About

About

The Burhan Community Regeneration and Conservation Foundation (BCRCF) was founded in Bardiya, Nepal, by local families who once lived inside what is now a national park — until conservation fences pushed them out.

Born out of loss, resistance, and hope, BCRCF represents a movement of people determined to rewrite the story of conservation — one where nature thrives because people do.

Our Vision

A Nepal where conservation empowers, not oppresses.

Our Values

Agency – Communities must lead, not follow.
Justice – Conservation cannot exist without fairness.
Ecological Equity – The well-being of people and nature are inseparable.

Our team brings lived experience — from eviction, human–wildlife conflict, and cultural erasure — and turns it into leadership. We are researchers, artisans, and activists with deep roots in Bardiya’s forests and fields.

Why Bardiya?

Bardiya is both a conservation triumph and a humanitarian tragedy.

Home to Nepal’s largest elephant population and over 125 tigers, it is also ground zero for conservation’s contradictions:

• 274+ Indigenous Tharu families forcibly displaced from ancestral lands.
• Traditional practices criminalized in the name of protection.
• Delayed or denied compensation trapping families in cycles of poverty.

Here, conservation success has come at the cost of community suffering — and that’s what we aim to change.

The Crisis: Conservation’s Broken Promises

Nepal is celebrated globally for its tiger recovery and forest expansion. But behind those headlines are unseen human costs:

• Families evicted from forests they once safeguarded.
• Women artisans excluded from markets despite “community” projects.
• Local leaders silenced by donor-driven agendas.

Conservation, as practiced, has too often been colonial, centralized, and cosmetic — prioritizing species over people, and photo-ops over fairness.

Our Solution: The IACC Model

Initiative for Agency of Community over Conservation

At the heart of BCRCF is a simple philosophy:

Equity is the foundation of ecology.

We are building a new model of conservation that rejects fences, fear, and tokenism — and replaces them with agency, justice, and co-creation.

Why We Exist

Because conservation cannot heal the planet while it hurts its people.
Because justice is as much a part of ecology as trees and tigers.
Because the world’s greatest conservation story still needs its human chapter.