The country\'s 15 protected areas are soon going to be guided by site-specific tourism policies. Tourism experts have already drafted individual policies for the Bardiya National Park and the Kanchenjanga Conservation Area which will deal mostly with tourism management and development.

Besides Nepal\'s first national park in Chitwan set up back in 1972, none of the other national parks and conservation areas established since have been guided by an appropriate plan.

According to an official at the Wildlife and National Park Management Department, the new policies will grant executive authority to park wardens and encourage community-based tourism to provide alternative employment to people living around the protected areas.

The guidelines are likely to be welcomed by conservationists who have for long been decrying the unchecked exploitation of national parks by tourism entrepreneurs. "The short sightedness of the tourism authority is pushing the conservation areas to degradation and breaking the community cohesiveness," says a tourism expert.
Records show that half of the 500,000 or so tourists coming to Nepal visit one or the other conservation area in the country. The new policies are expected to stop over exploitation of the accessible parks and conservation areas and help explore the tourism potential of the others so far neglected by the tourism industry.