee members themselves.

  7. The main concept behind the Maoist movement or the “people’s war” is “based on a sense of injustice due to the way in which a social group is treated” (Murshed and Gates 2005, p. 122). It is a civil movement that started in 1996 to collect all castes and gender together to create a wholesome new Nepal.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Dr. Siddhartha Bajracharya for his assistance in Kathmandu and at the National Trust for Nature Conservation. We are also grateful to the ACAP staff in Ghandruk and Pokhara for all their assistance on the research. We sincerely thank the people of Ghandruk who shared their perspectives and time with us within the ACA. We would also like to thank Texas AgriLife Research at Texas A&M University for their funding support.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical standards

We have met all ethical guidelines for the research and adhered to the current laws and legal requirements of Nepal and the Annapurna Conservation Area.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Recreation, Park & Tourism Sciences, Center for Socioeconomic Research and Education, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA

    Smriti Dahal & Michael A. Schuett

  2. Department of Geography and Environmental Management, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada

    Sanjay K. Nepal

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  1. Smriti Dahal
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Correspondence to Smriti Dahal.

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Dahal, S., Nepal, S.K. & Schuett, M.A. Examining Marginalized Communities and Local Conservation Institutions: The Case of Nepal’s Annapurna Conservation Area. Environmental Management 53, 219–230 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-013-0204-8

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