Shey-Phoksundo National Park

Shey-Phoksundo_Dipshikha
Abstract
The economic well being of Nepal is closely bound to its natural resources and as a signatory to the Convention on Biological diversity (1992), the governemnt works closely with its people to meet the prescribed goals of conservation. This detailed study of one such conservation area, namely Shey Phoksundo National Park in north west Nepal shows how all the approaches so far meets several problems and challenges when it comes to balancing the ideas of management and scienctific knowledge. This paper also sheds some light into areas that remain to be explored despite concentration of world wide interest and importance.
Introduction

Location: Shey-Phoksundo National Park (SPNP) is situated in the Trans-Himalayan district of Dolpa and Mugu in the region of northwest Nepal. It is Nepal’s largest National Park covering an area of 3,555 km2. Dolpa is known as the least developed and remote mountainous district of Nepal. It is the largest district in context to area covered: 7932.3 km2 (5.38 % of country’s area) and smallest in population occurred of country Nepal. Dolpa, in the rain shadow of northwestern Nepal, is the most arid (450-800 mm precipitation) district in the country (Kunwar, 2004). The temperature varies from (-10°C) in winter to 22°C in summer.
Establishment: It was established in 1984 to preserve a unique Trans-Himalayan ecosystem with a diversity of flora and fauna. In 1998, an area of 1349 km2 surrounding the park was declared as buffer zone, which consists of forests and private lands. SPNP is being managed by park staffs by maintaining a people-oriented approach as per the Himalayan National Parks Regulation 2036 (1979). According to this regulation, legal access in the park resources for subsistence living is provided to the local people who live inside the park boundary. It is also realized that this much arrangement is not sufficient for gaining peoples' participation in conservation and management of bio-diversity and ecological integrity of the park area without considering the needs of local people who are living in the buffer zone of the park.
The beneficiaries of the national park and buffer zone area are 2695 households opf the 11 VDCs of buffer zone area, Rimi, Kaigau, Tripurakot, Kimri and Dolphu VDCs are located in western part, Dhho VDC in East, Raha VDC in Southern part.
Uniqueness:
Biological & Physical Aspects
1. Highest landscape, lake (h=3611asl, 494 hectare, 9880 ropanis), highest waterfall (170 m), meadows, forests and rivers
2. Since time immemorial, the wind, earth and movement of sun and moon has produced waves on the lakes surface. So its name was phoksumdho, i.e. phok = inside; sum = three and dho=culmination
3. There are 529 species of vascular plants including minimum 30 species of endemic plants .Similarly, over 32 species of mammals including threatened snow leopard (Panthera uncia), musk deer (Muschus chrysogaster) are inhabited in this park. The only endemic bird species of Nepal - Spiny babbler and Nepal Wren babbler are also recorded in the park. Currently classified as endangered and protected under Appendix I of NPWC Act 1973.
4. The land use pattern of the park shows that over 61.6 % (2188.94 km2) of the area is barren covered with rocks and ice, about 3.7% (129.63 km2) is under forest including shrub land, 34.4% (meadows 1219.09 km2) under pasture and meadows, 0.15 % (5.18 km2) and less than 0.04 % (12.16 km2) is occupied by cultivated lands.
5. Co-existence of 21 types of ecosystem and 10 types of vegetation.
6. Estimated presence of 1579 species of flora.
7. Natural habitat of the blue sheep (Pseudois nayaur) which is the key prey of the snow leopard, hence very important in the conservation of the latter.

Cultural & Traditional Aspects
1. The park contains many ‘gombas’ (monasteries) and religious sites. The famous Shey Gompa was established in the 11th Century. Thashung Gomba located near Phoksundo Lake was built 900 years before to conserve wildlife.

2. Residents inside the NP observe ancient Bon Po religion and practice it to this day. Several aspects of their rituals and close association with nature ensure their closeness with their environment and calls for enlistment under the “World Heritage Site”.
3. Traditional healers walk the valley carrying with then indigenous knowledge of the wild herbs and are called ‘Amchis”.
4. Residents at the nearest Ringmo village (see picture below) near the lake regard the water of the lake as holy and capable of curing several illnesses. There exists few fairy tales about the existence of the lake.

BioReserve Strategy and Landscape Approach

1. IUCN management category: NP II, BZ VI.
2. It harbors the highest number of rare, endangered, endemic and medicinal plants (NTFP’s) in Nepal.
3. SPNP represents Trans-Himalayan Ecosystem.

Application of the BioReserve strategy and Landscape approach is useful here due to its vast terrain, abundant biodiversity and sparse human population is areas that lie south of the NP. Nevertheless, the dependence on its natural resources is so high that there is constant need for better culmination of the conservation strategies and ecosystem management techniques. The two as we know are difficult to achieve without striking the right balance between the principles of management and the basic theories of science.
So we will deal with the concerned issues and challenges in the following pages.

Google Earth picture of the SPNP and its surrounding areas
The SPNP is important from the conservation point of view due to co-existence of the nations second largest lake, the Phoksundo lake which is a declared Ramsar site, and abundance of rangelands especially in areas that border the Tibetan Autonomous Region of China. Phoksundo lake is y- shaped alpine fresh water oligotrophic lake. It drains to Phoksundo River at south and is a high- altitude wetland, hence of high importance in the mountains of the Himalayan range.
Issues, Problems and Challenges in SPNP
It is essential to mention some relevant legislation working at the SPNP. They are as follows:
*National Parks and Wildlife Conservation Act 1973
*National Parks and Wildlife Conservation Regulations 1974
*Mountaineering Expedition Regulations1979
*Himalayan National Parks Regulations 1980
*Buffer Zone Regulations 1996
*Northern Mountains Conservation Project (NMCP) in collaboration with DNPWC.
* People and Plants Initiative 1997

The communities in Shey Phoksundo National Park engage in agriculture, animal husbandry and trade for their livelihood and depend heavily on the forests and pasture resources for their energy, fodder and timber needs. An increasing pressure on forest and pasture resources from livestock and trade in non-timber forest products, inadequate data for endangered species, unsustainable use of natural resources, and limited park staff continue to pose problems for conservation of biodiversity and sustainable use of resources. The five-year integrated conservation and development project, NMCP (1996-2001) supported by USAID and WWF was initiated in SPNP to facilitate local management of natural resources and to improve living conditions while safeguarding the region's unique natural heritage.
Nevertheless, the issues, problems and challenges faced by the residents and officials of the Pak management are several. They are broadly categorized as under three headings, namely, social, economic and ecological.

Social: issues concerning the livelihood of people because it is very dependent on the natural resources and its extraction; ancient and traditional religious aspects that help maintain the diversity around yet faces danger of ceasing to exist; sustainability of the agro ecosystem that includes all the cultivated/wild/imported food, horticulture; proper care and management of the indigenous livestock & poultry;
Economic: all issues that regard the vulnerable mountain ecosystem includes the agriculture, forests, wetlands, rangelands, and the threats it faces due to increasing population and the hidden facets of climate change in the mountains; development of tourism is important yet a sensitive issue considering its diverse nature and inaccessibility to some areas;
Ecological: the whole mountain ecosystem which is unique and needs proper care in the wake of emerging challenges like the global rise in temperature; the abundance yet susceptibility of the species diversity; sustainability and survival of the protected, threatened and endemic species;

In wake of the above issues, the real problems of the SPNP are also not few. Studies have shown that it is still lacking in proper recognition of priority areas, there is a huge gap in the availability of sufficient data about the area and its diversity and people, the acting legislations & regulations are continue to work in paper in some places where the hands of law cannot touch, the obvious disparity and lack of good governance, and despite numerous efforts from the public and international fronts, the Park managers continue to face conflicts from the locals in Community participation.
These issues and problems mentioned above represent that the current challenges now facing both the people and the park officials at the SPNP are multi-fold and as follows: poverty, illiteracy, unsustainable use of natural resources, lack of awareness, improper regulation techniques, inadequate data for monitoring endangered wildlife species and the ever changing need for trans-boundary bi-lateral relationship.

Conservation Critique
In the course of my readings on conservation works that have been carried out at SPNP, I became aware that all conservation strategy and approaches are similar to those which have been tried elsewhere and therefore the constraints are also similar in nature. Like park- people conflicts, ways to increase livelihoods while reducing dependence on park’s resources, general access and control measures opposed by the communities, poor governance and implementation, among various others. So I opine that for my particular assigned park, there are certain lapses on the part of the government and park officials that has so far hindered its conservation progress. I am aware that a lot of work in SPNP is done towards preserving the medicinal and aromatic plants (MAP’s) which are indigenous and endemic to this region alone. The world wide demand for MAP’s is big and since SPNP shares its borders with the Tibet in the north, there are increased incidents of the valued products like the ‘yarchagumba’ (Cordyceps sinensis) being smuggled into our neighboring countries. In this report I have tried to focus more on the studies done so far towards balancing use and conservation of Himalayan medicinal and aromatic plants.
In SPNP alone, Rapid Vulnerability Assessment (RVA) of traded species was carried out for some essential MAP’s. This helped set up a few Traditional Health Care Centre (THCC) and Medicinal Plants Management Committees (MPMC) in the Phoksundo VDC.
Still these centres need to be upgraded to work to their fullest potential. Ethnoecological research have revealed that ‘Amchis’ have profound knowledge about the biology, ecology of the MAP’s and are also careful in its use. While traders will not take care about the sustainability of the plants, Amchis on the other hand are careful during harvesting and practice an approach that aims at sustaining the regeneration of the plant populations.
So conservation techniques at SPNP still need to integrate the indigenous knowledge and scientific knowledge in order to develop a guideline for formal community- based management system of MAP’s.
Other pitfalls in the conservation strategy are related to unfair trade practices and unsustainable collection of the natural resources. More people believe that medicinal plant harvesters are cheated by the middle – men. There are debates on whether commercial production will lead to its sustainable future or not. In all, several studies have shown that there is still room for improvement on the following terms:
# National priority should be given to medicinal plants. A separate policy should be formulated to encompass medicinal and aromatic plants; # Adequate research should be conducted with the specific aim of solving socioeconomic and technological constraints; # The collecting and harvesting, of medicinal and aromatic plants from naturally regenerating forest should be streamlined and monitored for effective control on indiscriminate collection; # The Department of Forests should take a leading role in the regeneration of medicinal plants. Plantations should be developed in the appropriate ecological zones for replenishing the growing stocks; # It is desirable to formulate an integrated resource development plan for effective and sustainable management of medicinal and aromatic plants; # There is the urgent need to develop agro-technology for domestication of naturally occurring medicinal and aromatic plants, especially those species exploited heavily; # Special protection should be provided to forest areas where the danger of depletion of MAPs is high; # Collectors need to be trained on proper post-harvest techniques (drying, storage) in order to minimize wastage and unnecessary losses;# Adequate research should be directed towards effective and sustainable utilization of MAPs, i.e., their phytochemistry and potential pharmacological properties should be investigated so that they could be utilized for the production of pharmaceuticals or cosmetics for domestic use or export;
# Alternative fuels should be tapped and the use of fuelwood in the hills should be discouraged. Microhydro electricity generation units, solar power, wind power should be developed and utilized. (Status of Commercialization of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants in Nepal by Rana Bahadur Rawal. Herb Production and Processing Company Limited (HPPCL), Nepal)
I mention the above points as it is from the book because it speaks in whole about other lapses and short comings like in governance, equity, participation and benefit- sharing among others. There are several more problems in the field of building an effective strategy for responsible tourism in this area. This is a separate issue in itself which again opens several opportunities for study and research. There are needs for several amendments in the country’s policies for NTFP’s and tourism related sector. Also product development and marketing are major tools that need to be well defined and tried before we can venture out into the fields. So in my opinion there is still a need for development of a vast knowledge base, especially related to SPNP, its resources and how we can help develop the place and its people. One work carried out in a particular NP may not be feasible for all, so the stakeholders should ensure that proper research is done in advance. And lastly, like any place else on earth, SPNP is also affected by the perils of climate change. Its residents are witnessing a change which is rapid and are less prepared to face the consequences.
Thus Nepal as the fourth most vulnerable nation (to climate change affects) needs to have its priorities set right. Recent proceedings at the 10th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) on 22nd October 2010 at Nagoya, Japan has the following strategy for Nepal: Reduce the direct pressures on biodiversity and promote sustainable use, under the theme: Safeguarding genetic diversity in agricultural and natural systems.
Conclusion and recommendations
• Better understanding of Conservation strategies and approaches (source-sink dynamics; meta-population; ex-situ & in-situ relationship…)
• Conservation measures to be grounded in natural sciences with necessary inputs from others.
• Conservation to be across boundaries.
• Integration of education in all programs.
• Assess vulnerabilities at all times. For example DPSIR model… and extensive application of GIS and remote sensing for PA management.
• Timely revision of acts, guidelines and regulations.
• Improved participatory management
• Greater legal recognition to ITK and stakeholders.
• Greater need for