ABSTRACT
Nepal is a small, landlocked country of some 26 million inhabitants in south Asia that borders China (Tibet) to the north and India to the south, east and west (CBS, 2011). Home to eight of the world’s ten highest peaks, including Mount Everest, it is an ecologically diverse country with three main physiographic regions: the mountains, the highly populated hill region, and the tropical Terai. This terrain includes over 118 different types of ecosystems (MFSC, 2002: 10). The bounty afforded by the biological diversity of the hill and Terai in particular have sustained their inhabitants for millennia, although landscapes in both have been seriously degraded, while in today’s Nepal the natural wonders of the mountains and to a lesser extent the Terai attract trekkers and other tourists from around the world.
