Royal Chitwan National Park

The Royal Chitwan National Park which stand today as successful testimony of nature conservation in South Asia. This is the first National Park of Nepal established in 1973 to preserve a unique eco system significantly valuable to the whole world. The Park covering the protected area of 932 Sq. Km. is situated in the subtropical inner Terai lowlands of southern central part of Nepal. The Park gained much wider recognition in the world when UNESCO included this area on the list of World Heritage Site in 1984. It should also be emphasized that only a very small part of the national park is used for tourism.

The great majority of the land, particularly in the hills, remains unvisited and therefore undisturbed. This is ideal for wildlife, and also preserves an element of mystery for humans; because large areas are still unexplored, our knowledge of what birds and animals the park contains is by no means finalized, and there is always the possibility of making new discoveries.

Establishment on Royal Chitwan National Park

Then, in 1950, everything began to change. A popular revolt by the people of Nepal brought about the collapse of the Rana regime, and with it the end of the big hunts. In the hills the economic situation had been deteriorating for several decades. The population grew so fast that people ran out of land on which to grow crops. In desperation, the land-hungry farmers began to venture down into the plains, the new government felt obliged to open Chitwan for settlement.
An agricultural development program was started and thousands of hill people poured into the valley in search of land. A malaria-eradication scheme, launched by the Government and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in 1954 proved so successful that the whole district was declared malaria-free in 1960.

All this was progress of a kind. But the human influx was so vast and so rapid that inevitably it had a disastrous effect on the wildlife habitat. Poaching became rampant, and little was done to control it. The main target was rhino, whose horn - renowned for its alleged medicinal properties - already commanded enormous prices in the drugstores of the East.

By the end of the 1950s it was clear that if such a decline continued, the rhino and other animals would soon face extinction. Already the swamp deer and the water buffalo had almost disappeared from Chitwan. Therefore, in 1959, the Fauna Preservation Society appointed the distinguished British naturalist E. P. Gee to make a survey. Gee, who had spent most of his life in India and was an authority on its wildlife, recommended the creation of a national park north of the Rapti river, and this was duly established in 1961. He also proposed a wildlife sanctuary to the south of the river for a trial period of ten years. After he had surveyed Chitwan again in 1963, this time both the Fauna Preservation Society and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, he recommended an extension of the national park to include areas of rhino country in the south.

In 1963 a government committee investigated the legal status of immigrants in the Chitwan valley; the Land Settlement Commission of 1964 resettled 22,000 people, including 4,000 from inside the rhino sanctuary, elsewhere in the valley. Drastic though it was, the operation brought little immediate improvement, for the people who had been evicted poured back into the area to collect firewood and fodder; the habitat deteriorated still further, and the rhino population continued to decline. A survey carried out in June 1968 estimated that only a total of between eighty-one and 108 rhinos were left. The report, published in 1969, predicted that unless total protection were afforded, the rhino would disappear by 1980.

In December 1970, His late Majesty King Mahendra approved the establishment of the national park south of the Rapti river. The boundaries were delineated in March and April of 1971, and preliminary development began in October that year. Royal Chitwan National Park was officially gazetted in 1973 by His Majesty King Birendra and became the first national park in Nepal.

Background on Royal Chitwan National Park

The name ‘Chitwan’ has several possible meanings, but the most literal translation of the two NEPALI words that make it up: chit or chita (heart) and wan or ban (jungle). Chitwan is thus ‘the heart of the jungle’.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, cultivation in the valley was deliberately prohibited by the government of Nepal in order to maintain a barrier of disease-ridden forests as a defense against the invasion of diseases from the south. Then for the century between 1846 and 1950, when the Rana prime ministers were de facto rulers of Nepal, Chitwan was declared a private hunting reserve, maintained exclusively for the privileged classes. Penalties for poaching were severe - capital punishment for killing rhino - and the wildlife in the area thus received a measure of protection.

From time to time great hunts for rhino were held during the cool, mosquito-free winter months from December to February. The Ranas invited royalty from Europe and the Princely States of India, as well as other foreign dignitaries, to take part in these grand maneuvers, which were organized on a magnificent scale, often with several hundred leopards.

Topography on Royal Chitwan National Park

At the time of its establishment the park covered 210 square miles. After an extension in 1980, it now covers 620 square miles, and another enlargement, now proposed, and contains a wide variety of habitats, from the grassland and riverine forests of the valleys to the sal forest on the hills and the chir pine that grows along the ridges.

The Environment on Royal Chitwan National Park

To a causal observer the pattern of vegetation in Chitwan probably seems stable. On the low lying flat land near the rivers, including the large islands in the Narayani river, there is a lush growth of short and long grass interspersed with patches of mixed forest. On the hills the forest is more uniform, consisting mainly of stately, straight-trunked sal (Shorea robusta). Everything, it seems, has been like this for some time.

Yet the apparent stability is an illusion. Nature is constantly in a state of flux, particularly in a monsoon area of this kind, and it is a process - a kind of continuous, creeping takeover - whereby some species of plants and trees gradually gain supremacy over others.

Two contrasting elements - water and fire - affect this environment, altering the course of plant succession and creating constant changes in vegetation patterns.

Every summer during the monsoon floods the rivers change their routes to a greater or lesser extent, altering the configuration of the floodplains. The floods destroy whole tracts of vegetation at various stages of growth, and the islands and sandbanks which emerge as the waters recede become sites for primary succession. Thus, every year, water wipes part of the slate clean and allows a new start to be made.

The freshly-exposed sandbanks are soon colonized by various species of grass. One of the first to arrive is usually Saccharum spontaneum, which can eventually grow to become 20 feet tall. Short, fast- growing grasses, and some creeping types, also invade, together with Herb’s and shrubs. Among the trees the sishoo or Indian rosewood Dalbergia sissoo and the Khar or cutch Acacia catechu, colonizes the newly-created silt-beds almost as fast as fast as grass. Both these species stabilize the soil and create conditions favorable to other trees such as kapok Bombax ceiba, and thus the foundations of a new forest are laid.

Shade provided by the first trees creates a more suitable environment for smaller Herb’s and shrubs and eventually a riverine type of forest dominates the grasslands. Patches of stable soil with exceptionally good drainage may even be taken over by sal.

Yet the speed of succession is strongly influenced by the second great controlling factor: fire. This strikes no less regularly than the monsoons.

Since time immemorial the aboriginal inhabitants of the valley have been burning the grasslands in winter and early spring, partly to ensure themselves a good, fresh growth of Imperata, the grass they use for thatching, and partly to harden the taller, cane-like grass reeds which they need for the walls for their houses. In the old days local people harvested grass and reeds whenever they wanted; now there is a limited season, usually in the first two or three weeks of January, in which the park authorities issue entry-permits to villagers at the nominal cost of 10 Rupees - less than 25 US cent - a head.

So important is the occasion in the lives of the local Tharus that they hold special festivals to mark the beginning and the end of the grass-cutting season. During this period more than 10,000 entry permits are issued, and thousands more illegal entrants no doubt poured into the park as part of the mass invasion.

To prevent poaching and illegal cutting of firewood, there is a rule that nobody may spend the nights in the park. Thus hundreds of small temporary settlements suddenly spring up just outside the boundaries, so that the villagers, especially those who live some distance away, can hoard as much grass and reeds as possible during the period allocated. The Rapti and Narayani rivers become densely crowded with dug-out canoes and boats, which provide continual ferry services from the misty mornings until dusk.

Having collected what they need, the villagers set fire to the grasslands at random, without much supervision. Because, early in the year, many of the grass stands are still green, the first fires are relatively cool: they spread slowly, and are generally put out by the dewfall of winter nightss. The numerous water- courses, open banks and artificially prepared clearings which act as fire breaks all help contain them.

By March and April, however, the grass is much drier, and now the fires spread much more quickly, fanned by the afternoon winds to such an extent that some areas are burned two or three times over. The flames spread into the riverine forests, and many young trees are destroyed; but they do not damage the mature trees. The effect of fire is not as devastating to vegetation as might be imagined; and on the plains, where the water-table is high, the grasses produce new shoots within 2 weeks. Although the rate of growth is not high early in the year, it is greatly accelerated by the occasional rains of April and May. By the time the monsoon has set in around mid-June, the new grasses are already 10 feet tall.

Fire appears to be integral to the ecology of Chitwan; if the grasslands were left unburned, the thick, matted stalks would inhibit new growth and create conditions suitable for trees to establish themselves. Burning is a traditional practice used to perpetuate grasslands and discourage trees from moving in. In the perpetuate grasslands and discourage trees from moving in. In the park, the natural plant succession is from grassland to forest, and burning retards this process. It has been established that grassland and riverine forest produce a greater animal biomass than the monotypic sal forest. Without fire to retard woody invasion, large grassland areas would very likely be taken over by forests, except on the low lying floodplains; wildlife populations, especially of ungulates and therefore of predators, would be likely to decline not only in numbers but also in quality.

The tall, coarse grasses have little food value once they have grown past the young, palatable stage. By the time they have flowered and are dying, most of their food has been transferred to their roots for storage. From the animals point of view, the main importance of dead or dying grass appears to be that it affords cover and shelter; but regrowth is so fast that this factor is regained in a few months after burning. Moreover, not all grass is burnt simultaneously, and animals can and do seek refuge in the sal forest and other areas.

All these factors indicate that, as far as the large mammals are concerned, the grassland-burning is an ecologically-sound exercise. It not only renders the grass edible for more months of the year, but also provides a period of maximum protein/fibre ratio. The herbivores readily move into recently-burned patches to feed on the succulent and nutritious new shoots. The existing mosaic of vegetation is, in part, a result of the fires, and it offers a variety of vegetation types that meets the food requirements of most ungulates.

Climate on Royal Chitwan National Park

1. Summer

March to early June are the traditional hot months, with temperatures rising progressively to a peak in May. During April, despite the heat of the day the nightss can be quite cold. South - westerly winds prevail, and relative humidity is lowest in March.

2. The Monsoon

Towards the end of May the pre-monsoon storms set in. Dark clouds mass in the afternoons, with thunder and lightning and high winds. If rain falls, it comes in late afternoon showers lasting perhaps only fifteen to twenty minutes. As May changes into June the showers come with increasing frequency.

When the monsoon proper begins, around the middle of June, it is another story. From then until late September the moisture-laden south-easterly winds weeping up from the Bay of Bengal bring heavy rain, and of the annual total of some 80 inches, more than 80 per cent falls in these three months.

Precipitation is not normally continuous, and often, in any monsoon month, there are as many dry days as wet ones. During the monsoon humidity is extremely high.

3. Winter

Winter lasts from October to the end of February. The northerly winds are cool, coming down from the mountains, and this is the best time of the year to see the Great Himalayan Range, the air being particularly clear in November.

January is the coldest month, with temperatures falling almost to freezing-point, especially when it rains. From late November the relative humidity touches 100 percent in the mornings, and so there is dewfall during December and January nightss and sometimes when you hear the drips pouring off the trees in the morning, it is often mistaken for rain. After an especially cold morning it is hard to believe that the temperature will rise to 20-25 Celsius in the afternoon.