In recent years, the Ministry of Forests and Soil Conservation has been working together with the World Bank and various national and international non-governmental organizations to design a Nepal Trust Fund for Biodiversity. The trust fund would provide sustainable financing to protect the biological diversity of Nepal in perpetuity by establishing an internationally invested endowment that would provide annual interest and dividends.

During March 1998, a multi-sector stakeholder planning workshop was organized to discuss the Nepal Trust Fund for Biodiversity. As a result of the workshop, a Design Working Group was proposed by His Majesty’s Government of Nepal and endorsed by the 71 workshop participants to facilitate the design of the trust fund. The group includes representatives from the Ministry of Forests and Soil Conservation, the Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation, King Mahendra Trust for Nature Conservation, The Mountain Institute, and the IUCN - The World Conservation Union.

During recent months, the Design Working Group conducted eighteen consultations in different parts of Nepal to gather input and ideas from 460 stakeholders in regard to the design of the trust fund. During the consultations, participants overwhelmingly supported the need for a national trust fund to ensure protection of Nepal’s unique biological diversity. Many felt that a trust fund would be an ideal mechanism to restore biodiversity at the local level if it provided funding directly to local user groups, non-governmental organizations, and other community-based organizations. Additionally, the participants felt that it should be an autonomous entity managed by an independent Board of Directors. The consultation process generated an incredible amount of excitement among grassroots organizations and NGOs. For example, two organizations submitted poems illustrating the need for biodiversity conservation efforts in Nepal. "A Notice on the Vanishing Biological Diversity" and "Let us seek Biodiversity".