Landscape level conservation is a new paradigm in conservation arena crafted to address the issue of expanding human needs and their pressure on the ecosystem. In this initiation, conservation is extended beyond the boundary of protected area to cover larger landscape of different land-use patterns.

With an aim to develop replicable landscape-level management model(s) to safeguard the biological wealth and vital ecological functions in Nepal, WTLCP was launched in August 2005 after signing an agreement between the Government of Nepal and the UNDP. The eight-year long project is a joint initiative of Government of Nepal and seven national and international organisations.

The project's landscape approach envisions integrated ecosystem management to achieve the multiple objectives of conservation, sustainable natural resource management and poverty alleviation by reorienting biodiversity management approaches and its institutional arrangements. The project was designed to address major biodiversity threats of agriculture encroachment and squatting in forestlands; high grazing pressure in the forests; overexploitation of forest resources; and the replacement of traditional agricultural crop varieties and landraces with modern cultivars.

Western Terai Landscape Complex stretches from Bardia National Park in the east to Shuklaphanta Wildlife Reserve in the west. It works in 52 Village Development Committees (VDCs) of 3 districts in western Nepal viz. Bardia, Kailali and Kanchanpur. WTLCP is also working on few other VDCs supported during Western Terai Landscape Building Programme (WTLBP) period.