'Stepping outside in the evening is like gambling with your life,' says a local autorickshaw driver in the Khata Corridor of western Nepal. This observation sums up the everyday risk for people living in an area where farms and habitation lie in complex proximity with spaces used by tigers, rhinos, and elephants. It forced us to reflect on an important question: what are the costs of conservation, and who pays? Conservation success cannot be measured only by counts of tigers or elephants or international accolades. It should also be measured by its impact on lives and livelihoods, of livestock taken at night, of sleep deprivation from guarding crops, and families waiting for relief that comes long after the loss or doesn't come at all. Nepal has reasons to be proud of its achievements in the recovery of flagship species like the tiger and the persistence of large, protected areas. But there is a harsh truth inside that success story: the disproportionate costs on people who live close to protected areas and other forest patches and who depend most directly on rivers, grasslands, and forests for their sustenance. Conservation becomes politically fragile when it is celebrated globally but its costs are borne locally. A 2025 study in the buffer zones of Bardiya and Chitwan national parks noted that there were 14,989 recorded human-wildlife conflict incidents between 2013 and 2022. Crop raiding and livestock depredation accounted for most of these incidents, and depredation by elephants alone accounted for 42.8% of all incidents. The recent general election in Nepal saw human-wildlife conflict emerge as a major political issue in Bardiya District, forcing the newly-formed government to list human-wildlife conflict and crop loss among the 100 priorities to be addressed within their first 100 days in office. This year, the International Day for Biological Diversity (IBD) is being observed under the theme 'Acting locally for global impact'. In Nepal, beyond the celebrations, the theme should force an honest call with what these local actions mean in practice – and their associated costs. Often, it is frontline communities that accommodate their labour, movement, and safety around conservation goals while the systems meant to support them remain slow and unresponsive. Forest dependence in the Khata corridor has reduced but accessing forest resources comes with more restrictions and risks. During a visit in June 2024, people said they go to the forest daily in groups of two or three. Around 90% of households in these villages still go just to ensure a square meal a day. When forest use is critical for survival, conservation cannot be governed as if local dependence were an artifact of the past. Amnesty International's 2021 report notes that conservation in Nepal has often been pursued through exclusion. The report highlights how Indigenous and forest-dependent communities in Bardiya and Chitwan have paid for conservation through the loss of their ancestral lands, restricted access to resources, detentions, and long delays in justice. Claiming relief for wildlife depredation is long and torturous. Outside protected areas, conflict cases are addressed by the Division Forest Office and inside protected areas and buffer zones, the process is handled by the PA authorities themselves. The process is rather layered, and the relief comes only after along waiting period. 'Relief is far off and right now, we're just trying to just stay alive,' the autorickshaw driver tells us. For a family that has lost a standing crop, livestock, or the roof over their heads, the delay is not just procedural. Relief that arrives late, often after families have borrowed money to survive, does not provide relief in the true sense. Unless the relief is timely and adequate, it is not relief at all. Relief delayed is relief denied. 'Relief and compensation are for those who speak and have networks,' says the autorickshaw driver. The problem is worse for those who are unable to complete all the necessary paperwork and claim eligibility. Amnesty International's report notes that compensation and land remedy mechanisms have completely failed where people are poor, informally settled (no land titles or tenure), or historically deprived. None of this however has weakened the courage and commitment of these communities to conservation, because it is deep rooted in people from generations. If Nepal wants its biodiversity to flourish, coexistence must be regarded as a public issue rather than as a burden that must be borne by rural households living in and around biodiversity rich areas. This calls for three immediate shifts. First, relief timelines must be shortened and the process made more efficient. Second, compensation should not require heavy paperwork related to land title and approval from different levels and sectors. Third, conflict mitigation measures should be local, adaptable, and practical. Then, there is the issue of voice. Conservation in Nepal is still communicated in the language of numbers, protected area coverage, and population recovery of flagship species. It speaks less about the risks of women collecting fodder and ferns, the burden of debt after crop and livestock damage, the opportunity cost of chasing compensation, and the bitterness that grows when relief is miniscule compared to the loss. On this International Biodiversity Day, it is important to celebrate the local actions that are having global impact, yielding the numbers that Nepal is proud of – but not just as another slogan about coexistence. It must be a straightforward political commitment: conservation should no longer rely on frontline communities living in fear, and waiting weeks, months or even years to be told that their losses matter. Kathariya is a research associate, and Chaudhary is the biodiversity lead at the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development