Annapurna Conservation Areaअन्नपूर्ण संरक्षण क्षेत्र

The Annapurna Conservation Area is Nepal's largest protected area at 7,629 km² and the model that made 'people-centred conservation' famous worldwide. It began in 1986 as a pilot project run by the NTNC (then the King Mahendra Trust for Nature Conservation) in the village of Ghandruk, and was formally gazetted as Nepal's first conservation area in 1992. It spreads across five Gandaki districts — Manang, Mustang, Kaski, Myagdi and Lamjung — and rises from 790 m to the 8,091 m summit of Annapurna I.

Crucially, more than 100,000 people live inside it. Designated under the softer IUCN Category VI, the conservation area lets residents keep farming, grazing and using forest resources while the NTNC reinvests tourism revenue into conservation, micro-hydro and community development. ACAP funds itself entirely from trekker entry fees and receives no regular government budget — a self-financing arrangement almost unique among the world's large protected areas. Its biodiversity is correspondingly rich: 1,226 flowering plants, 105 mammals, 523 birds, 40 reptiles and 23 amphibians, including snow leopard, blue sheep and musk deer.

It is also Nepal's most-visited trekking region. The Annapurna Circuit, Annapurna Base Camp and Poon Hill routes draw the majority of the country's trekkers, and the revenue they generate is precisely what keeps the conservation and development programmes running — a virtuous loop of tourism paying for protection that is studied and copied around the world.