Churia Conservation: Efforts and Challenges in Nepal 
The Churia range (also called Siwaliks) rises steeply from the Terai plains 
and extends as a contiguous landscape from east to west. It is bordered by 
the Mahabharat range in the north and by the Terai in the south. The Churia 
is  young and composed of unconsolidated loose materials originated from soft 
rocks such as mudstone, sandstone, silt stone and shale. Soils are mostly formed 
on sedimentary rocks with shallow and coarse textured soils. Steep slopes and 
weakly consolidation of different layers is prone to severe surface erosion. It is 
stretched in 36  districts of the country, and incorporates about 12.76% of the total 
area, where more than 15% of the total population of the country reside. 

Despite with nearly 72.37% of the Churia under forest cover and rich in biodiversity, 
it is alarming and considered vulnerable to natural disasters such as landslides, 
erosions, flood and climate change impacts. Vulnerability of fragile ecosystem is 
further aggravated by numerous anthropogenic interventions such as settlement 
through encroachment, clearing of forests for cultivation, over exploitation of 
timber and other forest products through illegal logging, uncontrolled grazing, 
excavation and extraction of sand and gravel thereby rapidly changing the face of 
the region.  It can be seen that around 6.5 million cubic metre of gravel, stone and 
sand are legally extracted every year from the region and the illegal extractions 
are expected to be twice as much. In addition, the water flowing from the Churia 
range usually brings an immense amount of debris and deposits them in the main 
river channels downstream. These deposited debris reduce the carrying capacity 
of the rivers, which causes riverbed rising, river bank cutting, flashfloods and 
desertification of agricultural lands, siltation of reservoirs and barrages, and 
breaching of roads and bridges usually causes loss of life and properties in Churia 
as well as downstream Terai. 

Recent researches observed that rivers from Churia range have widened and shifted 
from their original course to a greater extent such as in the Koshi, Balan, Ratu, 
Lakhandehi, Bangeri Dudhaura and Mohana. There are many government,  non-
governmental and international organizations involved in Churia conservation 
namely Terai Arc Landscape (TAL) Project and Western Terai Landscape Complex 
Project (WTLCP), World Wildlife Fund (WWF), German Technical Cooperation 
(GTZ) of Germany, International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), 
Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere (CARE)-Nepal and Department 

Banko Janakari 
A Journal of Forestry Information for Nepal



Banko Janakari, Vol. 24, No. 1

2

For International Development (DFID). However, no desired objectives of soil 
and water conservation and natural resources management could yet be achieved 
because of their individualistic approach. The Government of Nepal (GoN) has 
promulgated necessary acts and regulations, strategies and plans in which an 
urgent need of Churia conservation is placed on the highest priority. In this regard, 
the Ministry of Forests and Soil Conservation (MoFSC) has been working on 
“President Chure Conservation Programme” since 2011. More than three years 
after its launch, the ‘iconic’ President Chure Conservation Programme became 
unable to address the issues to protect the fast denuding Chure and the inner Terai 
range. The MoFSC is leading and implementing this programme in 27 districts 
through its two departments namely Department of Forests and Department of 
Soil Conservation and Watershed Management. The lack of commitment from the 
political parties and their local representatives, lack of adequate support from the 
bureaucratic level and lack of performance-based analysis of the current status of 
the region are some challenges in the implementation aspect of the programme. 
Having realized such intricacy in addressing the challenges in Churia conservation, 
the GoN  has recently established the President Chure Terai Madesh Conservation 
Committee under the Development Committee Act, 2013 to address the issues in 
integrated approach.

Environmental degradation in the Churia region is not only limited in the 
upstream areas rather it has created more severe disasters in the downstream 
areas of the Terai region as well. A good understanding and interaction between 
the people of upstream and downstream must be established to have the 
conservation and mitigation activities implemented. These might be achieved by 
forming community organizations and networking in the river system. Integrated 
watershed management could be optimal option to address the aforementioned 
issues through identified conservation activities implemented effectively and 
strong coordination among all the concerned stakeholders. Baseline survey of 
both the socio-economic and bio-physical situation need to be known before any 
conservation and development activities start in the region. The research, survey 
and study programmes are equally important in this regard since, in one hand, they 
provide references for monitoring, supervision and evaluation of the programme 
implementation while, on the other hand, they justify the priorities, significance 
and urgency of the conservation activities in a scientific way.