The grass cutting programme (GCP) of the Royal Chitwan National Park (RCNP) in Nepal is regarded as being very successful in gaining local people's acceptance of RCNP. The aim of this study was to assess the extent to which the GCP is a form of 'community- based conservation' on the one hand, or 'nature-based development on the other. Primary data on how people use the open access provided through the GCP was collected during and immediately after the annual grass cutting in January-February 1999 using six data collection methods. During the ten days of open access in 1999, almost 50 000 t of biomass were removed from the Park; the total gross economic value of the GCP in 1999 was more than $1 million. Illegal fuelwood was the single most important product extracted from RCNP and accounted for half of the total quantity and economic value of all resources collected. It is argued that the GCP does not, in its present form, comply with the concept of community-based conservation, but is ratheran example of nature- based development, where important natural core areas are exploited in the name of development. The study suggests a two- fold approach to reappraise the importance of the GCP in solving park-people conflicts without ignoring nature conservation. Firstly, access should be provided in different areas at different times instead of opening the Park at the same time. Secondly, since for the last 10-15 years buffer-zone community forestry has not been able to substitute fuelwood from RCNP other ways to address local people's energy demand should be considered.