Bijan Gurung
Khata wildlife corridor connects Bardia National Park in Nepal with Katarniaghat Wildlife Sanctuary in India. These two protected areas fall under the larger landscape level conservation initiative, Terai Arc Landscape (TAL) that extends from Bagmati river in central Nepal in the east to the Yamuna river in India in the west, with an estimated area of 51,002 km2. Khata wildlife corridor has 57 community forest user groups, and 40,703 population from 6,763 households are the members in the community forest user groups. Khata area was recognized as a wildlife corridor in tiger dispersal model in 2001 and since then, forest restoration, habitat management and livelihood activities are implemented in the Khata corridor. The corridor is frequently used by tiger, common leopard, Asian rhino and elephants. As the human-wildlife or human-tiger conflict escalated, this study focused on the cost of tiger conservation. The analysis focuses on damage cost and opportunity costs of tiger conservation in the area. The damage costs entails the livestock depredation by tiger and the sympatric felid, common leopard. The analysis also estimated the crop damage by the elephants as their habitat overlaps with the space of the big cats. The opportunity costs entails the foregone cost of agriculture return. However, much of the land is public and land tenure is very ambiguous. The cost can then be borne by the beneficiaries which include national and international stakeholders that demonstrated higher willingness to pay for tiger and other endangered species conservation.