Abstract

Royal Bardia National Park started life as a Protected Area in 1976 when a small area was gazetted as the Royal Karnali Wildlife Reserve. However, the history of protection goes back much further to the regime of the Ranas (1856-1950) who decreed that large parts of the Nepali terai were to be stringently protected as hunting reserves.

Thus, in common with so many other good parks of the subcontinent, Bardia owes its present existence and relative good health to the hunting proclivities of the local rulers.

By the end of the Second World War, however, anti-malarial drugs and pesticides had largely neutralised the threat of malaria. In 1950 with the overthrow of the Ranas political protection to the terai was removed. Shortly after this the government of Nepal launched the malaria eradication programme and opened up the rich lowlands of the terai to settlement by the people from the over-populated hills. By the mid-1960's most of the forests of the central terai had vanished under the plough and the axe. Fortunately West Nepal was not as severely effected.

n 1982 the Royal Karnali Wildlife Reserve was renamed the Royal Bardia Wildlife Reserve and in 1984 the Babai valley extending from Paraodwar to Chepang was added to the Reserve bringing it to its present size. In the process 1500 people were resettled outside the reserve. (Rumour has it that these people, goaded by resentment and equipped with an intimate knowledge of the land indulge in extensive poaching in the Babai valley). In 1988 the reserve was upgraded to National Park status.

The Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation (DNPWC) manages protected Areas in Nepal, which in turn is part of the Ministry of Forests and Soil Conservation. A Warden, who is in turn assisted by an Asst.Warden and rangers, manages Bardia. A battalion of the Royal Nepal Army provides physical protection to the park. As part of the Park & People Programme initiated by the DNPWC an area of 327 sq. kms. surrounding the park was declared a buffer zone in 1997. This consists of forests and private lands and is jointly managed by the park and local communities. The effort is to restore degraded forests by making the local people stakeholders in the forests and direct beneficiaries of the conservation effort. The aim is to improve and enlarge the land base for wildlife. The Research and Training Centre for Protected Areas (RTCPA) was established at Lalmati in Bardia in 1998.

The park lies within the sub-tropical moist deciduous vegetation zone. The fertile soil and abundant moisture supports a dense, luxuriant growth and trees of all species reach optimum size in this region. Seventy percent of the park is covered by 'sal forest', a generic name to describe forests dominated by sal (Shorea robusta) and its companion species such as Saj (Terminalia tomentosa), T.chebula, T. bellarica, Laegostroemia parvifolia, Garuga pennata, Mallotus phillipenensis, etc. The trees are often draped in massive lianas such as Spatholobus roxburghii and Bauhinia vahlii which often collapse to form bizarre shapes in the jungle. This forest occupies the higher ground free from flooding. The balance of the park is a mix of grasslands and riverine forest. The grasslands can be further divided into those that lie within the alluvial floodplain of the rivers and the short grass areas that occupy higher ground and cover a relatively small area of the park. The grass species are hetropogon, themeda, cyanodon, saccharum, imperata, etc. Khair (Acacia catechu), +.shishum (Dalbergia sissoo) and semal (Bombax ceiba) dominate the riverine forests. A finger of the park extends into the Siwalik Hills where a more mixed vegetation is found.