To my mind cities are distillations of human life itself, in all its nuances, with all its contradictions and anomalies, changing from one year to another, changing with the weather, changing with history, changing with the state of the world, changing above all in one´s own personal responses.
— Jan Morris, British historian and travel writer

It has been such a long time I struggle to bring to mind even vague contours of that majestic landscape. What I do recall is a thick cluster of trees spread over an acre or so. Then, there was the gurgling brook at its far end, by which we sang and danced in uniform, classes bunked, homework forgotten, as we pitched up makeshift tarpaulin tents for an in-house picnic. During rains, I would run through the trees, clutching a bottle of Cola water in my left hand, a polythene bag of chiura and dalmot in my right, to our adolescent nirvana, not a kilometer from our school, while our teachers must have been wondering how five or six of their most obedient pupils would go missing on those rain-drenched days with troubling frequency. Unbothered, we continued with the time-honored tradition for years, soaking in the rattle of water drops on thick sal leaves from inside our makeshift abode.

It was in search of that long-lost romance that I headed down the gentle slope of the newly laid road starting right outside the compound of my old school at Old Baneshwor. My unbound adolescent sense of wonder now blunted by a heavy dose of reality, I retraced my footsteps on the path that once played host to our bicycle races, careless rambles and silly talk. I feared the worst.

Halfway down the memory lane, I stopped to take in the vista. A massive pink bungalow had replaced Saurab´s cozy little home where we gathered to play marbles, munching on Cheese balls fetched from the poky corner shop on the other side of the road. In place of the old paan-pasal, there now stood another monstrous eyesore.

The closer I got to Bhagwanthan, which marked the starting point of the old copse, the more my hope ebbed. Tall buildings in garish green and blue and red sprouted from ever little space available, packed in like a motley of Nepal Yatayat passengers on weekdays. Not a single tree was visible. As far as eyes could see, there was nothing besides concrete.

Why had I come? To have my beautiful illusions shattered by the somber realities of modern-day urban living?

From Bhagwanthan (once a defining feature of the locality, now reduced to a small caged-in enclave by the side of another mortar-and-brick behemoth), I took a left in the direction of the fabled woodland in my imagination. Building after ghastly building on either side, I was hoping against hope that somehow the old brook had been left by itself. Ten minutes into my walk—nothing. Not a trace that there had ever existed a sparkling waterway that quenched the thirst of restless souls looking for a brief respite from their angst-filled existence.

When I consider the death of my old green haunt, Ian Morris’ description of cities as changing “in one´s own personal responses” over time seems to apply perfectly to my experience of Kathmandu over the last couple of decades.

According to government data, 33 percent of the total area of Kathmandu Valley was covered by forests in 1999. The encircling verdant green oasis of Nagarjun, Shivapuri and Chandragiri lent Kathmandu an almost ethereal beauty. Since few studies have been carried out on the state of greenery in the valley, one can only hazard a guess of how green the valley is right now. If my back of the envelop calculation is any measure, at least a third of the green areas might have been ‘concretized’ in the time period. The green tree cover encircling the valley seems to be eroding at the same rate.

There are still many folks who have lived to tell the story of old Kathmandu: when they could go for a swim in the see-through Bagmati waters. Even thirty years ago, they tell us, people could dip their feet in its chilly comfort, a fish line in hand. That its water could be consumed straight from the source.

Looking at the thick, black sludge that passes for Bagmati these days, how they must rue the brutal onslaught on the stuff of their most cherished memories. Watch with agony the slow death of the beautiful Kathmandu they once knew. For those who have come of age in the Noughties, the metro might always represent all the worst attributes of urban living. Smoke-filled air, sludgy waterways, the incessant press of the people forever in a hurry. A metropolis with far fewer playgrounds than game parlors where youngsters are happy to slay make-believe monsters without having to get up from their plastic chairs.

But the image of a city that was once at ease with itself will continue to haunt many generations, whose growing up years were blissfully removed from the insalubrious offerings of present-day Kathmandu. Those sal trees that made my childhood so memorable have all gone. The brook gobbled up by concrete. Now there is no place to pitch our tarpaulin tents, our ephemeral house of dreams replaced by permanent urban nightmares.

The writer is the op-ed editor at Republica.

7:06 am  •  3 June 2012

Kanchanjunga, Eastern Nepal

Having started the trail on January 15 from Taplejung in Eastern Nepal, the trekkers saw that it was mostly the agricultural regions that were gravely affected by climate change. The locals too were complaining of such problems. In the last five years in Ilam, there has been a difference of at least a few weeks between the flower maturation and harvest. The flowers matured two weeks earlier and had to be harvested accordingly, leading to a month’s deviation. According to the renowned composer Ganesh Rasik, now a tea plantation owner in Ilam, this trend has not only led to lesser production but has cut down employment opportunities at the tea estates, among other agro sectors.

The main source of income in the Eastern Region of the country is the production of cardamom and oranges. They found that there has been a steady decline in the harvests of these produce as well. The locals mentioned that this was due to the fog which lasted for a comparatively longer period than earlier, resulting in the loss of leaves and subsequently yielding lesser fruits.

The locals also complained that the fruits do not taste like those they had during their childhood. The income has also plummeted due to the low production of potatoes because of worm infestation.

According to the data available at the District Agriculture Development Office at Ilam, there is a huge depletion in the production of cardamom. In 2008, its production was 1,224 metric tons which decreased to 963 metric tons in 2009. In 2010, it further decreased to 694 metric tons.



Solukhumbu

When Appa and Steven Sherpa reached Lukla on February 8, they had to face a huge snowstorm. According to them, they had not faced such a snowstorm in their entire lives. The snowstorm blew away hundreds of trees in the Sagarmatha National Park besides blowing away the rooftops of three houses in Steven’s hometown, Khumjung. As the trees along the trekking route also fell due to the storm, the street stalls of the business area was greatly affected. Even the elderly locals said that they had not witnessed such a massive snowstorm till date.

Dolakha

Appa, who had visited the Tso Rolpa glacial lake some thirty years ago, noticed massive changes when he was there this time around. Back then, there used to be open grounds around the glacial lake which has now been replaced by glacier slopes. The settlement, which earlier used to be around the river, has shifted to the hills. There are no traces of the previous settlements whatsoever left around the river now.

Kaski

In Kaski, the GHT pioneers not only found that there has been a decline in the production of beans but also came to know that snowcaps have disappeared from the Macchapuchre, the Fishtail Mountain. According to Pancha Bahadur Gurung, a local from Lawang village in Kaski, there used to be a prominent snowcap on Macchapuchre until a decade ago. And colder weather contributes to the less production of beans in the area.

The villagers of Siklis in Kaski had to cross a snow glacier at 2,500 meters to let their cattle graze. The area, also known as Kabache in the Gurung language, is now a lake. In Gurung language, Kaba means snow and che means ground. The snow ground has now turned into a lake.

Bajhang

Prem Malla, a local of Bajhang, told Appa when he reached there on the 92nd day that the kafal berries ripen early and rhododendrons flower before time in the area. Whether the insects that feed on the flowers are ready at that point or not is a matter that has to be researched. This kind of event can greatly affect the ecosystem.

Dolpa

On March 28, the 74th day of their trek, and before reaching Dunai in Dolpa, the trekkers heard that the production of Yarchagumba has declined compared to the earlier times at Puwang in Rukum. The main source of income in that area, Yarchagumba is difficult to find at lower altitudes but rather it can be found higher up in quite dangerous places due to which there has been an excessive and unscientific over-harvesting of the aphrodisiac in the area.

The decreased availability of the wild Yarchagumba has also led to social and regional clashes. In a dry land like Dolpa, there has been an increase in rainfall in recent times due to which their mud roofs are in danger. In Ringmo, at Shey Phoksundo, the locals have started to use plastics to line their ceilings since the roofs are now wet.

According to data of the last three years of Dolpa, the production of Yarchagumba has been cut down to half. In 2008, there was 872 kilograms of the herb, which reduced to 478 kilograms in 2009. The amount further fell to 443 kilograms in 2010.

Jumla

The famous paddy plantations of Jumla have also seen a decrease in production by 125 metric tons in two years. The paddy, which is planted in the area of 3,000 hectares, yielded 5,550 metric tons in 2008, which was reduced to 5,400 metric tons in the current fiscal year.

Jumla witnessed more rainfall in 2011, compared to 2010. The rainfall was measured to be 750.5 millimeters in 2010, which increased to 945.3 millimeter in 2011.

7:06 am  •  3 June 2012

Kamala Sonaha is from Patabhar of Rajapur in Bardia. Although Patabhar is famous for rice production, there is hardly any land for farming here.

Kamala’s family depends on the Karnali River for their livelihood.

“We don’t have a house. All we have is one kattha plot. What can we grow on this small plot of land?” she says as she sifts the sands on the riverbanks.

Besides Kamala, there are some 1,200 other people called Sonahas in Rajapur who eke out their living by collecting gold particles from the sands or fishing in the Karnali River.

“A few generations ago, the Sonahas [“gold” people] were considered nomads who lived near rivers abundant with fish and gold dust. Now times have changed. The places where they used to move around freely are now fenced for conservation, which is putting their very existence into a crisis,” says Sudeep Jaan, a doctoral researcher. “It would be wrong to have a notion of biodiversity conservation by keeping them off from their natural habitats as they don’t consider themselves separate from nature.”

Nowadays, their brooks and forest areas have either been brought into the territory of the designated national parks or community forests. Boundaries have been fixed and these areas are governed by strict regulations.

“Earlier, we used to spend most of our time in the river. Now we’re afraid of the national parks. We hear there are rules to follow and that the rules keep on changing. We don’t even know what they are,” says Kamala.

The Sonahas, who depend heavily on rivers and forests, are barred from entering these very areas. Mahendra Sonaha of Gola Gaon says the forests have turned ‘dangerous’ for them. “I was born and grew up on these riverbanks. How are we going to survive if we’re barred from going to the river?” he questions.

With things getting increasingly difficult, the Sonahas have started looking for alternative means of making their living. Kamala’s husband works in India. She says it has become a compulsion for Sonahas to take up other jobs.

“The river where we used to go fishing is now the property of the national park. We can’t survive if we don’t find other jobs.”



The Sonahas live with very little income. Kamala’s family, for example, has four persons who can work for a living. But even if all of them go to work they can hardly collect gold particles worth Rs 300. So the family can only make Rs 3,000 a month.

There are rivers where they can find more gold and fish than in Karnali. But these rivers too are restricted. If they are found inside, they will be arrested by the national park authorities.

Last year, Khum Lal Sonaha’s brother was arrested while fishing inside the Bardia National Park and was detained for a month. Additionally, he had to pay a fine of Rs 5,000, an amount his family had never seen or earned at one time.

“It was very hard for us to arrange such a big amount of money. We borrowed money from neighbors and paid it to the national park,” recounts Khum Lal.

The Sonahas leave the sand as it is after sifting the gold particles and the sand heaps come to their previous form on the banks, causing no harm to the natural course of the river. Mahendra Sonaha complains that the national park and the community forest authorities have never considered their point. “We only sift the sand. We don’t take it with us.”

The only possessions of the Sonahas are the tools they use for sifting sand to collect gold, fishing nets and wooden boats.

“The indigenous people have never destroyed nature. The Sonahas have been living in the jungle for a very long time, but they were never found making homes in the forest areas,” Jaan’s research says.

The regulations introduced by the national parks do not address them. Advocate Raj Kumar Chaudhary says such regulations have encroached upon their rights.
“Rules and regulations that make things difficult for people who traditionally depend on forests, land or rivers for a living should be changed,” he says.

In his view, such problems need to be addressed now as Nepal has become a party to the ILO treaty four years ago which guarantees the rights of indigenous nationalities.

“The Nepal government has an obligation to implement this treaty, which clearly states that the indigenous communities who depend on forests, water and land shall not be displaced from their original places. But the Sonahas have been restricted from fishing or sifting the sand to collect gold [in their own native lands],” Chaudhary says.

The Sonahas did convey their concerns to the national park officials, who provided licenses to allow them to collect gold and go fishing only during the day. But once somebody from the Sonaha community was caught assisting rhino poachers by the park authorities, their licenses haven’t been renewed since then.

“A villager got caught. We heard that the other two arrested were soldiers. We don’t know what happened to them, but none of us got our licenses renewed. What kind of rule is this?” asks Khum Lal. “We don’t have anybody to speak for our rights.”

Some of the rules introduced by the authorities for conservation of biodiversity have made things difficult for so many indigenous communities. Their cultures and traditions are getting lost because of these interventions. The Sonahas are obviously going to be one of them if things continue like this.

The writer is associated with Nepal Forum of Environmental Journalists (NEFEJ) and is production member of Aankhijhyal, an acclaimed TV magazine program on environment.  

5:39 am  •  1 June 2012

At 9AM today, a meeting of experts and policymakers is scheduled to take place here in Kathmandu to discuss the long-term role of Renewable Energy (RE) in Nepal.

The Alternative Energy Promotion Center, the government body, is rightfully keen on developing a revised plan to carve out a real space for RE in the country.

It’s about time.

Last weekend, the world witnessed something amazing: Germany produced half of its energy needs – 22 Giga Watts (22,000MW)– from solar power, a world record.

“The record-breaking amount of solar power shows one of the world’s leading industrial nations was able to meet a third of its electricity needs on a workday, Friday, and nearly half on Saturday when factories and offices were closed,” The Guardian reported.

That feat in energy production didn’t happen simply because the days were exceptionally bright. Rather, it was a calculated result of a series of thoughtful and long-term policies tied to technologies that enables citizens to not just be energy consumers but also energy producers and suppliers.

One clear reason why Germany is a leader in the renewable energy production sector is its Feed-in-Tariff policy.

“51% of all renewable energy in Germany is owned by individual citizens or farms, totaling US$100 billion worth of private investment in clean energy,” a column in TreeHugger.com noted. “A democratic shift in control of resources and a break from the way electricity and energy has been produced over the past century.”


                                                                                                                                  Source: NEA

FiT

“We have noted that Feed-in-Tariff will be important in the long run, but it is something that hasn’t really discussed or studied here yet,” explained Govind Raj Pokharel, Executive Director of the Alternative Energy Promotion Center.

The European Environment Agency defines FiT as “the price per unit of electricity that a utility or supplier has to pay for renewable electricity from private generators.

The government regulates the tariff rate.” Simply put, if your house is generating electricity, depending on the payment model, you are paid for the production of those units or for selling those units to the Grid, or both.

FiT could drastically change the way we perceive energy production and use in Nepal. Combining it with micro-grid is something that could be developed and used with any other energy sources, including biogas and micro hydro. But in Nepal, it many best work with solar energy.

As a technology, solar is also uniquely positioned to serve both an individual home as well as a micro grid whereas that may not necessarily be possible with biogas because of the amount of biomass it would require, or micro-hydro because of the relatively large-scale logistical and infrastructural issues involved in its development.

Add to all this the fact that solar modules costs are at a historical low while its efficiency and installation rate is ever growing. The amount of solar module installed in 2011 in the US was double of what it was installed in 2010.

Sun Spots

Nepal takes pride in the fact that there are about 600,000 homes that are solar lit. While that is remarkable, using solar technology only for lighting lamps in regions that are ‘disconnected from the gird’ is a gross underutilization of a technology that can deliver, as we have seen, 22GW in two days.

Limiting the use and promotion of solar energy in “off grid” areas, as Nepal’s policies right now dictates, is an unfortunate opportunity loss.

Solar energy can and must be efficiently harvested in Nepal’s densest urban centers – the growing consumer base of Nepal’s electricity. Kathmandu’s daily average consumption of electricity today comes to about 4,000,000 units.

If the city used FiT to help solar panel even just on 500,000 roofs in the city, a significant load would certainly be taken off the country’s national grid during the afternoon hours.

Not only that. Kathmandu becomes an urban heat bubble during the summer. The asphalt roads and concrete trap and emit a lot of heat. Rooms under solar-paneled roofs would most likely experience cooler temperatures too.

As a Municipality, would Kathmandu be able to partner with a private group to create a shade composed of solar panels over the footpath that surrounds Tundhikhel, just as a prototype? With FiT, the energy generated could be sold directly to a local grid while the shade would shelter pedestrians in both rain and shine.

The logistics of solar paneling have become significantly simple and minimalist over the years. By taking storage out of the picture for homes, particularly, things become even simpler for households.

Micro/community grids

In the Nepali context, for feasibility and logistical sake, it might make most sense to combine FiT with micro grids managed by either community/private groups or whatever the local authority might be.

Here, the system would have to offer individual producers at least two things: storage, and some guarantee of accessing the stored power in case the grid is unable to provide electricity.

While countries like Germany don’t have to worry about load shedding, in Nepal any version of FiT and micro grid would need to keep in mind that households who produce energy would like to access it most when the traditional options cannot provide it.

However, regions that don’t have access to grid already could be developed more independently.

There is another technical reason why FiT may work in Nepal only through a collective distribution point: Nepal Electricity Authority does not buy less than 100KW of electricity because of transmission losses.

In a city like Kathmandu, large gated communities and apartments as well as commercial buildings would be able to make the most of a model such as this almost immediately. As a country, there are possibilities of these ideas also earning us Carbon Credits.

Micro grids would also bypass major hurdles such as transmission lines, roads, and displacement that large-scale projects face. And as the country moves to a federal model, FiT tied to micro grids probably only make increasing sense.


                                                                                                                              Source: IPPAN

Electricity tariff

One argument that an institute like NEA will raise is that the price of alternative energy is still too high in Nepal, particularly that of solar energy. One officer at NEA estimated that while the average per unit price NEA pays right now is less than Rs.6/unit, solar power might at best cost Rs.16/unit.

What is not mentioned is that electricity prices in Nepal have been stagnant for 10 years! Or what the real costs are at which NEA has been importing electricity.

According to the Nepal Rastra Bank’s 2009-2010 data, Nepal spent Rs.5 billion on importing electricity, and another Rs.5 billion on inverters, batteries and chargers to fight load shedding at homes.

That is to say, in a year, the country spent Rs.10 billion to address load shedding, and still the country experienced more than 12 hours of power outage per day during that time.

It must also be noted that the Electricity Tariff Fixation Commission (ETFC) has not yet raised prices per unit despite repeated calls from all major stakeholders. As recently as May 13, at a recent function on the issue of tariff, Energy Minister Bogati expressed interest and the need to raise prices.

The head of ETFC also committed to taking an action soon. Yet two weeks later, there is no word on the matter. If there is one consensus that the Prime Minister can act on immediately, it seems this is it: raising the price of electricity in Nepal because the country cannot afford the fake prices with which it is operating at the moment.

In the fiscal year 2067/68, NEA’s accumulated losses stood at Rs 27.32 billion. The Nepal Government paid for it. Last year, without a major government bailout, it was expected that NEA would go bankrupt in two years.

There is little real argument not to adjust electricity prices in Nepal. And based on conversations with people working on the issue, the Prime Minister could expedite the decision at will, should he have the will to do so.

Without it, not only would the State Utility Service provider risk bellying up but also it will remain difficult to get a real sense of where prices of alternative energy in different capacities stand against the prices of conventional sources in Nepal.

Surely, investing Rs.5 billion in producing solar power on the roofs of Kathmandu would have had significant long-term contributions to Nepal’s economy.

For one thing, the one-time investment would continue to produce energy for at least 20-25 years, unlike a one-season’s purchase of diesel for generators, or electricity from abroad. While FiT will need a detailed pricing study, so do the real costs of NEA’s current energy sources.

People’s Power

The energy crisis in Nepal demands as many avenues of domestic production and distribution mechanisms as possible, not just for the sake of home electrifications but also as a tool of economic growth, general development, communications services, and national security.

We are engaged in extremely complex energy trade negotiations, agreements, and policies with our neighboring countries and foreign investors.

Surely, we can engage in something quite less complex at a domestic level while moving to the same goal: electrification and socioeconomic development. FiT can be a real tool of People’s Power.

The key is not necessarily to define the source of energy immediately (although to keep in mind a major source, such as solar), but rather to ensure this technology itself is approved at a policy level.

Such an outcome would allow people to engage in using FiT model as and when it seems most beneficial, keeping in mind the rapid pace at which the technology for energy production is becoming ever more efficient and feasible.

Such a policy would also be impossible to implement without the public at large understanding its implications. And so, by default, it would be a policy that would be drafted and implemented with a broad public discourse initiated through the concerned bodies in the government, civil society and community groups as well as the media.

The implications of FiT are not limited to electrification alone, but also to matters of local governance and accountability, and the dynamics and functioning of community user groups in the country.

Something as fundamental as energy usage across the nation can no longer be confined to an antiquated central body that has always held a monopoly, and a handful of powerful industrialists, nor should Nepal’s energy policy hinge on a single source when clear alternatives are available.

And after what the world witnessed in Germany last week, there can be little question about the capabilities and potential of renewable energy at the hands of communities and individuals.

The author is a Policy Fellow researching the role of FiT policies for Nepal at the Niti Foundation. He will be writing more on this subject in his forthcoming columns. You can follow him on twitter @kashishds and email him at kashish@350nepal.org

5:37 am  •  1 June 2012

As of 2009, Nepal earned US$2.1 million through carbon trading by running several clean-energy projects. Two of Nepal’s globally acclaimed indigenous biogas projects that are being replicated worldwide have also obtained the Certified Emission Reduction (CER) certification.

Krishna Gyawali, Secretary at the Ministry of Environment, says, more projects are likely to receive CER soon, which means more rewards for the country.
Om Astha Rai caught up with Gyawali to talk about carbon trading, its status, and how the money is being utilized, and the hurdles that need to be crossed in Nepal.

 Excerpts:

How is Nepal earning money from carbon trading?

Let me first briefly sum up the background to carbon trading. In 1992, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) fixed a certain parameter beyond which developed countries cannot emit greenhouse gas (GHG). Later, in 1996, the Kyoto Protocol, which is linked to the UNFCCC, set a binding target for the developed countries to reduce GHG emissions within a certain timeframe.

However, irrespective of how environment-friendly they make their industries, the developed countries cannot significantly reduce GHG emissions. In this context, by way of compensation, the developed countries need to pay money to the developing countries for reducing carbon emission. In short, if Nepal avoids emitting one ton of carbon through clean-energy projects, we are entitled to US$7. We’re running several clean-energy projects which fetch us money for reducing GHG emissions. This is how Nepal is making money through carbon trading.

Could you elaborate more on such future projects?

Four more biogas projects have already been registered with the Executive Board of Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), which is under the UNFCCC. However, they are yet to receive CER. Altogether 60,000 biogas plants have been set up under these four projects.

One micro hydro project has also been registered at the CDM Board. Once these five projects receive CER, we’ll be earning more money through carbon trading. In addition, three more projects – biogas, Improved Cooking Stove, and Improved Water Mill – are likely to be registered at the CDM Board.

How does the developed world provide money to Nepal for reducing GHG emissions?

At present, we’re receiving money from the World Bank (WB) and German Development Bank (KFW). The Nepal Government had signed an Emission Reduction Purchase Agreement (ERPA) with the WB in 2006. The current rate of US$7 for one ton of carbon is fixed in the ERPA. The money we receive is through the WB, which in turn receives the money from developed countries to pay the developing nations. Although it seems that we’re receiving money from the WB alone, the WB gets it from the developed countries. Therefore, the developed countries are paying us money through the WB. In case of the KFW, we have a bilateral agreement.

What is the process of selling carbon?

It’s a very lengthy and complex process. If a business firm decides to develop a CDM-friendly project and expresses commitment to reduce a certain amount of carbon, it has to acquire a Project Information Note (PIN) from a Designated National Authority (DNA). In Nepal’s case, the Ministry of Environment has been appointed as the DNA by the UNFCCC Secretariat.

After the DNA gives its nod, the firm has to submit a Project Design Document (PDD). The DNA reviews the PDD and sends it to the CDM Board. The Board refers the PDD to a certain Designated Operational Entity (DOE). The role of the DOE is very crucial in issuing CER. The DOE first validates and then verifies the PDD before issuing CER. Once the CER is issued, the firm acquires tradable status.

Where does the money earned through carbon trading go?

At least 80 per cent of the money is spent in developing future CDM-friendly projects. Two per cent of the money is allocated to the Environment Protection Fund (EPF) which runs micro CDM-friendly projects. The remaining 18 per cent of the money goes to the Climate and Carbon Unit (CCU) at the Alternative Energy Promotion Centre (AEPC) for management of all CDM-friendly projects.

Is the current rate of carbon trading satisfactory?

No. In fact, we’ve been asking for raising the current rate of US$7 for one ton of carbon in the last few years. We have already registered one micro hydro project with the CDM Board for CER. We’ve maintained that it should be at least US$10 for one ton of carbon in the case of micro hydro projects. We’re for raising the carbon trade rate in biogas projects, too. But, it’s negotiable. We need to sign a new ERPA in the near future.

Do you think Nepal’s community forestry will also fetch money through carbon trading?

The UN-Reducing Emission from Deforestation and Forest Degradation has allowed us to earn money through carbon trading by planting trees. However, the process for community forests to receive CER is even more complex. In the first place, it’s very complicated to assess the value of carbon reduced by community forests by planting trees. This is why none of Nepal’s community forests has received CER so far.

What are the challenges facing Nepal in carbon trading?

We’re facing four major challenges. Firstly, we lack a research-based baseline data. For instance, we say we have immense potential in hydropower. But how much potential do we have in it? We have no scientific data. Is this potential realizable? We can’t say. In order to address this problem, we are now developing a strategy.

Secondly, although we want to encourage private sector to involve itself in carbon trading in our policy documents, we lack clear guidelines about this. Thirdly, we have no DOE in Nepal. Since foreign firms come to Nepal as DOEs for validation and verification, they will take away much of our money. And we also lack technical experts in carbon trading.

5:36 am  •  1 June 2012

The arrival of the rainy season troubles their sleep, say the inhabitants of Bhorle, a small village on the Koshi Basin at Dolakha.

The river that flows along the length of the village threatens it with massive floods, the water level rising to the level of the patios of the nearby houses. And to add to their fear, the hill that overlooks the river terrifies the villagers with landslides.

“We’re threatened by both sides. If natural disasters strike simultaneously from both sides, we’ll have nowhere to go to save our lives,” says Abir Lama, a local and the treasurer of the Bhorle Community Disaster Risk Management Committee. In addition, the road construction in the hills on either side of the village poses great threats of being washed away.

“The villages get limited budget for the construction of roads, which is why they conduct no feasibility study before using heavy machinery like excavators to dig through high slopes. This results in making the slopes susceptible to landslides,” says Dinesh Nepali, geologist at Department of Mines and Geology.



In this photo taken on August 10, 2010, travelers and porters go to district headquarter of Rasuwa past the landslide carrying necessary goods.

The geographical topography in the hilly areas of Nepal itself is prone to landslides, according to Nepali. The un-engineered roads only add to the risks, he says.

Lama, on his part, says that Bhorle is in a helpless state anyway. “The government doesn’t allocate enough funds for constructing a secure dam for the village. And it won’t be wise to interrupt the road construction process, or we’ll be threatened by all the villages of the hill,” says distraught Lama.

Naresh Man Shakya, geotechnical engineer at the Department of Roads, says that it is very important to protect the bare slopes to avoid the caving in of the roads. “The ignorance in mitigation measures in road construction will invite higher risks that will demand bigger budget than for its construction,” he says.

Shakya worked for four years to stabilize the landslide of Krishna Bhir on the Prithvi Highway through bioengineering and civil engineering mechanisms. Krishna Bhir has been the biggest-scale landslide mitigation project, he claims.

Besides, the project was completed with Rs 38 million which was entirely funded by Nepal Government, at a minimal fraction of the costs proposed by foreign aid agencies.

The bioengineering mechanisms include planting special vegetation –grass, shrubs and trees – and placing Rofa boards, a German technology, that can be fitted directly onto a root-resistant base which can be covered by a layer of living vegetation.

The civil engineering mechanisms include construction of safe passages, building check dams, and constructing retaining walls and proper drainage.

According to Shakya, all the road construction under the Department of Roads incorporates bioengineering as an essential component. However, he adds that bioengineering alone cannot minimize the risks of landslides.

His team studied the entire length of Prithvi Highway and stabilized even all the slopes that had the slightest triggers of possible landslides. Yet the area is still not landslide-free, he says. He points out two major reasons behind this.

The first is the geographical condition of the hilly areas of the country in general; and secondly, the lack of awareness among the local people.

The government’s efforts in creating awareness about landslides are missing in all these cases. The absence of data regarding the total number of landslides occurring in a year throughout the country also signifies the need of proper monitoring.

“Those people who run businesses on the highways live in very risky conditions. They are more preoccupied with sustaining their livelihood than worry about natural calamities,’ says Nepali.

Shakya, on the other hand, emphasizes that there will be no meaning in using bioengineering mechanisms in road corridors if people are to excavate the hills and establish settlements on the bases of unsafe slopes.

While working on the Prithvi Highway, Shakya and his team worked with locals and had convinced them to settle on flat lands. He further adds that such settlements originate mostly from people from low income sources.



“The government can make efforts to support marginalized groups through bank loans on rural development. In that way, the people with fewer resources can afford to set up their business and refrain from settling on landslide-prone areas,’ he says.

Awareness campaigns are also necessary to avoid natural disasters like the Seti flashfloods, according to Dr Rijan Bhakta Kayastha, Associate Professor of Glaciology at Kathmandu University.

“The locals had seen low levels of water and grey water in the river prior to the floods, which were the symptoms of the upcoming flood. They could’ve been responsive if there were such campaigns at the local level,” says he.

He adds that catastrophes such as the Annapurna landslides are hard to predict and the mitigation measures are also limited. In such case, awareness campaigns and early warning training can be handy to avoid severe tragedies.

The stabilization of landslide-prone slopes on major highways has been a big relief to travelers who otherwise, were used to painful journeys in the rainy season.

Krishna Bhir alone had 18 landslides from July 1999 to August 2000. But living in geographically slippery regions, more mishaps are likely to occur with zero awareness campaigns by the government or non-government agencies.

5:36 am  •  1 June 2012

Before the staging of the play “Sapanako Sabiti” at Gurukul Theater—currently a homeless institution of passion desperately looking for an address—director Sunil Pokharel insisted that the writer read out the script to his team.

Over two sittings, it became clear that attention to detail is what makes Sunil a master of his craft.

Sunil becomes a student and a teacher rolled into one while the story is being read out. He listens carefully, cajoles his actors and technical colleagues to ask questions, and then makes important suggestions ever so subtly to the author.

He is so focused on transforming the narrative into slices of life suitable for the stage that he hardly has any time to notice wordplays. He is suitably modern to believe in minimalism, but doesn’t abstain from planning theatrics to make his presentations memorable.

At the first reading session, suggestions are limited to technical aspects of presentation. Apparently, actors need break between scenes if they have to be in a different getup.

Some dialogues have to be stretched, or new characters need to be introduced to maintain the flow of the presentation. The dress designer wants to know what kind of cloth would be appropriate for a character.

The stage manager is interested in the locale of unfolding events so that a close approximation can be recreated. The person responsible for the sound would have to be told about the surroundings.

Music is an important component of staged presentations and so is dance. Historic placement of the story is important for the director to match the music with trends of the period.

Dance forms have to be improvised according to locations, backgrounds and moods of the characters. In such discussions, the author concerned becomes a witness to mutilations being planned for his work.

The second reading session is often more interesting—and challenging—for the writer. The director wants that dialogues be short, succinct and sensible. The language has to match the background, age, education and passions of a character.

It is possible for a peasant to utter a few words in English or recite a shloka in Sanskrit, but it would need some explanation if a cowherd were made to quote Shakespeare.

An urban professional, unless drunk, would probably abstain from using swear words in public. These peculiarities are so obvious that they often get ignored when a writer is in the flow of unfolding events in his story.

Sunil is never very demanding. All he wants is that the writer change an arcane phrase here or replace a quaint word there. Sessions with his team are full of lessons in appreciating the art and craft of theater, use of language, and figures of speech being just a few of them.

Language matters

People of similar economic, educational and social status from comparable backgrounds differ in the way they use the same language. Even though Dr. Prakash Chandra Lohani and Dr. Ram Sharan Mahat are erudite, articulate and market-friendly politicos with largely rural constituencies in Nuwakot, the Bahun is good at wit while the Chhetri prefers sarcasm, which has nothing to do with policies of the parties they belong to.

Chitra Bahadur KC and KP Oli speak alike in rustic similes while a similar background doesn’t stop Kamal Thapa and Sharat Singh Bhandari from using different rhetorical devices to get their message through.

Theorization can’t be done on the basis of anecdotal evidences, but it is possible to argue that speech is often a more reliable predictor of class—sometimes it may also reveal caste or community—than the dress and mannerism of a person. Nobles are good listeners and are economical with words.

Underlings interpret intentions of the high and mighty so that they can then take the flak if something were to go wrong due to the words spoken by their masters.

A little lower down the rung, aristocrats prefer to speak in a patronizing manner. Meritocracy entitles professionals to put on airs of learnedness. They are verbose and garrulous.

Nuances are the devices they use to confuse their audience. Pundits are prone to hedging their bets and religiously cite their sources as some form of escape route.

That could be the reason an American president failed to find a one-handed economist. An exasperated President Harry S. Truman is reported to have muttered, ‘Give me a one-handed economist! All my economists say “on the one hand…on the other.”’

Pretentiousness makes the middle class intrinsically argumentative and members of the petty bourgeoisie invariably begin from a position of negation. Groucho Marx reveals their conceit in a memorable stanza: “I don’t know what they have to say, / It makes no difference anyway, / Whatever it is, I’m against it. / No matter what it is or who commenced it, / I’m against it.”

Op-ed pages, vox pops and talk shows are brimming with the kind of know-all commentators so full of themselves that there is no space for any other point of view in their presence.

The upper crust in Nepal had an early start in formal education. When literacy rate in the country was less than one percent before the 1950s, only Bahuns, Chhetris and Newars got to read Sanskrit scriptures, English literature and Hindi periodicals.

They wrote in Gorkha Bhasha and established hegemony over what would be considered knowledge.

These clans of the ruling community have since maintained their monopoly over standards of propriety and continue to manufacture consensus over acceptable forms of expression.

They are the ones who proclaim that whatever Ang Kaji Sherpa, Raj Kumar Lekhi or even Mahanth Thakur say is invariably inflammatory. Clansmen of the ruling community reserve the moral authority to condemn voices of aspiration as communal or condone patently communal statements of denunciation as merely retaliatory.

Gasps and grunts

Over a period, slaves and subjects get so accustomed to responding—with their heads down, of course—only when spoken to that they lose the capacity to verbalize their own thoughts in a proper way.

Perhaps this was what made a keen observer of behavior of oppressed groups comment that the language of the marginalized population resembled the communication medium of the animal world. Whether the subaltern can speak or not then becomes a diversionary question; the point is whether they can make others understand what they want to convey.

There was a time when a lord passing through his domain on a horseback would randomly whip any serf who would then boast to other slaves that the master had noticed him. Supplication was the only language that subjects could use in those days.

Interestingly, a new royalist website urges its visitors to write to the former king of Nepal in similar manner. It is possible to refine even traditions of subjection into an art form as it has been done in Thailand and Japan.

However, acceptance of humiliation as a marker of sophistication is understandable only to those who can appreciate its charms.

The road to freedom is long, and the process of emerging out of serfdom can be excruciatingly painful. A commoner learns to imitate the mannerism of his former masters to reclaim his dignity.

Perhaps this is the impulse that propels Madheshis and Janajatis, barely out poverty, to teach their children speak Nepali even at home. Master’s language is the ladder not only to success, but more importantly, a reliable medium of gaining acceptance into higher social echelons.

The neo-literate youths of the subaltern—cut off from their roots, thrown into circles where they are looked at with disdainful tolerance, and turned down from every door on grounds of community, caste or class when looking for employment—then have to choose between conformism and confrontation.

Devoid of passion, the language of conformists becomes colorless. The confrontationists create idioms that are transformed into clarion calls for change.

Expressed in words, burning rage can be devastatingly brutal. In the Indian state of Bihar, Lalu Prasad Yadav thundered, “BhuRaBaL Ukhad Pheko,” which can roughly be translated into an exhortation to root out Bhumihars, Rajputs, Brahmins and Lalas. Mayawati in Uttar Pradesh was even more direct: She urged her supporters to beat sacred-thread-wearing higher caste Hindus repeatedly with shoes. In comparison, Sherpa, Lekhi, and Thakur are epitomes of restraint.

In the USA, the Black rage has been expressed in much more explosive terms. Imamu Amiri Baraka thunders in Black dada nihilismus, “Come up, black dada nihilismus. / Rape the white girls. / Rape their fathers. Cut the mothers’ throats. /” But denunciations and calls for reprisal were not from Whites. Black girls deplored the song. Black fathers condemned the call. Black mothers stood up for their White sisters.

The song has since become a marker of derangement that blind rage can induce. Surprisingly however, it also had a cathartic effect upon long subjugated sections of externalized population.

When speaking at a media forum, Sherpa was shouted out in foul language. But the rage that is building up inside would find its own outlet. It would be necessary for the ruling community to accept that humiliation thrust upon externalized sections of the population is brimming full.

It is sure to overflow. Retaliatory denunciations, couched in sanctimonious sermons, are unlikely to be helpful. Meanwhile, defilement of the ‘sacred language’ does serve a purpose: It acts like a ‘group therapy’ for people who are tired of being talked to in condescending, if not downright spiteful, manners.

The more ‘intelligent people’ try to paint Messrs Sherpa, Lekhi, and Thakur as villains, the more they appear like valiant saviors of dignity of their respective communalities.

It will take some time for dialogues to begin on equal footing between guardians of the nation and claimants of their country. Till then, the linguistic landscape shall remain cacophonous.

Lal contributes to The Week with his biweekly column Reflections. He is one of the widely read political analysts in Nepal.  

5:35 am  •  1 June 2012

Sustainability is not just a trendy new development term. It is core to the survivability of our planet.

This June, an expected 100 heads of state, together with 50,000 representatives from governments, multi-lateral agencies, and civil society will gather in Rio. They will call for a fresh economic paradigm built on the principles of economic and environmental sustainability.

The grandly staged Rio+20 commemorates two decades following the historic 1992 Earth Summit, an event that established the United Nations Climate Change Panel. Rio+20 will focus on global concerns twenty years on: climate change, food and water security, poverty alleviation, and the closing of income gaps.

But even during the run-up preparations for Rio+20, there is fear that world leaders cannot reach a consensus on these very issues that define the sustainability of our planet.

The past 20 years of so-called “globalization” to create global prosperity has left more than 40 percent of the world’s population living in poverty, and one sixth of our planet living in extreme poverty. This pattern of development has created greater gaps between rich and poor. Eighty percent of the world’s population lives in countries where income differentials are widening.

This economic imbalance is caused by distortions in our global trading and financial system, to a great extent caused by the very institutions that Breton Woods created to supposedly prevent this – the World Bank and IMF. 

For decades, these institutions have prescribed with cookie cutter uniformity the “Washington Consensus” formula of neo-liberalism, sometimes called “market fundamentalism.” It concocts greed (Adam Smith’s invisible hand) as the alchemy of market equilibrium.

However, with the collapse of global markets in 2008, there has emerged a new consensus that this old concoction does not work. The very Washington Consensus principles of monolithic globalization are now being challenged across the globe by calls for diversified localization.The word on the street now is that we need a “new consensus.”

The year 2011 witnessed a worldwide middle-class revolution. Gaps between rich and poor were widening while the global middle-class were being pinched into extinction, essentially joining ranks with the poor. From Cairo to New York, everyone was fed up with the great greed conundrum. Like the many-headed hydra, global revolt took many forms.

In 2011, people across our planet demanded change. Protestors symbolically joined hands from Cairo, Damascus, Athens, Madrid, London, and Moscow. Everyone felt something was wrong. The old Bretton Woods system failed us. Or maybe the world has just outgrown it. 

The Washington Consensus proved to be a cocktail of ideological theories that do not fit the realities of underdevelopment, and the new needs of our transforming world.

There is a crisis of credibility. Today, the debt-ridden economies of America and Europe are rudderless. The politicians are clueless. It is clear that political leadership had been reduced to adopting very short-term remedial measures just to stay in power. The shortsighted greed of a narrow group of corporate and political leaders is at the core of the problem. That is why people talk about one percent vs. 99 percent. That spells classic class struggle, the formula for revolution.

However, protestors, inspired by Gandhi, have done their best despite mace in some cities and bullets in others, to remain generally peaceful.

Positive change will occur only by lifting more people out from poverty and narrowing gaps between those who have and those who don’t. At the same time, blind economic growth, such as the one advocated in China, is not the answer. We are facing a deteriorating environment, to a great extent caused by such growth. The stimulus packages meant to encourage consumption are not an answer, either. Probably our planet’s biggest problem is over-consumption.

This is not a question of hugging trees. It comes down to the core issues of food and water security. Climate change is in fact the single biggest security threat to our planet today. Yes, the price of water may soon be more expensive than oil. In some places, that spells war.

So doesn’t our planet deserve a fresh economic paradigm? Imagine an economic model without greed. Enter the concepts of “compassionate capital” and “stakeholder value.” Socially responsible economies built on diversified localization rather than monolithic globalization.
That’s what they will be talking about at Rio+20.

New models are rising. The Himalayan Consensus pioneered by Asian activists and social entrepreneurs calls for sustainable local economics and grassroots community development as a basis for water and food security, prevention of ethnic violence and terror, in both the developing and developed world.

Moreover, it’s going global. Across Africa, civil societies and small-scale businesses now support social-environmental programs and community development. 

Succeeding where corrupt dysfunctional governments and international aid programs failed, today forty percent of African productivity comes from the informal sector. 

Activists across the continent now call upon mainstream economists to recognize “African Consensus” as a fresh approach.
It’s the beginning of a new global consensus.

We are sharing an increasingly complex and integrated, multiethnic world, of rapidly diminishing resources. Ideologically based economics, as practiced in the past, are no longer relevant for our rapidly transforming multilateral world. 

Greed-based neo-liberalism, market fundamentalism, shock therapy, and monolithic globalization are concepts that had their time in a past era. They are far too simplistic in the broader context of our planet’s challenges today.

We need an economic middle way. That is what we mean by Peaceful Revolution.

A new-growth era must be heralded adopting green investment and finance. Massive infrastructure investments required for conversion of energy grids from fossil fuels to renewable energy and the accompanying industries and financing programs can be the next economic driver for our planet.

It is a misperception to think that green economics will not stimulate growth. It will be the next growth game changer. America has the research and development but not the political will to make this move. 

China has the capacity and finance to lead in this new field but the political decision to invest in green growth has not yet been taken. Whichever nation grabs the green growth driver will lead the planet as the next real economic superpower.
So let’s hope Rio+20 can reach a new world consensus.

The writer is a lawyer and political economist living in China, and the founder of the Himalayan Consensus Institute, an NGO dedicated to ethnic diversity and culturally sustainable development. 

While being a member of the United Nations Theme Group on Poverty and Inequality, he is also on the ScenaRio2012 panel of 100 opinion makers to prepare the Rio+20 UN Conference

2:57 am  •  1 June 2012

As Nepal experiences energy crisis of unprecedented severity with eight to twelve hours of power cuts on a daily basis, urban areas have turned to alternative sources of energy, including fossil fuels like petroleum and solar power. 

Besides the obvious threats by energy crises like declining economic growth, inflation, and unemployment, the pressure to utilize alternative sources of energy has also brought about dire environmental consequences. 

According to Bed Mani Dahal, environmentalist and Assistant Professor at Kathmandu University, people have turned to alternative sources of energy that will hamper the environment in the long run.

“The excessive consumption of fossil fuels emits a large amount of carbon dioxide, leading to a rise in temperature. Kathmandu is getting extremely heated. The temperature now reaches 34-35 degree Celsius. I’m not saying this is entirely due to fossil fuel consumption but to a very large extent it is one of the main reasons,” says Dahal.

“Even the CFL bulbs that are being used to lessen power consumption are hazardous environmental wastes. CFLs contain an average of five mg of mercury. Breaking a single CFL bulb in a room can result in mercury vapor levels 300 times in excess of what is deemed safe for prolonged exposure,” mentions Dahal again, adding that mercury poisoning can lead to health problems like birth defects, miscarriages, and disruption of nervous system, to name a few.

Given the rapidly increasing population and burgeoning urbanization, energy crisis will continue to see a steep upward trend. Geothermal energy would be a good option to relieve the crisis in an environment friendly way. 

It is the greenest form of energy producing only one-sixth of the carbon dioxide that a natur gas fueled power plant produces. But since most of the geothermal areas are located in the northern or remote areas of the country, its exploitation is not regarded economically viable because of heavy investments associated with the construction of roads.

So the only option currently available is the use of battery-operated emergency lights and solar technologies. Recently, the capital has witnessed a steady rise in the use of solar power with almost every household opting to install a few solar panels on their rooftops.

Solar energy needs to be stored for which the most obvious solution is batteries which are not only expensive but hard to dispose of when the time comes. 

The techniques used to harness solar energy are green and non-polluting. However, the manufacturing, transportation and installation of solar systems are not completely environment friendly.

“The batteries that are being used need to be disposed of after a year or two. Without proper disposal system, the threat to the environment is huge as it will lead to land and water degradation. We talk about harvesting the power of the sun but fail to see the environmental side effects of it,” adds Dahal.

While hospitals and industries are supposed to properly dispose of hazardous equipments and wastes by themselves, there is no way to control those coming from individual households. In such a case, there lies a great risk to the environment.

Kedar Bahadur Adhikari, chief at KMC, says that there is no strict policy for the disposal of hazardous wastes. “We don’t have a proper waste disposal policy yet but considering its impact on the environment, we’re in the process of formulating one,” says he.


                                                                                                                                           Bikash Karki

Arjun Limbu, Program Officer at Kathmandu Environment Education Project, is of the view that Nepal has become a country of over-consumption. High consumption rate leads to excessive utilization of resources which greatly impacts the environment. 

Limbu is of the opinion that rapid urbanization and subsequent deforestation, especially in the capital, has led to energy crisis, and that has brought about a lot of environmental issues.

“The impact of energy crisis can be felt not only in terms of economy but environmental aspect as well,” says Limbu, adding that the use of alternative sources of energy is taking its toll on the environment by causing a rise in the temperature. 

Rajesh Adhikari, Program Manager at Environment and Public Health Organization, mentions that there is a need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through development and utilization of renewable and alternative energy technologies. This will address the adverse impacts of climate change due to energy crisis. But there is nothing that is risk-free.

While solar power certainly is greener than fossil fuels, there are numerous problems attached to it, too. When solar cells are manufactured, there is a high emission of greenhouse gases as the regulation of the manufacturing process is poor. 

Nitrogen trifluoride and sulfur hexafluoride in the atmosphere can be traced back to manufacturing of solar panels. These are some of the most potent greenhouse gases and have many thousand times the impact on global warming as an equal amount of carbon dioxide.

Besides solar energy, wind energy could be helpful in ending the current energy crisis. Wind power provides an inexpensive, self-reliant method of generating electricity with relatively little maintenance. But even that comes with a fair share of environmental impacts. One of the biggest environmental problems with wind power is the large land area required for the placement of wind generators. 

The generators also need clean wind to operate efficiently, so trees around wind turbines often need to be cleared. Also wind energy will not be able to give a steady power output since winds rarely blow at a constant speed.

“Renewable sources of energy does not produce harmful carbon emissions nor contributes to air pollution like fossil fuels but we have to understand that they too come with a set of side effects,” clarifies Adhikari.

Talking about how alternative sources of energy affects the environment, Amrit Abhaymani Dhakal, electrical engineer at Lotus Energy, Pvt Ltd, says that the main problem lies in the disposal of batteries.

“There’s a lack of policy in Nepal which is why green energy sources are still not completely green. If grid-tied system was to be followed, then we can do away with batteries, and alternative sources would be more environment friendly,” says Dhakal.

Grid tie means that your solar system is hooked to the utility company. It is more efficient to be hooked to the utility grid because off-grid systems must store the energy, and that is where batteries come in; whereas, if you are connected to the grid, the utility company stores the energy. The goal of your solar power system on the grid is to produce only as much power as you use.

Holding similar views to Dhakal’s is Prof Dr Govind Raj Pokhrel, Executive Director at the Alternative Energy Promotion Center at the Ministry of Environment. 

He maintains that there are negative impacts of every technology, and that green energy could be made more environment-friendly. But he also adds that the pros of the alternative sources of energy by far outweigh the cons.

“If we talk about disposal of batteries, only 15% of the batteries that are being disposed of come from solar technologies, the rest are from automobiles. Even in the case of wind energy, and if you build towers in places where there are no trees, there’ll be no issue of deforestation,” says Pokhrel.

“We just have to make use of technologies in the best possible way, ensuring that the side effects are minimized. At the same time, the country’s hydropower potential is incredible and should not be ignored. Hydropower in collaboration with alternative sources can put an end to the current energy crisis.”

The main cause of energy crisis and its environmental impacts seem to be due to lack of proper planning and policy implementation. 

Though the government is in the process of formulating several policies for the use of alternative energy, whether or not they can be successfully implemented and then be able to negate the adverse effects of the energy crisis on the environment is yet to be seen.

2:56 am  •  1 June 2012

During the 1970s, the Tufted Pochard, a duck with black and white plumage, was a common sight in the Kathmandu valley. The bird was last spotted in Kamal Pokhari in 1978 before the species completely disappeared from the capital. 

The bird, rare even then, is sometimes spotted in the Taudaha (Lake) to the south of the Valley. 

Kathmandu was once a heavenly habitat for many such wetland birds.



Cormorant 

More than a thousand migrant aquatic birds like Ruddy Shelduck, Shoveler, Eurasian birds like Wigeon and Kingfishers used to come to Taudaha from Tibet, China, 
Mongolia, and Siberia during winter. But over the last six years, the number has gone down to 350.

Nepal is rich in bird diversity, with 871 species being recorded, which is about 8% of the total bird species found worldwide. According to Bird Conservation Nepal (BCN), a total of 534 species of birds has been recorded in the Kathmandu Valley alone. 

Among them, 133 or 15% are considered nationally threatened. Loss and damage of habitats is causing major threats to 89% of the birds which are already at risk.



Grey Heron

Vimal Thapa, member of the Rare Bird Committee of BCN and an avid bird watcher, says that factors like environmental degradation, rampant growth of infrastructure and human disturbance have contributed to the disappearance of wildlife in the Valley. 

The rising number of hotels around the Taudaha area and the poor quality of water due to human settlements has forced the birds to perish. Illegal hunting and the issue of global climate change have furthermore aggravated the problems.

Bird ecologist Rajendra Suwal recalls the time some fifty years back when Kathmandu was less populated with lots of organic farmlands, wetlands, swamps, and marshes. The surrounding hills had better forest coverage. But gradually farmlands were replaced by rapid urbanization.



Red vented Bulbul

“The trend of keeping small holes on the rooftops of houses for birds to make nests was also a common trend. This was like an unwritten law, considered to be a traditional belief to live in harmony with nature which many people followed. This trend invited lots of birds to nest on houses. But today’s house structures aren’t bird friendly,” says Suwal.

City-based ardent bird watcher Suwal informs that large birds like White-Necked Stork, which lives in forest trees but feeds on wetlands and marshy areas, were easily spotted in Chapagaun, Nag Daha and Manahara River. 

Demoiselle Crane and Common Crane were found near Chobar, and the Cormorant was found in Rani Pokhari until the 1980s.



Magpie Robin

With abundant ponds in places like Gongabu and Balaju, ducks like the Bar Headed Geese that bred in Tibet, rested in Kathmandu before flying to the south. They also became the victims of illegal hunting and were last seen in the 1980s.

The Kathmandu Valley was a common point to stop over for many migrant birds. The Demoiselle Crane which was last spotted in Tundikhel in 1974 came from Siberia and flew over to India. 

Similarly, over the years, birds like the White-Necked Stork, Bar-Headed Goose, Ruddy Shelduck, Grey Heron also disappeared from the Valley. The Pink-Headed Duck was last since in 1846 before it got extinct.

Suwal adds that about forty years ago, White-Rumped vulture, Long-Billed Vulture and Slender-Billed Vulture used to roost in the Kathmandu valley but they cannot be spotted anymore as they are on the verge of getting extinct from the world itself. Scarcity of food is one of the major reasons behind the disappearance of these scavengers.



Baya Weaver

“Municipalities back then got rid of stray dogs by using poison and disposed of them on the banks of Bishnumati and Bagmati Rivers. Those vultures, which used to feed on their carcasses, also died as a result. This trend went on for many years. The number of cows which the vultures used to feed on also decreased, and with it the food supply got limited which lessened the number of the vultures,” informs Suwal.

He further stresses that the traditional system of farming, using local composting, was replaced by chemical fertilizers, leading to loss of organic farmlands. This led to a stark change as some of the birds that depended on the wetlands and farmlands also disappeared.

Nepal’s only endemic bird, the Spiny Babbler which is found only in the country, is also declining. “Some 30 years ago, during bird-watching in the forests of Shivapuri, Nagarjun, Godavari, Chapagaun and Nagarkot, we heard and saw them frequently. But of late, we don’t see them that often,” says Suwal.



White-rumped Vulture

Apart from those species, Barn Owls, garden and singing birds like Red-Vented Bulbul and Magpie Robin are also declining. He mentions that it was the hunting trend from the 60s to the 80s that led to the disappearance of birds. Loss of habitat and human interference further deteriorated the situation.

Besides birds, he also mentions that jackals, otters and even snakes are growing less in number. The Kathmandu Valley, once known as Serpent Lake (Nag Daha), has seen the decline in the number of snakes as well.

Though lots of wetland birds were lost, forest birds like the White-Breasted Waterhen are, however, seen more often. Spotted and Emerald Doves are also found in the surrounding hills of Nagarjun whereas birds like Baya Weaver and Peregrine Falcon are gettin rare.

Bird ecologist Suwal further mentions that back then, city planners had set aside 32 religious forests in the Kathmandu Valley which maintained the natural habitats for wildlife.

“But now, during city planning process, a separate area isn’t being earmarked for wildlife. There also used to be lots of ponds and lakes in the Valley. But in the name of development, we started losing such public areas,” says Suwal.


Barn Owl

The Nepal Government and BCN are striving to revive the Long-Billed Vultures by raising them in captivity in Chitwan. Suwal laments that though the Department of National Parks has set aside areas for wildlife protection, the Kathmandu Valley, however, is not given much attention. 

“In our town planning, we still don’t have agendas to build breathing spaces. This is why wildlife is disappearing gradually from the city.”

Jyotendra Thakur, Conservation Officer of BCN, however, thinks that private sectors and government need better coordination in order to protect wildlife.

“The birds on the list of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) were found in the suburban areas of the Valley but they aren’t seen anymore,” he adds.

As per Kumal Jung Kunwar, spokesperson at the Department of National Parks, in the case of the Valley, its animals aren’t so much at risk of getting endangered as compared to the animals found in National Parks and Wildlife Reserves outside the Valley.

Narendra Pradhan, Conservation Biologist at WWF Nepal, informs that the organization so far has not carried out any studies on the wildlife of the Kathmandu Valley.

“We usually study the endangered species from outside the Valley as that is on the main priority list. We’re currently researching on the wildlife of the National Parks in the Tarai.” He adds that lack of proper funds and resources is another factor for the lack of wildlife study in the Valley.

“But I think it’s important to study the biodiversity of the Kathmandu Valley as well, so that we can work on protecting various species.”



Peregrine Falcon

Bird ecologist Suwal says that even at household levels, we can contribute to ensure the protection of birds. Firstly, by raising awareness on how we can stop disturbing their habitats. 

We can also place water and birdbaths on terraces and rooftops for birds to drink and bathe and put up nest boxes and build gardens with greenery as well.

In order to balance the ecosystem, birds are vital since they eat worms, insects and even help protect the grains on farmlands. To maintain the food chain and sustain the ecosystem, we must preserve them, he says.

2:56 am  •  1 June 2012