Concept note on Piloting Integrated Landscape Planning Framework in Mohana Kailali Corridor

Mohana Kailali Corridor

Mohana Kailali River, a boundary between Knahcnapur and Kailali has been recognized as Mohana Kailali Corridor for few years. Community forests along the eastern and western bank of the river are developed in such a way that they together have formed a corridor between Chure in the North and Dudhwa Tiger Reserve in the south. There are altogether 57 community forests including 40 in Kailali District and 17 in Kanchanpur district. In Kanchanpur the community forests are distributed in three village development committees namely Baisebichuwa, Raikawarbichuwa and Krishnapur. Similarly, towards Kailali the community forests are stretched over Dhangadi Municipality, and three VDCs such as Geta, Malakheti and Godwari.

The corridor has high conservation and livelihood value. It acts as a buffer for Laljhadi Corridor, a 16,000 hectare block of forest towards west. Until 10 years back, people of Dhanagdi had to rely on Laljhadi Forest for firewood, timber and fodder. However, after regeneration of forests along the Mohana River, the pressure on Laljhadi has been reduced noticeably.

A recent study carried out by WTLCP reveals that forest coverage has been increased significantly in this area. Likewise, the areas have evolved as a suitable habitat for dispersal animals, mainly between Dudhwa Tiger Reserve and Chure area. There are 94 bird species and more than 100 tree species. Likewise, it inhabits wildlife species like blue bull, spotted deer and wild boar. The basic need of local people mainly fodder and firewood has been fulfilled from these community forests and all forests along the eastern bank of the river have worked as live fence mainly in safeguarding people of Dhangadi Municipality from flood. With this fodder grasses facility, people re attracted towards adopting stall feeding livestock. Being market nearby, people of this area are motivated towards adopting improved livestock.

Western Terai Landscape Complex Project has supported local communities of this area with various conservation, livelihood improvement and institutional capacity building activities since 2005. With the support, a network of 24 community forests along the eastern bank called Mohana Kailali Community Forest Conservation Committee has been formed and strengthened. In addition, a coordination committee of 16 community forests along the river catchment area has been established at Godawari VDC of Kailali. Similarly, towards Kanchanpur District, coordination committees are formed and functional in three VDCs. In total, there are five coordination committees are established along the corridor - three in Kanchanpur and two in Kailali.

Need Integrated Landscape Plan
In essence, landscape level conservation advocates for integrating biodiversity conservation criteria in local development plan and programs. It requires consistent activities in corridor VDC, Municipality and DDC that ultimately lead to achieve common vision of conserving biodiversity resources at landscape level. In this backdrop, conservation activities that support landscape elements like forest ecosystem, wetland ecosystem, watershed, and grassland etc are to be included in the respective Municipality, Village Development and District Development plan and programs considering corridor area as sub set of their respective political boundary. The integrated landscape planning approach can be considered as a strategy of sustaining WTLCP supported activities in the days ahead. Considering it as a viable planning tool, WTLCP is supporting preparing an integrated management plan of Mohana Kailali Corridor in 2011.

Methodology
The integration process shall be carried out in three phases. Firstly, a management plan of the entire corridor shall be developed following stakeholder consultation and research process. Secondly, the priority activities of the management plan that are to be integrated in corridor connected local government's plan and program shall be sorted out through stakeholder consultation process. Finally, capacity of the respective local authority and community forests user committees shall be strengthened so that they together will be able to integrate biodiversity criteria in their respective periodical plan and implement coherently in the entire corridor areas.

While preparing the management plan, recently project supported study reports on biodiversity assessment and livelihood development findings will be taken as primary reference materials. In addition, various news and reports that have been produced during the project implementation period shall feed into the plan. Similarly, towards stakeholder consultation process, wider stakeholder meetings and workshops shall be carried out. The study findings and stakeholder perception shall be integrated while producing the management plan.

At the outset, efforts will be put towards developing stakeholders' ownership on the integrated plan concept as such. In this regards, through formal and informal meetings and workshops, the stakeholders shall be given with the concept note. Once they feel comfortable with the concept, the execution processes begin.

As part of integrating conservation criteria in local development plan and programs, WTLCP has already shared its annual plan in all corridor adjoining VDCs and Municipality by attending in person their ongoing planning workshops. In addition, some of the VDCs have been influenced to formulate environment related activities and allocate budgets as matching fund for WTLCP supported biodiversity conservation activities.