ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses both the local perspectives on environmental decline and on conservation development work, as well as on the practical and theoretical interrelationships and implications of those two things. It highlights a successful strategy for involving local people, knowledge, and custom in resource planning and action. Forest resource degradation is perhaps the most well documented for Nepal, but basic soil and water resources have also declined, with concomitant negative impacts on the quality of life among virtually all Himalayan and adjacent lowland populations. Recognizing the severity of the problem, national and international agencies in Nepal have initiated a concerted effort to ameliorate the crisis through development aid. Innovative conservation development implies and reorganizes or modifies it to address the changed circumstances of the present. The Village Dialogue is a tested and innovative method for maintaining sociocultural diversity and variety.
