In Nepal’s Bardiya National Park, rising tiger numbers bring new challenges

BARDIYA, Nepal – Mr Salik Ram points towards the treeline. Beyond it lies Nepal’s Bardiya National Park, where 125 tigers now roam.

His country has been lauded for its remarkable conservation success story. Tiger numbers tripled from 121 in 2009 to 355 in 2022. Bardiya, a national park in Nepal’s remote south-west that offers superb wildlife viewing without the crowds, is becoming one of Asia’s best places to see these wild cats.

The country’s elephant population has also increased, doubling since 2008 to around 400 today. Yet, while conservationists might celebrate these numbers, the situation is more complex for those like Mr Ram, who contend with human-wildlife conflict.

A delicate balance

“The elephants are like bulldozers,” he says, gesturing across a field of flattened crops. “They demolish everything in search of food. Four huge males have now banded together and they are causing havoc.”

His home in Dalla village on the edge of Bardiya lies within the migratory Khata corridor. There, around 50 elephants – along with tigers, rhinos and leopards – roam between Bardiya and the Katarniaghat Wildlife Sanctuary in India.

Mr Ram tells me the main pinch point comes at harvest time, when food is plentiful, although elephants may raid at any time of the year.

“If elephants come outside of harvest season, they go straight for the granary,” he says. “Sometimes they take the raksi, our traditional alcohol. Then they become even naughtier.”

In 2021 alone, more than 12,000 human-wildlife conflict cases – including fatalities, crop loss and destroyed property – were recorded in Bardiya’s buffer zones.

Despite these challenges, the indigenous Tharu people living on the margins of the national park still value wildlife and have protected this landscape for generations.

Today, community-run home-stays catering to tourists play a vital role in mitigating this conflict, as animals are increasingly viewed as a means of livelihood rather than a threat.

Besides taking safari day trips, visitors can also spend the night at local homes and learn more about the role communities play in protecting this ecosystem.

Mr Parashu Ram Tharu, president of Bardiya Community Home-stay – a local cooperative in Dalla village which offers traditional lodging on the edge of the park – says: “We want to minimise conflict in this region, and we are always thinking about how to make the relationship between the wildlife, jungle and people better.

“Homestays provide an income, so now wildlife is worth more alive than dead.”

Wildlife spotting

My two-day visit in November 2025 begins in Bardiya itself, Nepal’s largest lowland protected area.

Dense forest dominates the 968 sq km park. Sal trees tower 20m high, wrapped in ancient strangler figs. Grassland plains punctuate the canopy. Snaking through it all is the Karnali, Nepal’s longest river, bound for the mighty Ganges.

Bardiya rarely gets the attention it deserves because of its remote location. It takes an hour-long domestic flight, followed by a two-hour drive, to get there from capital city Kathmandu.

Yet, it is hugely biodiverse, home to around 500 bird and 50 mammal species, and is gaining popularity because of rising tiger numbers.

Langur monkeys screech from the treetops as we enter in an open-top safari vehicle. Herds of spotted deer huddle camouflaged among the foliage and an endangered gharial freshwater crocodile lounges in the riverbed shallows.

The park is also a birdwatcher’s paradise. Woodpeckers, woolly-necked storks and egrets are some of the feathered friends we glimpse as birdsong ricochets through the jungle.

Bumping along dusty ochre tracks, our guide Arjun Thapa brakes sharply. We scramble out and there, pressed into the track, is a pristine tiger paw print.

Then we spy a tank-like one-horned rhino, lumbering across the rocky riverbed, its armoured bulk reflected in the shallows.

“This is incredibly rare,” says Mr Thapa. There are only 4,000 of these prehistoric creatures left in the world, most of which live across the border in India.

Wildlife is harder to find here than in, say, Kenya’s Maasai Mara National Reserve, but so are other jeeps. Here, there is no one but us.

Bardiya National Park is far from the busy paths in the northern mountains that ascend to Everest Base Camp and Annapurna, both synonymous with Nepal’s tourism.

It receives fewer than 13,000 international visitors each year, compared with Chitwan National Park, which draws around 300,000 of them – even though tiger numbers in both parks are now roughly equal.

Bardiya has room to grow. But Mr Manoj Gautam, former director of the Jane Goodall Institute Nepal and founder of micro-conservancy Burhan Wilderness Camps, says how it grows matters. Chitwan, he says, could not manage its own success.

“Sauraha, the gateway town to (Chitwan National Park), is like Thailand’s Pattaya,” he says. “Discos, big buildings and mega hotel complexes with swimming pools.”

The Nepalese love foreigners visiting, but there is a growing realisation that they are not benefitting from conservation, he says.

“Big hotels are bringing people, dust flying as they whizz past in their four-by-four jeeps expecting locals to wave. But what’s in it for them?”

How tourism benefits the community

For now, Bardiya remains under the radar. Preserving it means being deliberate about who benefits from the visitors it does get.

My home-stay is the antithesis of the model Mr Gautam fears. I am visiting Community Homestay Network (CHN), a Nepalese-owned social enterprise helping villages in lesser-explored parts of Nepal run their own home-stays, channelling economic benefits directly to local people.

The network has homestays in 50 communities in Nepal. Guests can stay with local families as well as participate in activities such as wildlife safaris, birdwatching and preparing traditional Tharu dishes.

Of the amount a guest pays, 64 per cent goes to the host family, 16 per cent to the wider community and 20 per cent towards CHN’s operational and marketing costs.

Mr Bikal Khanal, the enterprise’s chief purpose officer, says: “This style of community-based travel goes beyond tourism, helping to distribute wealth, to empower women and youth, and safeguard indigenous traditions and cultures.”

I am welcomed with an orange marigold garland and smudge of red pressed to my forehead, a symbolic Hindu mark called a tika. My abode is a mud-built home bordered by colourful flowers. Clean but simple rooms include a bed, mosquito net, shared flushing toilet and a pair of indoor flip-flops.

“We are always welcoming our relatives, so we are used to having guests in our house. Hospitality runs in our blood,” Mr Khanal says over a meal of spicy potato salad and steamed rice-flour rolls called dhikri, served with tangy lime pickle and dal bhat, the staple Nepalese lentil and rice dish.

“Atithi Devo Bhava, or ‘the guest is God’, is a common belief across Nepal, rooted in the Hindu Buddhist thought of treating visitors with the same respect as a divinity,” he adds.

In the next day’s golden afternoon light, Mr Ram, who is one of the homestay owners, shows me around his village. Wandering along dusty paths, I pass women carrying firewood on their heads, doe-eyed baby buffaloes and flat fields of egg-yolk-yellow mustard flowers, wheat and rice.

We have to skirt the ancient Shiva Community Forest, which thrives with birds, monkeys, deer and wild boar, as well as the occasional troublesome elephant and rhino. It is unsafe to visit at the moment because of the roaming jumbos, but otherwise, tourists can go on jungle walks with local guides.

Mr Ram explains that after the designation of the forest to the community, the village came together to plant trees and decide when activities within the forest would be permitted. People worked hard on preservation and, as a result, saw wildlife returning to the corridor.

“Here, it’s now easier to kill a man than a tree,” he jests.

On our walk, he also points out the rogue elephants’ work of flattened crops and crushed fencing. For 30 years, youth volunteers have patrolled the area to deter wild animals from venturing into the village, and prevent poaching and illegal logging.

The volunteers are vital in minimising human-wildlife conflict, particularly involving wild elephants, which are responsible for most home and crop damage.

Of late, they must guard against tigers too. Because of its conservation success, Bardiya now has the highest tiger density in Nepal.

Between 2020 and 2025, more than 40 people living near the park have been killed by big cats. The animals that make this place extraordinary for tourists are also dangerous for locals.

Working in coordinated groups, volunteers head out day and night, usually on foot and with minimal resources. They act as an early warning system that alerts villagers and park rangers the moment animals are detected nearby.

Elephants, whose crop-raiding habits bring them into most frequent conflict with farming communities, are deterred by noise, torchlight and fire to steer herds away before they reach fields or homes.

The group also educates villagers on how to store food securely, avoid animal corridors at dusk and dawn, and respond calmly to unexpected wildlife encounters, reducing the confrontations that can turn communities against the animals they share land with.

It is unpaid work, but homestay tourism is beginning to change that.

Every visitor who stays in Dalla channels money into the community, helping to fund the patrol’s work. A treehouse, built for patrol volunteers to monitor elephants, has also been adapted for guests to stay overnight, providing an unforgettable experience as well as deeper insight into how people and wildlife co-exist in Dalla.

I want to stay longer for a greater chance of spotting the elusive big cat, but I understand what a privilege this is. A lucky sighting for me may mean an entirely different thing to somebody living alongside these wild animals. Bardiya delivers a wildlife safari unlike any other, but it also pulls back the curtain on what conservation actually costs.

Nepal’s latest tiger census, conducted every four years, is under way, with results due on International Tiger Day on July 29. Numbers are expected to rise again, so it is vital that locals see some benefit to this conservation success. More visitors staying in local homes means income going directly to the people bearing the greatest risk of living alongside wild animals.

In Dalla, Mr Ram is already preparing for his next guests. He is certain that the elephant population will grow, and hopes that tourist numbers will too.

Travel tips

Singapore Airlines flies non-stop from Singapore to Kathmandu in around five hours, with round-trip flights in May starting at around $1,500, based on checks by The Straits Times.

Bardiya National Park is around 12 hours by bus or eight hours by private vehicle from Kathmandu. Alternatively, take a one-hour flight from Kathmandu to the city of Nepalgunj, followed by a two hour drive to Bardiya.

The recommended time of year to visit Bardiya is the dry season between October and April.

The Live The Tharu Way package, offered by Community Homestay Network, starts at US$2,425 (S$3,100) for a nine-day trip. The price includes accommodation, meals, surface transfers, tours, guide and airport drop off and pick up, and excludes international and domestic flights.