Nepal’s youngest national park looks to elevated lanes to prevent roadkill
Nepal’s youngest national park looks to elevated lanes to prevent roadkill
Abhaya Raj Joshi, Mongabay
July 23, 2024
See link
https://news.mongabay.com/2024/07/nepals-youngest-national-park-looks-to-elevated-lanes-to-prevent-roadkill/
for photos.
On the two-lane Amlekhgunj-Pathlaiya road, a long line of red and yellow
trucks carrying petroleum forms as traffic is brought to a standstill by a
car stalled in the middle of the road. Amid the cacophony of honking horns,
rumbling engines and the occasional screech of brakes, the car is towed
away. Dust clouds rise again from the asphalt as the trucks pick up speed
along this crucial trade route between Nepal and India.
Flanking this busy highway is the 627-square-kilometer (242-square-mile)
Parsa National Park, Nepal’s newest and home to subtropical forest and
grasslands that form part of the vital Chitwan-Parsa Complex. This is a
land where Asian elephants (Elephas maximus), tigers (Panthera tigris) and
other wildlife move about their traditional migratory routes in search of
sustenance and mating.
The road section here is a hotspot for wildlife roadkill in Nepal. Between
2016 and 2018, 60 animals, mostly deer, snakes and monkeys, were struck and
killed by vehicles in Parsa, with 75% of the incidents occurring on the
Amlekhgunj-Pathlaiya stretch. In the past two years, the figure stood at
39. In 2021, an adult female tiger was among the casualties.
The effect of the highway on wildlife is expected to be amplified under a
government plan to expand the road to four lanes to ease congestion and cut
down on travel time.
“We are working on plans to expand the eastern section of the East-West
Highway, including the Amlekhgunj-Pathlaiya section,” said Shova Giri,
assistant director at an Asian Development Bank-funded project to improve
road networks across South Asia.
The plan, not yet finalized, reportedly calls for building elevated road
sections in areas passing through crucial wildlife crossings to minimize
accidents. The Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation
(DNPWC) has proposed two elevated roads: one running 1 kilometer (0.6
miles) and the other 2.5 km (1.6 mi) around Parsa National Park, said
Ramchandra Khatiwada, the park’s chief conservation officer.
According to DNPWC, around 200 km (120 mi) of the 1,028-km (639-mi)
East-West Highway runs through national parks that are important tiger
habitat: Banke National Park has 100 km (60 mi) of highway, Bardiya has 30
km (19 mi), Parsa 20 km (12 mi), Shuklaphanta 8 km (5 mi), and the buffer
zone of Chitwan National Park has 5 km (3 mi).
In contrast to Parsa, Chitwan and Bardiya national parks have implemented
stricter measures to protect their wildlife. In Chitwan, a UNESCO World
Heritage site, the U.N. agency has long opposed the construction of
highways through the core area of the park. Similarly, in Bardiya National
Park, where the highway was built after the establishment of the protected
area, military checkpoints enforce so-called time cards: measures to ensure
vehicles travel slowly enough to avoid hitting any wildlife.
Parsa is believed to host around 45 elephants and as many tigers. Migratory
elephant herds from India also find their way into Parsa on their age-old
east-west routes. The park is also home to various species of deer, wild
cattle and reptiles.
A study published in 2023 used satellite collars to compare tiger movements
in Bardiya and Parsa during and after COVID-19 lockdowns. It found that
tigers in Bardiya were more likely to cross the highway than those in
Parsa, regardless of the imposition or lifting of lockdown measures. “This
shows that even measures such as time cards are effective in facilitating
the movement of animals,” said Shova Kumari Chhetri, sustainable
infrastructure specialist at WWF-Nepal.
However, implementing similar measures in Parsa has proved difficult. “We
have been unable to implement time cards due to various reasons,” Khatiwada
said. “One of the major reasons is that the road was laid before Parsa was
gazetted as a national park [in 2017]. Also, the volume of traffic is very
big compared to Bardiya and Chitwan, as it is part of the India-Nepal trade
route.”
India, Nepal’s biggest trading partner, exports a wide array of products to
Nepal, including fuel, food, medicine, vehicles and machinery. Most of this
trade volume passes through the Raxaul border crossing, which connects to
the Amlekhgunj-Parsa route.
Building elevated roads in protected areas is a new concept for Nepal,
introduced after the rollout of the country’s first policy guidelines on
construction of wildlife-friendly infrastructure. These required developers
of so-called linear infrastructure (such as roads, railways and power
lines) to implement safeguards in the designs aimed at allowing wildlife to
cross these barriers with minimum harm.
While the loan agreement for the western section of the highway was signed
before the guidelines came into effect, variation funds were used to
upgrade culverts and bridges to facilitate wildlife crossings along the
Butwal-Narayanghat section of the highway, said conservationist Jhamak
Karki, a consultant for the ADB-funded project.
For the eastern section, the costs of elevated roads can be incorporated
into the project’s budget. Another elevated road has been proposed in the
Barandabhar area of Chitwan, the only recognized north-south corridor for
animal movement in Nepal that falls within the Chitwan-Annapurna Landscape
(CHAL).
“If constructed, the elevated road will help mitigate the impact of the
East-West Highway on the animals in Parsa,” said conservationist Roshan
Sherchan. “This will provide a crucial passage for animals whose movement
has been hampered by the highway acting as a barrier.”
Even after the structures get the green light, the actual job of building
them is expected to be fraught with challenges. “We also need safeguard
measures during the construction phase as animals won’t stop moving just
because a bridge is being constructed,” Parsa’s Khatiwada said. He also
said it will take years for animals to adapt to the new crossings once
they’re in place. However, that’s the least that can be done to prevent the
highway from remaining a barrier, he added.
As Nepal navigates the challenges of modern infrastructure development
while conserving its natural heritage, the proposed elevated roads in Parsa
and Chitwan represent a significant step forward in conservation, Sherchan
said.
Until then, the serpentine line of trucks on the Amlekhgunj-Pathlaiya
highway continues rumbling along, raising dust and the concerns of
conservationists. With the elevated sections, their thinking goes, those
worries can be put to rest.