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Community-Based Protected Area Development

Through status surveys and baseline research, we identify unprotected red panda habitat with viable populations of 100 individuals or more.  We use The Mountain Institute’s Appreciative Participatory Planning and Action methodology and identify forest stewards, whom we call "forest guardians." These guardians not only conduct awareness-building workshops on red pandas with local villages and schools but also serve as a basis for continuing The Red Panda Project’s baseline research and monitoring and the establishment of community-based protected areas. Using this methodology, we are in the process of establishing our first community-based protected area, the Panchthar-Ilam-Singhalila Red Panda Protected Forest, in the Panchthar and Ilam districts of eastern Nepal.

Panchthar-Ilam-Singhalila Red Panda Protected Forest:
The World's First Protected Area Dedicated to Red Panda

The Panchthar-Ilam-Singhalila region of eastern Nepal harbors one of the most biologically-diverse areas in the world.  This region also contains eastern Nepal's most extensive Lithocarpus forests and localized Himalayan Yew (Taxus wallichiana).  It has been recognized as an important area for global bio-diversity conservation by a number of leading international conservation organizations (WWF, BirdLife International, Conservation International) as well as nationally recognized by the Nepalese government.  The creation of the Panchthar-Ilam-Singhalila Red Panda Protected Forest would connect the tri-national Kanchenjunga Conservation Area with India’s Barsey Rhododendron Garden and Singhalila National Park, creating an uninterrupted stretch of protected land extending for 11,500 km².

This area is critical not only to the red panda but also to other endangered species such as the clouded leopard and leopard cat, as well as an exceptionally rich avi-faunal diversity.  However, this area is most important to red panda because:

1.  It contains approximately 25% of Nepal's red panda population with approximately 100 individuals found in 178 km² of habitat.

2.  The Singhalila red panda population is protected in only half of its range (in India's Singhalila National Park).

The proposed Panchthar-Ilam-Singhalila Red Panda Protected Forest will be the largest “protected forest” in Nepal and the first to be managed by a network of community forests.  According to His Majesty’s Government of Nepal forest legislation, any community forest can declare a portion of their managed land as “protected”.  Our goal is to create the Panchthar-Ilam-Singhalila Community Forest Conservation Union, a network of all community forests bordering the proposed Panchthar-Ilam-Singhalila Red Panda Protected Forest. The Panchthar-Ilam-Singhalila Community Forest Conservation Union will elect a 12 member board that will manage the 708 km²  of the Panchthar-Ilam-Singhalila Red Panda Protected Forest. 

Red Panda Network:
An Earth Island Institute Project
info@redpandanetwork.org

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