- The Amlekhgunj-Pathlaiya section of Nepal’s East-West Highway, a major trade route to India, cuts through Parsa National Park, leading to frequent wildlife roadkill incidents, including of endangered species such as tigers.
- Plans are underway to expand the highway to four lanes, which could exacerbate the issue; to address this, officials are considering building elevated sections to allow safe wildlife crossings.
- The Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation has proposed two elevated roads around Parsa National Park, and negotiations are ongoing with the Asian Development Bank for funding.
- Nepal introduced guidelines on wildlife-friendly infrastructure in 2022, which mandate safeguard measures for development projects; the proposed elevated roads in Parsa and Chitwan could set a precedent for future conservation efforts.
PARSA, Nepal — 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.
Banner image: A wild boar at Parsa National Park. Image by Aditya Pal via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Road project threatens to derail Nepal’s conservation gains, study says
Citation:
Carter, N. H., Zuckerwise, A., Pradhan, N. M., Subedi, N., Lamichhane, B. R., Hengaju, K. D., … Kandel, R. C. (2023). Rapid behavioral responses of endangered tigers to major roads during COVID-19 lockdown. Global Ecology and Conservation, 42. doi:10.1016/j.gecco.2023.e02388
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