658 R. Dhungana et al.


TABLE 1 Details of the various stakeholder groups who participated in the workshop for the identification of human–tiger Panthera tigris conflict reduction measures in Chitwan National Park, Nepal (Fig. 1).


Stakeholder group Farmers


Forest users


Local Indigenous groups (fishers)


Number of parti- cipants (n = 46) Details of participants


12 7 7


Livestock (cattle, buffalos, goats & pigs) farmers; crop (food&cash crops, vegetables&horticulture) farmers (commercial or subsistence)


Primarily farmers representing community forest user committees in Chitwan National Park buffer zone; some also own private forests


Members of Bote, Darai, Kumal & Tharu Indigenous groups, traditionally dependent on fishing & suffer nearly a third of wildlife attacks in Chitwan National Park (Silwal et al., 2017); only these groups are granted permits for fishing as per Chitwan National Park Regulation, 1974


Tourist guides


Tour & hotel operators


4


Safari operators 4 3


Business operators 3 Local NGOs


2


National Park officials


4


Members of tourist guide association; independent tourist guides


Members of the elephant safari or Jeep safari associations


Souvenir shop, grocery & dairy owners


Official of the WWF–Nepal field unit; official of the National Trust for Nature Conservation field unit


Wardens, ranger & game scout of Chitwan National Park


tigers involved in conflict, (3)monitoring and tracking of ti- gers, (4) deterring tigers from entering unsuitable habitats, (5) construction of tiger-proof fences around human settle- ments and farmlands, (6) habitat and tiger prey manage- ment, (7) improvement of livestock corrals, (8) avoidance of grazing in depredation hotspots, and (9) conservation education and awareness activities. To investigate the priority of these nine measures


amongst victims, beneficiaries and managers of tiger con- servation, we categorized local stakeholders into four cat- egories: (1) farmers and forest users, (2) fishers (local Indigenous groups), (3) tourism or conservation benefi- ciaries (including tourist guides, safari operators, tour and hotel operators and business operators), and (4) National Park managers (National Park and NGO offi- cials). We regarded farmers, forest users and fishers as the primary victims of tiger conservation, tourism and business operators as the primary beneficiaries of tiger conservation, and the National Park officials as the tiger conservation managers. We selected respondents for the questionnaire survey


randomly from each of the four stakeholder categories, using a table of random numbers, and equally from amongst the four National Park management units. For farmers and forest users, we selected 45 households from each of the four


Occupational category


Farmer Farmer Fisher Stakeholder group


Victim of tiger conservation


Victim of tiger conservation


Victim of tiger conservation


Tourism beneficiary


Tourism beneficiary


Operators of tour & travel agencies; hotel owners Tourism beneficiary


Tourism beneficiary


National Park manager


National Park manager


Beneficiary of tiger conservation


Beneficiary of tiger conservation


Beneficiary of tiger conservation


Beneficiary of tiger conservation


Support managers of Chitwan National Park


Managers of Chitwan National Park


management units using the household list available from the respective buffer zone user committee. If any selected household was not a farming household, we selected the next farmer household. Each respondent had to be older than 18 years and preferably the household head. For fishers, we selected 15 from each management unit using the fishers list available from the National Park office (the National Park maintains a register of people holding a fishing per- mit). For tourism beneficiaries, we surveyed two respon- dents from each association or network of six groups (tourist guide, elephant safari, Jeep safari, tour agency, hotel, shop) using the member lists of the respective associ- ation or network in the four management units. For National Park managers, the respondents comprised three National Park staff members from each management unit and one from an NGO. The questionnaires were completed in face-to-face interviews. In total, we surveyed 301 people (180 farmers, 60 fishers, 48 tourism beneficiaries and 13 National Park managers), from whom we received 281 com- pleted questionnaires (93.4%; 197 men, 84 women) repre- senting 168 farmers, 56 fishers, 44 tourism beneficiaries and 13 National Park managers. In the questionnaire, respondents were required to rank


each of the nine conflict-mitigating measures in order of priority on a scale of 1 (lowest priority) to 9 (highest priority)


Oryx, 2024, 58(5), 655–663 © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605323001734


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