Abstract: The modern era of wildlife and protected area conservation in Nepal began in 1973 with the passage of comprehensive legislation, and has evolved very quickly as new priorities and problems have emerged. Here we explore the legal and managerial development of conservation areas, a recently-defined category of protected area designed to promote conservation through local-level participation and development. A review of the Conservation Area Management Regulations of 1996 shows that there are several potential problems inherent in this designation. As written, the regulations move power from the government to organizations under governmental contract. Thus, management authority largely remains top-down from the standpoint of local users. We also question how well the designation will protect some sensitive wildlife species, since organizations do not have law enforcement authority under Nepalese legislation.
Despite these concerns, there have been several successful conservation area programmes in existence in Nepal since the 1980s and most of the issues addressed are surmountable with the current regulations, providing that several criteria are met. We propose that His Majesty's Government and organizations under contract develop more definitive methods of disbursing funds for local-level projects, and institute social impact assessments. In addition, more attention must be paid to wildlife law enforcement; independent assessments of important wild populations and unique habitats are needed. Finally, we discuss some broader issues that should be better addressed in Nepal and elsewhere, including cross-sectoral coordination within the government.

Abstract: Considerable efforts have been devoted to conserving the snow leopard Panthera uncia in recent years, but progress has inevitably been slow due to the difficulties of studying a sparsely distributed, secretive and endangered species in often isolated mountainous terrain. Although knowledge about the species overall distribution in the highlands of Central Asia still remains fragmenatry, it is important to briefly examine all the available information in order to review measures taken to date to conserve the species through the protected areas network. The purpose of this paper is to examine the distribution and status of protected areas inhabited or visited by snow leopard in relation to the species' distribution and highlight deficiences in the present network.

Abstract: Changes in economy and land use are under way in the Indian Transhimalayan region of Ladakh, creating both negative and positive prospects for wildlife conservation in this sparsely populations and previously remote area. New livestock breeds, irrigation developments, farming practices, foreign tourists, and a large military presence are changing the way people view and use the mountainous land that surrounds them. With only 0.3% of the land currently arable, changes in wildlife and natural resource conservation are most apparent on Ladakh's extensive rangelands which are apparently undergoing a redistribution of use associated with social changes and recently introduced animal husbandry and farming practices. International endangered species such as the snow leopard, several wild ungulates, and the black-necked crane provide special incentive for conservation efforts in what are some of the best remaining natural areas in the mountainous regions to the north of the Himalayan crest. The success of newly created protected areas for wildlife conservation in Ladakh rests on an understanding of the effects of various development directions, a commitment to environmentally sensitive development amid the many competing demands on Ladakh's natural resources, conservation laws appropriate to human needs, and a clear recognition that solutions can be neither directly adaptable from other mountainous areas nor even widely applicable across the Himalayan region.