Nepal’s commitment to biodiversity conservation has earned international recognition, particularly through the expansion of protected areas and notable successes in species preservation. However, these achievements raise a critical legal question: how can conservation objectives be reconciled with constitutionally guaranteed human rights and emerging environmental jurisprudence?

This question is particularly urgent in the context of increasing human–wildlife conflict (HWC) and the governance of national parks.

The Legal Framework: Constitutional and Statutory Tensions

The Constitution of Nepal (2015) establishes a dual obligation on the state. On one hand, it guarantees the right to a clean and healthy environment. On the other hand, it protects fundamental rights, including livelihood, property, equality, and social justice.

At the statutory level, conservation is governed primarily by the National Parks and Wildlife Conservation Act of 1973, which provides the state with broad authority to designate and manage protected areas. While the act incorporates provisions on buffer zones and community participation, its implementation reveals significant gaps in procedural safeguards, particularly concerning consultation, representation, and equitable access to resources.

Moreover, Nepal’s international commitments, including the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the Convention on Biological Diversity, impose obligations to ensure free, prior, and informed consent (FPIC), as well as meaningful participation of Indigenous Peoples and local communities in conservation governance.

The divergence between these legal commitments and on-the-ground practices creates a structural tension within Nepal’s conservation regime.

Human–Wildlife Conflict as a Legal and Governance Issue

Human–wildlife conflict is often framed as an ecological or management issue. However, from a legal standpoint, it reflects deeper governance challenges.

Communities residing in and around protected areas frequently bear the direct costs of conservation such as crop loss, livestock predation, property damage, and, in some cases, loss of life. The State’s principal response has been compensation, governed by instruments such as the Compensation Guidelines for Wildlife Damage 2080 B.S.

While these mechanisms provide a form of legal remedy, they remain limited in scope and effectiveness. Compensation frameworks are typically procedural, requiring verification and administrative approval, which can create barriers to access. Furthermore, they focus primarily on quantifiable economic loss, without addressing broader harms such as psychological impact, livelihood insecurity, and long-term displacement.

As such, compensation operates as a remedial mechanism, rather than a comprehensive rights-based solution.

Participation, Power, and Procedural Justice

The introduction of buffer zones and community-based management structures reflects an attempt to incorporate participatory governance. However, these mechanisms often function within a centralized administrative framework.

Decision-making authority remains concentrated within state institutions, particularly under the authority of park wardens and relevant government bodies. This raises concerns regarding procedural justice, including the adequacy of representation, transparency, and accountability in conservation decision-making.

From a legal perspective, participation must extend beyond formal inclusion. It must ensure that affected communities have meaningful influence over decisions that impact their rights, resources, and livelihoods.

Emerging Jurisprudence: Rights of Nature and Judicial Developments

Nepal’s judiciary has contributed to evolving environmental jurisprudence by recognizing the intrinsic value of nature. In Pro Public v. Godavari Marble Industries, the Supreme Court emphasized that natural entities possess inherent value beyond economic utility. Similarly, in the Gadhimai case, the Court acknowledged the dignity and protection of animals as a legal concern.

These developments align with the broader global movement toward recognizing the rights of nature, which conceptualizes ecosystems as rights-bearing entities.

However, this jurisprudential shift introduces additional complexity. It necessitates a legal framework capable of balancing the rights of nature with human rights, particularly in contexts where both claims intersect and, at times, conflict.

Toward a Rights-Based Coexistence Framework

Addressing these challenges requires a shift from a control-oriented model of conservation to a rights-based coexistence framework. Such a framework would integrate the following legal principles:

• Substantive and Procedural Rights Protection: Ensuring that conservation measures do not disproportionately infringe upon fundamental rights and that affected communities have access to remedies and due process.
• Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC): Embedding FPIC within domestic legal processes to ensure that Indigenous and local communities can meaningfully participate in decisions affecting their land and resources.
• Decentralized and Shared Governance: Strengthening local institutions and enabling genuine power-sharing between state authorities and communities.
• Comprehensive Remedies: Expanding compensation mechanisms to address both economic and non-economic harms while reducing procedural barriers.

Integration of Environmental Jurisprudence: Harmonizing human rights frameworks with the emerging recognition of the rights of nature to ensure balanced and sustainable outcomes.

Nepal’s conservation framework stands at a critical juncture. While the legal architecture reflects both environmental protection and human rights commitments, their reconciliation remains incomplete in practice. The persistence of human–wildlife conflict, procedural inequities, and limited community participation highlights the need for a more coherent alignment between constitutional guarantees, statutory frameworks, and international obligations.

A sustainable approach to conservation must move beyond narrow ecological metrics and engage with broader principles of legality, legitimacy, and justice. Aligning conservation governance with the Constitution of Nepal (2015), as well as international standards such as the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, is not merely aspirational; it is a legal imperative.

At the same time, Nepal is witnessing the emergence of a new generation of political leadership. This evolving group, often described as “Gen-Z,” governance landscape reflects greater diversity across caste and class lines and signals a shift toward more progressive and, at times, assertive environmental positions. As this cohort assumes a more prominent role in shaping national policy and undertaking reforms of foundational laws, it carries both opportunity and responsibility.

On one hand, a stronger environmental ethic may accelerate conservation commitments, including climate resilience and biodiversity protection. On the other hand, without careful legal calibration, there is a risk that more radical or preservationist approaches could inadvertently reproduce exclusionary models of conservation that the law increasingly seeks to move beyond.

Accordingly, future legal reforms must be attentive to Nepal’s unique socio-ecological dynamics. Any restructuring of conservation governance, whether through amendments to the National Parks and Wildlife Conservation Act of 1973 or the introduction of new environmental legislation, should ensure that human rights, Indigenous participation, and ecological protection are treated as complementary rather than competing priorities.

For Nepal’s next generation of policymakers, the challenge is not simply to strengthen conservation but to institutionalize coexistence. This requires embedding rights-based approaches, ensuring meaningful participation, and developing legal frameworks capable of balancing the rights of nature with the rights of people.

Ultimately, the legitimacy and durability of Nepal’s conservation efforts will depend on whether future legal reforms can successfully integrate these intersecting claims. Conservation that is grounded in rights, inclusivity, and accountability is far more likely to achieve both ecological integrity and social justice in the long term.