Dozens of families displaced by the expansion of the Shuklaphanta Wildlife Reserve—now a national park—have once again launched a protest in Kanchanpur, setting up makeshift huts outside the Division Forest Office.

Some are seen fastening plastic sheets for roofs, while others have already moved into huts. The open ground belonging to the herbs office, in front of the forest office, now looks like a growing settlement. “We are tired of repeated promises and delays. This time we will not leave this public land until we are properly resettled,” said Jaya Bahadur Rokaya, coordinator of the Shuklaphanta Displaced Struggle Committee. “We’ve brought whatever food we could carry. We won’t go back until the government provides a solution,” he asserted.

The displaced families have been staging a series of sit-ins and relay hunger strikes over the years. They had previously demonstrated at Maitighar Mandala in Kathmandu in June and at Madan Chowk in Mahendranagar in August, calling for their rehabilitation. Both times, they ended their hunger strikes after receiving verbal assurances from officials, which they say have since been ignored.

Their demands include a minimum of 10 kattha (0.34 hectares) of land per family, compensation for 24 years of displacement, official recognition and benefits similar to those granted to the victims of the Maoist insurgency and guaranteed access to housing, education and healthcare. Before occupying the public land in front of the forest office, they had spent two days staging a sit-in outside the District Administration Office.

“We’ve protested for years, but nothing has changed. We’ve been cheated repeatedly. They even formed commissions in our name, but our situation remains the same,” said Jit Singh Air, one of the displaced protesters. Air, aged 61, was evicted from Hatiya in the then ward 4 of Rautelibichawa Village Development Committee (VDC) in 2001 when his one-bigha (0.68 hectares) farmland was acquired for the reserve’s expansion. He now lives in the Dhakka Camp inside the national park, along with more than 600 displaced families.

According to the struggle committee, there are 2,473 displaced families living in 14 camps across Kanchanpur district. Most were forced to leave their homes in 2001 during the eastern extension of the reserve, which originally covered 150 square kilometres and was expanded to 305 square kilometres.

Established as the Royal Hunting Reserve in 1976, it was later declared the Shuklaphanta Wildlife Reserve and upgraded to a national park in 2017.

Over the past four decades, 32 commissions have been formed to address the issue of rehabilitation. None have reached a final resolution, primarily because of disputes over the actual number of displaced families. The latest commission, led by Jayananda Paneru, a former judge of the Sudurpaschim High Court, formed last year, verified 2,027 displaced households. An earlier commission in 2014, led by former judge Thakur Prasad Sharma, reported 1,480 verified families eligible for rehabilitation. Commissions before that had listed 2,473 displaced households—the same total the struggle committee cites today.

Despite these repeated studies and reports, rehabilitation has yet to begin. “The government keeps forming new commissions just to buy time,” said Rokaya. “Until they ensure land and compensation, we will continue our protest right here.”

The displaced people are still languishing in temporary camps. They are currently scattered across various camps in Dhakka, Tarapur and Lallare. Among these, Dhakka is the largest, with around 600 families, while Tarapur camp accommodates 180 families and Lallare has 13 families. Similarly, many other displaced people have been staying at Bani, Sisamghari and Malubela of Krishnapur Municipality, Simalphanta, Banahara and Baisakha of Shuklaphanta Municipality and Duda of Belkot Municipality among other places in Kanchanpur.

Living in the camps close to the forest is both difficult and unsafe, as residents are left with constant fear of wild animals which not only threaten their lives but also destroy the crops they grow. The displaced people have resorted to encroaching on forested areas for agriculture. This close proximity between humans and animals has adversely affected both. Conservationists say that while humans live in constant fear of wildlife attacks, the wild animals find their natural habitats disturbed by human activities leading to frequent human-wildlife conflicts. They underscore the need to rehabilitate the displaced families to suitable locations at the earliest to control human-animal conflict.

Shuklaphanta National Park is located in the southwestern corner of Nepal in the Sudurpaschim province. As per the latest count, the national park is home to more than 2,300 swamp deer and 44 tigers.