Then, in 1950, everything began to change.
A popular revolt by the people of Nepal brought about the
collapse of the Rana regime, and with it the end of the big
hunts. In the hills the economic situation had been deteriorating
for several decades. The population grew so fast that people
ran out of land on which to grow crops. In desperation, the
land-hungry farmers began to venture down into the plains,
the new government felt obliged to open Chitwan for settlement.
An agricultural development program was started and thousands
of hill people poured into the valley in search of land. A
malaria-eradication scheme, launched by the Government and
the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)
in 1954 proved so successful that the whole district was declared
malaria-free in 1960.
All this was progress of a kind. But the human influx was
so vast and so rapid that inevitably it had a disastrous effect
on the wildlife habitat. Poaching became rampant, and little
was done to control it. The main target was rhino, whose horn
- renowned for its alleged medicinal properties - already
commanded enormous prices in the drugstores of the East.
By the end of the 1950s it was clear that if such a decline
continued, the rhino and other animals would soon face extinction.
Already the swamp deer and the water buffalo had almost disappeared
from Chitwan. Therefore, in 1959, the Fauna Preservation Society
appointed the distinguished British naturalist E. P. Gee to
make a survey. Gee, who had spent most of his life in India
and was an authority on its wildlife, recommended the creation
of a national park north of the Rapti river, and this was
duly established in 1961. He also proposed a wildlife sanctuary
to the south of the river for a trial period of ten years.
After he had surveyed Chitwan again in 1963, this time both
the Fauna Preservation Society and the International Union
for the Conservation of Nature, he recommended an extension
of the national park to include areas of rhino country in
the south.
In 1963 a government committee investigated the legal status
of immigrants in the Chitwan valley; the Land Settlement Commission
of 1964 resettled 22,000 people, including 4,000 from inside
the rhino sanctuary, elsewhere in the valley. Drastic though
it was, the operation brought little immediate improvement,
for the people who had been evicted poured back into the area
to collect firewood and fodder; the habitat deteriorated still
further, and the rhino population continued to decline. A
survey carried out in June 1968 estimated that only a total
of between eighty-one and 108 rhinos were left. The report,
published in 1969, predicted that unless total protection
were afforded, the rhino would disappear by 1980.
In December 1970, His late Majesty King Mahendra approved
the establishment of the national park south of the Rapti
river. The boundaries were delineated in March and April of
1971, and preliminary development began in October that year.
Royal Chitwan National Park was officially gazetted in 1973
by His Majesty King Birendra and became the first national
park in Nepal
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