Dr. Mahendra Shrestha

Dr. Mahendra Shrestha is a conservation biologist with vast experience in managing protected areas, wildlife population monitoring and research, landscape conservation, community-based conservation, policy making, and local conservation leadership development.

While with the Government of Nepal for nearly 2 decades, he took varieties of responsibilities including Chief Warden managing national parks, drafting policies like the buffer zone regulations for community engagement, Terai Arc Landscape conservation strategy, Tiger Action Plan, and also as a researcher on various endangered large mammals.

His research study on tiger and ungulate distribution and connectivity in the lowlands of Nepal contributed to designing the Terai Arc Landscape. At the Save The Tiger Fund of the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation in Washington, DC, he provided strategic support to all the tiger range countries in their tiger conservation and supported identification of priority landscapes for long term tiger conservation.

As an advisor to the World Bank's Global Tiger Initiative (GTI), he was instrumental in highlighting the conservation practice, local leadership development and engagement of tiger range countries. The GTI subsequently led to the Tiger Summit in St. Petersburg, Russia in 2010 that brought the political and international commitment to recovery of tigers in the wild.

Later, he led the capacity building component of the Global Tiger Recovery Program at the Smithsonian Institution that enhanced local leadership development and knowledge sharing in tiger range countries and strengthened cross sector coordination.

His works helped build an extensive alliance among the key players in tiger range countries like the governments, multilateral and bilateral development agencies, donors, and NGOs, and local communities for synergy in tiger conservation and mainstreaming conservation into development. This collective effort brought about the necessary policy changes, funding support, and local capacity development leading to the first ever increase in tiger population in many countries, some doubling the tiger population – a target set at the Tiger Summit.

He strongly believes in building a foundation of protected area management by enhancing the capacity of conservation practitioners, local community and policy makers through in-country institutional set up to address emerging threats to conservation.

Currently, he serves as the Vice President for Asia-Pacific at the International Crane Foundation helping secure habitat for 9 species of cranes in the various flyways across Asia and Australia. He continues to serve as a Research Associate at the Smithsonian Institution.