Assessment of the Upstream Churia Hills and Downstream Terai Plains Linkage: An Environmental Services Perspective

Abstract

The Terai, considered the granary of Nepal, is facing serious threat from siltation originating
from the Churia hills mainly due to heavy deforestation together with forest and watershed
degradation. Discussions with local community people revealed that no such problem
existed 5-6 decades ago when the Churia forest was intact. All the forestry sector policies
had recognized the Churia hills as fragile and environmentally sensitive, but the concerned
government agencies and the local community people have not been able to conserve
this region effectively. There is heavy exploitation of the Churia hills for the extraction of
timber, firewood, non-timber forest products, and for grazing resources. In addition, gravel,
sand and boulders are also being extracted for the sake of revenue to the local
governments. Jalad River of Dhanusha district originating from the Churia hills has been
converting fertile and productive agriculture lands into barren river beds at the rate of 25
hectares a year. The Churia hills should be conserved for the environmental services of
the watershed to the entire Terai region rather than for provisioning tangible forest products
services only to the upstream local communities.

Key Words: Environmental services; Churia-Terai linkage; PES; upstream-downstream

DOI: 10.3126/banko.v20i1.3504

Banko Janakari, Vol. 20, No. 1 pp.17-23