Human-wildlife conflicts in a Nepalese protected area: conservation challenges, mitigation strategies, and policy implications

The global conservation movement is fueled by an increased number of protected areas (PAs), and it will continue to influence the conservation paradigm in the future. However, despite the unequivocal interest in PAs and their designation, their conservation success is compromised due to human-wildlife conflicts (HWCs). HWCs are age-old issues in PAs and conservation discourse, yet they continue to impede the conservation process and negatively impact the residents' wellbeing. Therefore, policy changes, including some changes in land-use patterns (e.g., a buffer zone concept), were made to accommodate the residents' livelihood needs. Further, a damage relief mechanism was introduced to mitigate HWCs in PAs, but still, HWCs remain a challenge to conservation efforts. This study looks at the HWCs from residents' perspectives in the context of Bardia National Park in Nepal, where a detailed account of problematic wildlife is documented, along with the overview of strategies to mitigate HWCs, damage relief mechanism, and their idea to foster successful PA management. We collected 871 responses from a resident survey for this study. Our findings show that a few selected wildlife species are problematic to residents while they use a combination of strategies to control HWCs, with varying degrees of success. The damage relief mechanism was not perceived well, and residents demand participatory management. The findings are discussed in detail along with the practical implications for PA management.