Participatory Community Awareness on Conservation of Globally Important Sites at West Central Nepal

Ishana Thapa

The main objective of the project is to educate and aware the local public and the tourism entrepreneurs on birds, biodiversity and environment and also encourage tourism entrepreneurs to inform Lumbini and Jagdishpur reservoir's global significance for biodiversity.

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Lumbini, Birth Place of Lord Buddha is listed a "World Heritage Site" by UNESCO and declared "Fountain of World Peace" by World Buddhist Federation because of its immense historical and archaeological importance. Many countries and leading Buddhist institutions have constructed magnificent monasteries and monuments in Lumbini garden reflecting their respective indigenous architecture.

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Hindus and Buddhist along with large number of international and domestic tourists visit Lumbini every year. The site is equally significant for ecosystem conservation as the farmlands and wetlands of Lumbini are significantly important for the birds hence globally recognised as an Important Bird Area in Nepal less understood by the local communities and the tour entrepreneurs. Many other important fauna and flora are also found here. Environmentally unfriendly activities of the local due to lack of education and awareness as well as emerging industrial growth are bringing adverse negative impact on the ecological environment of these globally important sites for culture and biodiversity. Jagdishpur reservoir, Ramsar Site lying close to Lumbini is also facing the same problems.

The main objective of the project is to educate and aware the local public and the tourism entrepreneurs on birds, biodiversity and environment and also encourage tourism entrepreneurs to inform Lumbini and Jagdishpur reservoir's global significance for biodiversity. This certainly helps to increase their participation in biodiversity conservation and benefit local income generation from already existing cultural tourism. The project will help to motivate the local people and tourism entrepreneurs for long term commitment towards conserving the biodiversity in their surroundings by making them understand that knowledge on ecological value of Lumbini and Jagdishpur with some effort on publicity could bring them more benefit from the visiting tourist.

The project is based on the fact that mobilising local people in conserving biodiversity by bringing benefit to them will require less financial input as well as sustainability which are most essential in nature conservation in developing countries. So this project will support the local economy and biodiversity conservation by connecting cultural tourism and ecotourism providing a lasting contribution to the nature conservation

This project will help in establishing an excellent network with local communities, tourism entrepreneurs and other organisations stationed at the project site. Local communities will be made aware on biodiversity conservation as well as trained as a nature guide. They will be engaged by the tourism entrepreneurs once nature tourism flourishes supporting local income generation. Business entrepreneurs will be encouraged to invest small part of their profit in biodiversity conservation and local livelihood improvement.

More over, an effective education material will be produced as part of the project and informative boards will be placed at the potential spot of Lumbini and Jagdishpur reservoir.

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