Nepal's biodiversity profile (2014)
Flora
Fauna
Source – NBSAP (2014 – 2020)
Nepal's share in global biodiversity.
Nepal's unique geography, with associated variation in the physiographic and climatic conditions have resulted in rich biodiversity. At the species level, the rapid change along the environmental gradient gives rise to high beta diversity. The country occupies only 0.1 percent of the global area, but harbors over three percent and one percent of the world's known flora and fauna, respectively. Nepal's biodiversity profile records 208 mammas, 867 birds, 123 reptiles, 55 (+-) amphibians, 230 freshwater fish and 651 butterfly species. This high species diversity is also accompanied by high endemism. Increasing steadily from low to high elevations, a total of 284 flowering plants, 160 animal species, including one mammal species, one bird species and 24 herpetofauna are endemic to Nepal.
Species conservation is challenged by multiple factors that arise from the growing human expansion and modern development. Many plant and animal species are threatened due to habitat loss, poaching and trade, conflicts with humans and climate change.
NTNC since its establishment has worked hand in hand with the government and conservation partners to achieve some notable success in species conservation. Bringing back the Bengal tiger and one-horned rhinoceros form their course to local extinction is a remarkable example of how successful species-focused conservation can save species that are in crisis. In just a few decades, NTNC has supported the government in numerous initiatives that has resulted in the following key achievement in species conservation.
Animal welfare and human wellbeing is at the center of species conservation. NTNC's long standing involvement in species focused conservation recognizes its multifaceted nature and takes both in-situ and ex-situ approach. Engaging communities, ensuring animal welfare, promoting human-wildlife co-existence and combating wildlife crime are NTNC's working areas that carry the mantle of species conservation.
The 5th Executive Committee Meeting of SAWEN has commenced proceedings from today in Male, Maldives from March 26, 2019. The function was inaugurated by Dr Abdulla Naseer, Minister of State for Environment in the presence of senior government officials from Maldives together with the SAWEN focal persons.
Understanding how wide-ranging animals use landscapes in which human use is highly heterogeneous is important for determining patterns of human–wildlife conflict and designing mitigation strategies.Here, we show how biological sign surveys in forested components of a human-dominated landscape can be combined with human interviews in agricultural portions of a landscape to provide a full picture of seasonal use of different landscape components by wide-ranging animals and resulting human–wildlife conflict. We selected Asian elephants (Elephasmaximus) in Nepal to illustrate this approach.
Sloth bears are an iconic species of Chitwan National Park, Nepal. They are known to make seasonal movements between the Churia Hills and floodplains of the Rapti and Narayani Rivers (Joshi et al. 1995). They were well studied in Chitwan during 1990s but their status in recent years is unknown. It is believed that the population of sloth bears is increasing in Chitwan based on frequent sightings and bear attacks on humans (Bishnu Lama, NTNC chief wildlife technician, pers. comm.). Sloth bears are also captured frequently in camera traps, which are deployed to study tigers (Dhakal et al.
In 1989, after Smithsonian Institution,USA completed its assignment in the Chitwan National Park (CNP), Nepal and handed over the Nepal Terai Ecology Project to NTNC, the Trust established the Nepal Conservation Research and Training Center (NCRTC) to conduct biological research and monitoring of flora and fauna in the lowland (Terai) protected areas of Nepal. In the course of time, the Center widened its focus and added a human dimension to its conservation efforts.
