Wildlife damage compensation
Providing social protection for farmers, including compensation for damage caused by human-wildlife conflicts.
Rhesus monkeys are known for damaging crops and, as a consequence, livelihoods (Photo: Paarth Sigdel, via Unsplash)
Nepalese farmers have long suffered severe crop and livelihood losses and livestock depredation due to wild animals such as rhesus monkeys (known locally as rato badar or ‘red monkey’) or from Asia’s largest antelope, the Nilgai. However, there were no formal compensation mechanisms for farmers.
Since 2014, a sustained advocacy campaign led by the National Farmers Group Federation of Nepal (NFGF) has led to the inclusion of compensation provisions for crop and livelihood damage caused by wild animals – specifically monkeys and Nilgai – in the new Wildlife Damage Relief Distribution Guidelines 2080 (2023).
Forest and Farm Facility activities
To achieve this outcome, FFF support to NFGF allowed for a strategic combination of legal and policy advocacy between 2014 to 2025.
NFGF leadership interacted at national level with the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development and the Ministry of Forests and Environment, as well as with agriculture and livestock and forest department staff at provincial and local government levels. They also engaged experts from civil society organisations, who contributed expertise on wildlife management and compensation mechanisms.
Finally, they filed a writ petition to the Supreme Court of Nepal in 2016, which deliberated and shaped subsequent outcomes, triggering national-level attention and legal deliberation.
Significance of impact
This was significant because the new provision acknowledged farmers’ rights and reduced economic vulnerability caused by recurring wildlife damage by subsidising insurance up to 80%.
However, gaps in the guidelines still remained. Through continued follow-up advocacy since 2016, NFGF has kept the issue active through government engagement and has built public pressure by conducting joint advocacy programmes, including discussions, stakeholder consultations and issue framing with the Federation of Community Forestry Users Nepal (FECOFUN) and other stakeholders. These multistakeholder dialogues have helped to highlight gaps in the new guidelines.
Conclusion
NFGF’s continued advocacy in 2025 – including major multistakeholder interactions – reflects nearly a decade of continuous efforts.
FFF support underwrote forest and farm producer organisation (FFPO) advocacy platforms and provided training to improve the internal governance of FFPOs such as NFGF and FECOFUN, and supported multistakeholder dialogues that helped bring policy issues to national attention.
NFGF continues to advocate for improved accessibility, adequacy and revision of the compensation procedures.
Further reading
The resilience of agrobiodiversity: the story of Nepal's Chabeli Farmer Group, Forest and Farm Facility (2023)
Insight: Agroforestry entrepreneurship by smallholder farmers – regreening Nepal, Duncan Macqueen (2025)
Advancing agrobiodiversity: why organisations of smallholders and Indigenous Peoples are vital, Duncan Macqueen (2024), research report