NEPAL: Living with TIGERS (The Full Story) | EP24

Episode 24 - We had arrived in the wild west of Nepal. Within this majestic wilderness lie Bardiya and Banke National Parks. Home to tigers, rhinos, elephants, and the elusive leopard. Once ravaged by poaching, Bardiya has made an extraordinary comeback, more than tripling its tiger numbers. But beyond the safaris and guesthouses is a story you don’t hear about.

150,000 people live along the edges of the park, in what’s known as the buffer zone. There are no fences. Wildlife moves freely between the park and the same forests that people depend on for their survival. Every day, villagers walk the same paths as the animals. When these worlds collide, lives are at stake.

As the wildlife numbers have gone up, so has human-wildlife conflict. Tigers and leopards are being forced out of their territories as a competition for resources and space plays out. When the weaker animals are forced out, they enter nearby villages to prey on livestock and, in some tragic cases, people. Elephants raid grain stores, crush crops, and even tear through homes, leaving families both shaken and financially shattered.

If you’d like to help, please check out this link we mentioned in the video: 👉https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-the-b...
Every contribution goes directly to the CBAPU, allowing them to continue their extraordinary work. Thank you so much in advance!

Imagine what that must be like. These communities have become the protectors of wildlife— keeping poachers out, restoring forests, and trying to maintain a fragile balance. And now, the same people who helped save these animals are the ones bearing the cost of their return.

Nepal’s story isn’t a fairy tale. It’s complex, layered, real but threaded through it is something rare—hope. It’s the young men and women from these villages who’ve become the unsung heroes of Bardiya. The Community-Based Anti-Poaching Unit, or CBAPU, began in 2009 as a grassroots effort to protect their forests from poaching, and it was a massive success! Poaching in Bardia fell to almost zero, but as the conflict increased, the CBAPU evolved into something more—protectors not just of the wildlife, but of the people.

Many of the members of the CBAPU were victims of this conflict. They could have turned away, but instead they chose to stay and help. Their aim is to go from human-wildlife conflict to coexistence, and they have many initiatives in progress to achieve this.

If you’d like to help these young volunteers get to a point where they’re self-sustaining, please check out this link we mentioned in the video: 👉https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-the-b...
Every contribution goes directly to the CBAPU, allowing them to continue their extraordinary work. Thank you so much in advance!

The camera traps they rely on get damaged. SD cards fill up. Their computers are outdated. They patrol in scorching heat and trek long distances through dense forest with little to no equipment. Every time they go out on patrol, they’re putting their lives on the line. And still — they go.

The CBAPU members are always on call day and night. If a tiger strays too close to a village, they get the call. If an elephant enters a field, they’re the ones who rush out in the dark. When someone dies from an attack, they are there to console the family. They are the glue holding this entire system together.

Around the world, the places richest in wildlife are often home to communities facing the greatest challenges. The future depends on solutions that protect both people and animals—where everyone rises together. And Bardia might just be showing the world what that future looks like.

If you'd like to know more about us, Project Wild Earth, and how this all came about, click here: https://projectwildearth.com/ For our journey, we are driving Jane, our INEOS Grenadier, and live in a Patriot X3 Trailer so we can travel off-road to remote locations and be off-grid for long periods of time. (Living in the trailer is on pause until we bring it back to life after the fire we had)

Thank you for coming along on our journey!

Leah, Matt, Jack and Charlotte

#nepal #tigers #bardiya #bardia #conservation

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