The International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), in collaboration with the Wageningen UR Centre for Development Innovation (CDI), organized a ‘Landscape Governance Training of Trainers’ in Chitwan, Nepal, from 25 September-5 October 2016. The Chitwan National Park (CNP), which is under the Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation (DNPWC), National Trust for Nature Conservation (NTNC), Nepal, and the Valmiki Tiger Reserve (VTR), which is under the Forest Department, Bihar, India, were co-organizers of the event.
The ten-day workshop aimed to train participants from seven countries – Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Nepal and Pakistan – on transboundary landscape governance for further application of the curriculum in their respective countries. Participants had been selected and invited based on their positions to ensure the uptake of the Training of Trainers (ToT) workshop learnings so that they maybe be mainstreamed into national level courses. The programme began with a two-day cross-border field assessment using the Landscape Governance Tool in Madi Valley in Chitwan, Nepal, and Govardhana, India. This was followed by a ToT course in Chitwan which covered five modules, and was delivered by trainers Cora Van Oosten and Seerp Wigboldus from the Netherlands. Plans and methodologies for country and context specific approaches of the ToT were finalized later through group activities.