Bhuwan Dhakal, Nepal

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Bhuwan Dhakal

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*-Organization name: Action for Conservation and Sustainability (ACS) (Currently Studying at the University of Florida)
*-Organization full street address (in your local format): Babarmahal, Kathmandu, Nepal
*-Organization full mailing address, if different:
*-Country: Nepal
*-Work phone with country and area code: +977-1-4331134
*-Work fax with country and area code:
*-Main email: bhuwan_dhakal@hotmail.com

Community and Training work: Time has changed since. I was accepted at the University of Florida for my PhD program the same year, and I was soon here in August. I was lucky enough that the grant we submitted the same year about Human-Elephant conflict in Eastern Nepal was accepted. That allowed me to go Nepal at least once a year. In the last three years, I have been to Nepal three times, primarily for my field work. But I took that opportunity to think and implement my ideas on how I can transfer my knowledge to the young scholars and the community. SCGIS Nepal was a good platform for me to transfer that knowledge. Every time I have been to Nepal, I have provided a short training (3 days to 1 week) on conservation GIS to the young graduates. Thanks to the support of ESRI license and books, I have been able to transfer the knowledge to the young graduates who are interested in GIS and conservation. Before being a SCGIS scholar, I was an environmental GIS trainer at Resources Himalaya Foundation. Further, I have also given trainings to the government employees on basic tools of ArcGIS.

I look forward to continue my training whenever I go to Nepal. Most of the time, I am also providing online support for the young students. Please refer the next page for my detailed plan of GIS training in my region. For my research, I am working on how to reduce Human Elephant Conflict in Eastern Nepal. I am using GIS to understand vulnerabilities of the people in that region. There hasn’t been much research regarding use of GIS to understand wildlife vulnerability. I am planning to use the model Cutter (1997) she developed for county level hazard assessment in United States (http://training.fema.gov/hiedu/docs/hrm/session%206%20-%20handbook%20gis-based%20hazards%20assessmen...). If I could be able to work in this, I believe it will provide a unique methodology for conservation/wildlife sector. In this regard, if I get selected for the TTT program, I will develop the exercise for this. This will benefit everybody in the conservation sector by being able to understand how we can seek support from one field to another, or from one country to another. Further, I can develop other exercises using kriging technique, buffer tools, etc.

describe the history of your personal work in conservation and GIS: I am from Nepal, a small and one of the least developed countries located in the heart of the Himalayas. The mountain ecosystem supports a magnificent array of plants and wildlife diversity that have been under peril with growing challenges of climate change, local people’s natural resource dependency, and myriad other threats. Given the challenges for natural resources management due to internal and external conditions, it is paramount to mitigate the impacts with sustainable strategies to maintain the optimal balance between people, natural resources conservation and livelihood issues.

For the past five years, I have observed the conservation sector of Nepal to be limited with respect to the lack of quality human resources. The scarcity of personnel that have cutting-edge scientific knowledge, and the lack of use of advanced research techniques and methodologies in research are major impediments for effective biodiversity conservation in the country. This has had a direct effect on conservation policy and implementation. In order to increase skilled human capacity and institutional development, it is critical for young scholars such as me to be well-trained and equipped with contemporary knowledge and produce research outputs that are scientific and applicable at the field level.

Being the student of conservation science and having ample experience in the field of Conservation GIS, I envision the need of paradigm shift in conservation research through the apropos use of GIS and remote sensing. Though there are many people working in the field of conservation, still there is the trend of applying traditional methods, and only few have adequate knowledge in the sector of GIS and remote sensing for conservation research. Recent studies have shown that application of GIS and remote sensing can make conservation studies, in the mountainous countries like Nepal, more effective. 

It has been more than five years; I have been closely working with GIS in conservation research, and have found the need of maximizing its use for training young scholars for building next generation conservation leaders. Without adequate knowledge on the GIS science, it is very difficult for conservationists to deal with the newer challenges of conservation including climate change.

In this regard, it is very much important for me to take advanced level GIS training, so as to capacitate myself for better conservation research in Nepal. As I represent both sectors, I feel I am the appropriate person to take this training. But attending this training is contingent upon getting grant, as I cannot afford to pay such high amount. Thus getting grant and the training opportunity will be a life time opportunity, which will allow me to have critical thinking on new research ideas for better conservation in Nepal.

2012 Status:  Bhuwan Dhakal, Action for Conservation and Sustainability, Nepal

2012 SCGIS Conference presentation Abstract:    "Application of GIS for buffering the Protected Area Buffer Zone"

Buffer Zone Management underlies the philosophy of social capital to gain its ground in long-term conservation. But the integrity of the buffer zone has been in question because of its failure to fulfill the dual need of protecting the core zone along with fulfilling the demand of people living in the periphery. This paper tries to describe how GIS could be applied for differentiating the priorities within the buffer zone so that effective programs can be launched within different zones. This paper is based on the study carried out in Kolhuwa buffer zone VDC of Chitwan National Park and found that the buffer zone concept can only be successful if the priorities within the zone can be differentiated in such a way that communities living within the proximities of national parks can be given more incentives than those living in the remote areas. The study found that 42.78% of the fuelwood extraction was from the national park in which more than 75% of households extracting the fuelwood were within 750 m of the National park.