Fifty-six year-old Kaluram Bote has awaited the end of February, which marks a crucial time for gharial breeding in Chitwan, between Nepal’s Terai and hilly regions. Rowing his boat in the Rapti River, he sets off on an early morning hunt for gharial eggs and fetches them back to the breeding center. For more than two decades now, Kaluram has been deployed by Chitwan National Park to collect the reptile’s eggs, which are hatched in captivity at the gharial breeding center in Chitwan.
“Once the eggs are collected and hatched in the breeding center, the hatchlings are fed and taken care of in captivity until they are released in rivers to grow for the rest of their lives,” says Kaluram, one of the Indigenous Bote people who works as a “keeper” of the critically endangered species.
The park’s gharial (Gavialis gangeticus) population has seen an increase over the past few years, from 239 in 2023 to 265 in early 2024. But despite this jump, the keepers’ future, and that of other Bote people, is uncertain.
Since the park’s inception, there have been restrictions on fishing licenses to protect gharials.
Indigenous Bote people, faced with the loss of ownership of their ancestral lands, have demanded their right to continue fishing in rivers without limitation, as it has been their traditional source of income. But many people can no longer see a future in fishing, even if the number of gharials eventually stabilizes. And the livelihood alternatives they were offered, such as working as gharial keepers, have so far been insufficient, they say.
Keepers like Kaluram only work a few months of the year, during spring, on a contractual basis and they have no job security.
Kaluram’s home is one among the 115 households living on the banks of the Rapti River. Like his Bote ancestors, he has spent all his life fishing and rowing boats on the river, which flows from east to west through the Chitwan Valley forming the northern border of Chitwan National Park and joins the Gandaki River inside the park’s protected area. When Chitwan National Park was created in 1973, many were evicted and they now have limited access to fishing upstream and to the protected area itself.
For generations, these communities have depended on fishing and forest resources for their livelihoods. In addition to the Indigenous Bote, ethnic communities including the Majhi, Kumal, Darai and Musahar have depended on fishing in Narayani and Rapti for their daily sustenance.
Although many parents like Kaluram raised their children to be economically dependent on fishing, restrictions and insufficient livelihood options are changing their minds. They are now encouraging their kids to leave local communities to work as migrant laborers in Persian Gulf countries in order to lead a better material life.
“Our struggles are futile; it feels like we are dead because our voices are not heard,” Kaluram says.