Sandeep Shrestha NRS 534 Role of Corridor Conservation in Landscape Ecology of Nepal By studying Island Biogeography theory(IBA) in Protected area management course during undergraduate study , I have understanding of this theory implicated in Protected area management systems as :1) Make protected area(PA) as large as possible,2) Protected areas should encompass wide range of contiguous and different ecosystems and 3)Protected area should be connected through some linkages for effective immigration and emigration of animal species and preventing isolation. I think the 3rd implication of IBA provides Knowledge based science to link PA ( which we assumes as Island) through a linear strip of vegetation cover, which we referred such linkages as " corridor" in Wildlife science. According to Wikipedia, wildlife corridor is a link of wildlife habitat through native vegetation giving two or more large areas of similar wildlife habitat. The role of Corridor is important in Landscape ecology for following reasons: As habitat ( can be considered as patch in spatial scale) becomes fragmented due to human factors or natural forces, species becomes isolated resulting into the loss of reduced population viability thereby facing greater risk of extinction. In such situation, linking species between these patches will result into species colonization and gene flow between species reducing potentiality of species being vulnerable to extinction. In this regard, maintaining corridor will serves species to move/disperse across the different habitat patches in landscape helping species to exchange genes , maintain viable population and accommodating larger space. Wildlife corridor are identified as a) Regional corridor with width(>500 m) and connecting primary landscapes between larger important area of habitat b) Sub regional corridor with width (>300m) and wide enough to provide landscapes connection for species movement and dispersal c) Local corridor with width (>30m) are small and providing local connection of remaining vegetation patches. Wildlife corridor can be manmade and natural corridors. Man made corridors are built across highway roads connecting forest , green ways and riparian buffer. Natuurburg Zanderij Craito build in Netherland is excellent example of manmade corridor. Experimental corridors are also designed to evaluate corridor effectiveness. Large scale corridors are corridor connecting habitat locally or internationally and connect larger blocks of Protected areas. Florida Wildlife Corridor and Yellowstone to Yukon are the successful examples of Large scale corridors. One of the large scale corridor implemented is Terai Arc Landscape(TAL) in Nepal. Before corridor management implemented ,I would like to brief on historical conservation background of Nepal. Nepal started conservation in species level focusing conserving species like One horned rhinoceros, Royal Bengal Tiger, Elephant and Gharials. Later after 1970's the country 's started ecosystem level conservation and the first National Park , Chitwan National Park was established in 1973. Currently the protected area(PA) occupies 19.7% of total land of country and consists 10 National Park, 3 Wildlife reserve, 1 hunting reserve and 6 conservation areas. The PA's are successful in conserving endangered species like rhinos, tigers, elephants, vultures, several species of birds, fishes and reptiles . However PA management system was challenged by increasing human wildlife conflict ( for eg communities living nearby protected area suffering huge loss of agricultural/livestock depredation, household damages and human injuries and death from Park animals. Thereafter Buffer zone management system was adopted in 1990's to reduce human- willdife conflict as well as dependency of local people on PA resources. Under Buffer zone management system several areas (small patch size ) were reforested and these patches started offering extra additional habitat to Park animals, which substantially helped local communities in income generation through ecotourism and independency on Park resources. As adjacent forest areas of PA 's continues to expand through community effort it was felt that certain long ranging globally threatened species like Tigers cannot be protected by PA's themselves. This led to Paradigm shift of PA management system to Landscape Level Management conceptualizing Corridor connectivity in PA's leading to implementation of Terai Arc Landscape in 2001 - Largest corridor in Nepal. TAL, comprising 51,000km 2 is the largest forest corridor connecting 6 PA's of lowland region of Nepal as well connecting these PA's to 7 PA's of India. This landscape harbors globally important biodiversity of Terai Dun Savannah, grassland ecoregions and 3 Ramsar wetlands adopting landscape approach to conserve Asia's Large mammals like One horned rhinoceros, Royal Bengal Tiger, Elephants, Dolphins and different prey species of tiger. The forest corridor comprise 3 large river systems flowing from hilly region creating critical habitats and connectivity between churia hills and lowland terai. TAL comprises 7 corridors of which 4 corridors link within regional PA's and 3 forest corridor link with 4 PA's of India. Nepal government report states the number of Tiger population has increased by 60% from 2008 and records 193 number currently. The report further states due to TAL forest corridors successful in maintaining connectivity for tigers as well providing good habitat for prey species has resulted into the increase of tiger population in Nepal. As I reviewed different research works conducted in TAL, I found 4 research papers reported tiger signs was detected higher in TAL forest corridor within PA's then corridor lying outside the PA's. These papers also found that Tiger sign was present in all TAL corridor except for one corridor indicating the good potential for tiger dispersal and genetic exchange. Further, Transboundary movement of tigers( Nepal-India-Nepal) are recorded in this corridor as well. A study conducted on Tiger of Transboundary Terai Arc landscape reported a total number of 10 tigers were common for forest of India and Trans boundary TAL corridor between 2012- 2014. These studies shows that Nepal is successful in achieving landscape conservation through corridor connectivity. I reviewed few research papers to assess the corridor effectiveness in benefitting socio-economic status of local communities . I found that TAL forest corridors has reduced fuelwood dependency on PA , conducting different management interventions by TAL program like skill trainings, subsidy for biogas installation, nursery establishment, revolving fund establishment for conducting small business and creating job opportunity have resulted positive attitude of communities towards landscape conservation in TAL. It seems TAL is one of the successful landscape conservation in conserving forest ecosystems in corridors and sustaining Tiger population and their prey species, I think there has been enormous challenges in future. Rapid urbanization and human pressure are deforesting some of the critical bottlenecks of this corridor. As Tiger Population are increasing, human's killing and injuries by tiger are been recorded higher in recent year further aggravating human -wildlife conflict in this landscape. Sand and gravel extraction, livestock grazing and uncontrolled forest fires further adds complexity in managing this corridor for future. Further, Nepal government envision to construct railway and major highway connecting to India border in this corridor , further posing the potential threat on sustainability of landscape conservation in this corridor. I feel TAL is essaying a conservation model system of corridor conservation in Landscape Ecology in Nepal. As the success stories of TAL conservation is providing impressive results in biodiversity conservation, Nepal government has implemented another ambitious landscape conservation in recent year- CHAL (Chitwan Annapuran Linkanges) connecting PA's of Himalayan region to PA's of lowland terai, based on landscape metric river basin approach ( hydrological connectivity). Hence, to conclude, I would say landscape conservation through corridor connectivity seems effective in recent time, however issues like tiger-human conflict, poverty, potential of tiger poaching and developmental works may be threatening the long-term sustainability of this holistic approach of landscape level conservation in future. Annotated Bibliography Barber‐Meyer, S.M., Jnawali, S.R., Karki, J.B., Khanal, P., Lohani, S., Long, B., MacKenzie, D.I., Pandav, B., Pradhan, N.M.B., Shrestha, R. and Subedi, N., 2013. Influence of prey depletion and human disturbance on tiger occupancy in Nepal. Journal of Zoology, 289(1), pp.10-18. This study used the standard method in assessing the occupancy of tiger throughout the Terai Arc Landscape questioning whether tigers using 5 corridors are connecting PA source populations as well as determining the presence of prey base and human disturbances influencing tiger distribution. The tiger occupancy was conducted in 4 PA's, corridor forest, buffer forest using cluster sampling design with grid cell size of 225 km2 throughout the TAL area. The tiger occupancy was analyzed by using Program Presence V to model tiger occupancy and Alkaike Information Criteria (AIC ) to compare and select models. I found this research paper very interesting and scientific. What I felt from this paper was, large area of TAL was used for intensive tiger survey and enormous