<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109121136/636b91829c7e80680e06f0f3jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1109"/><figcaption>Photo: JANA ASENBRENNEROVA</figcaption></figure>This year’s World Environment Day theme ‘Ecosystem Restoration’ highlights the importance of protecting and reviving the natural habitats of living beings to restore our ecosystems.This year, 5 June also marks the formal start of the UN Decade for Ecosystem Restoration which aims to prevent, halt and reverse the degradation of nature on every continent and every ocean. <a href="https://www.iucn.org/sites/dev/files/import/downloads/payment_for_ecosystem_services_in_nepal__prospect__practice_and_process.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Ecosystem restoration</a> is important to combat climate change, end poverty and prevent mass extinction of species.Food, climate regulation, soil conservation, landscape conservation are some of the 24 categories of ecosystem services that play a vital role in global and national economies which have been <a href="https://www.iucn.org/sites/dev/files/import/downloads/payment_for_ecosystem_services_in_nepal__prospect__practice_and_process.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">identified</a> by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA).Some of the main <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321185248_OVERVIEW_OF_ECOSYSTEM_SERVICES_IN_NEPAL" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">benefits</a> of the <a href="https://www.cbd.int/doc/world/np/np-nr-05-en.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">118</a> ecosystems categorised in Nepal include maintaining air quality from forest ecosystems, climate regulation through absorption of greenhouse gases, recharging groundwater, assisting in agroforestry by heling natural pollination, <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/between-existence-and-extinction-in-nepal/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">biodiversity protection</a>, providing food, firewood, biomass and medicinal herbs for local communities.Ecosystems also play a significant role in cultural services such as recreation and religious pilgrimage, and eco-tourism in Nepal. Such services provide livelihood and an increase in quality of life for millions of Nepalis.Nepal is part of the ratified Paris Agreement and has submitted its second Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) that aims to keep the global temperature to limit the global temperature to 1.5°C above industrial-era and zero greenhouse emission by 2050. Nepal has also signed the Kyoto Protocol, Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).Climate change exacerbates all the other problems that Nepalis face with their natural-resource based livelihoods, agriculture-based economy and poverty, illiteracy and social exclusion.  Despite having negligible contribution to the global greenhouse emission, Nepal is the fourth most vulnerable country to climate change.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109121136/636b91859c7e80680e06f0f4jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="535" height="279">Overexploitation, illegal and unsustainable harvesting practices, encroachment, unplanned infrastructure development are some causes leading to the loss and degradation of forests. The <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/business-bureaucracy-and-politicians-all-plundering-the-chure/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Chure Hills</a> are already over-exploited, resulting in increasing water scarcity in Tarai.On top of all this, the climate crisis has complicated ecosystem management. An increase in temperature and precipitation patterns means vegetation and the species range are moving to higher altitudes.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109121136/636b91869c7e80680e06f0f5jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1328" height="1094">There are ways to address this. Terrace farming, plantations, controlled grazing, improved forest management practices, adoption of bio-gas, and the ban on hunting and fishing in protected areas.“Nepal has established an impressive system of conservation of biodiversity, focusing on species, ecosystems, habitats, and biomes over four decades,” says Pem Kandel, Secretary at the Ministry of Forests and Environment (MoFE). “Local communities outside of the protected areas are also conserving the ecological integrity of Nepal’s ecosystems.”Globally as well as locally, <a href="https://www.iied.org/eba-evidence-policy-nepal" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Ecosystem-based Adaptation (EbA</a>) is the key to addressing the impact of the climate crisis by using biodiversity and ecosystem protection as a way to live with changes in climate and weather.One example of EbA in Nepal is the Panchase Protected Forest Area near Pokhara where local communities have <a href="https://panorama.solutions/en/solution/using-local-knowledge-improve-water-availability-panchase-nepal" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">revived ponds</a> for rainwater harvesting and recharging groundwater. Using locally available soil and stone, the community restored natural ponds and protected them from encroachment.“Just reviving a pond can bring back traditional conservation knowledge, restore the ecosystem and provide downstream benefits,” says Dil Bahadur Bhattarai of the Panchase Protected Forest.Pokhara Valley is also a pioneer in another innovative scheme called <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=18437#.YLmM9C8RoWo" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Payment for Ecosystem Services</a> which makes nature-friendly practices economically sustainable. Essentially it means downstream communities pay those up the mountain for the benefits they accrue from the protection of the ecosystem.For example, villages that have protected their forests have helped communities that depend on fishing on one of Pokhara’s lakes, Rupa<a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/242079996_Towards_an_innovative_approach_to_integrated_wetland_management_in_Rupa_Lake_Area_of_Nepal" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> Tal</a> by reducing sedimentation, pollution and conserving groundwater. The cooperative pays a percentage of the revenue it earns from aquaculture on the lake to communities upstream for protecting the forest.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109121136/636b918a9c7e80680e06f0f6jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="401" height="605"><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109121136/636b918b9c7e80680e06f0f7jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="641" height="424">Photos: LI-BIRDThe Rupa Tal initiative was designed by LI-BIRD (Local Initiatives for Biodiversity Research and Development) a Pokhara-based non-profit that has done extensive work on agrobiodiversity conservation and ecosystem restoration to improve local livelihoods."The increase in fish productivity, the yearly increase in net profits for the Rupa Lake Restoration and Fishery Cooperative and other lakes in Pokhara’s Lake Cluster such as the Begnas, Khaste, Maidi, Dipang are replicating Rupa’s successes with its Payment for Ecosystem Service,” says LI-BIRD’s Balaram Thapa.<a href="https://cdafn.org.np/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/CDAFN-CG-Best-Practices-Publication.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Riverbank farming</a> in Mohattori is another of Nepal’s best practices in ecosystem services. Upstream conservation through reforestation, water conservation, and flood control, communities downstream were able to re-cultivate on floodplains not only providing economic welfare but also conserving the riverine ecosystem.With limited resources, Nepal has conflicting and competing priorities such as food security, livelihoods, development, infrastructure, and protecting land and livestock. Ecosystem protection is not high on the list of priorities.Nepal is now working with its international partners on a green post-Covid recovery framework that addresses climate impact, improve livelihoods, and build resilience.“This support framework aims to accelerate low-carbon, climate-resilient development by prioritising green job creation and investment to maximise Nepal’s growth, reduce emissions and vulnerability, and is sustainable,” says Simon Lucas of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) in Kathmandu.Every dollar spent on ecosystem restoration can create up to <a href="https://www.worldenvironmentday.global/about/ecosystem-restoration" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">30 dollars</a> in economic benefit. The use of nature-based solutions not only protects the environment, but provides economic benefit to local communities.As the experience of Pokhara and Mahottari have shown, protecting the ecosystem preserves biodiversity, conserves natural resources, strengthens local economies and allows local people to adapt to the climate crisis.Diya Rijal is a communication consultant for the UK Government-funded Policy and Institutions Facility.

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Economic benefits of saving the ecology

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181124/636be2929c7e80680e083eb7jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1800" height="1050"/><figcaption>Photo: NEPAL OIL CORPORATION</figcaption></figure>The global pandemic hijacked 2020 and reset priorities, but countries now need to regroup and renew their commitment to cap global warming at well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels, as agreed in Paris in 2015.On 12 December, it will be the fifth anniversary of the signing of the landmark climate accord when 196 countries, including Nepal, will be presenting their <a href="https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/nepal/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Nationally Determined Contributions</a> (NDCs) to reduce the impact of the climate crisis.NDCs are voluntary commitments by countries to reduce their carbon footprints, but there are fears that a world in the throes of a Covid-19 induced economic crisis will follow through on past commitments—even as scientists warn that the earth is warming much more rapidly than forecast five years ago in Paris.The Himalaya is <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/human-face-of-a-himalayan-climate-crisis/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">literally a hotspot</a> because the mountains are warming faster than the global average. But activists say Nepal's own 'Enhanced NDC' does not go far enough in mitigating carbon emissions, or adapting to the impact of the climate emergency.The document has been put up for public comment and is subject to revision. Its highlight is that Nepal for the first time mentions ‘net-zero emission’ as a future goal.But the document does not give a timeline to achieve it, and only says that the country will formulate 'a long-term low greenhouse gas emission development strategy' sometime next year.In the region, Bhutan has already declared itself carbon neutral—meaning its forests absorb more than the CO2 it emits. China, responsible for 28% of total annual carbon emissions, recently pledged peak emission before 2030 and attain net-zero by 2060. <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/a-biden-presidency-climate-and-the-himalaya/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">President-elect Joe Biden </a>as committed that the US, which contributes 15% of CO2 annually, to zero carbon emissions by 2050, as have Japan, South Korea and the UK.India, the fourth largest CO2 emitter globally, is lagging but has been investing heavily in solar power, and by setting targets to electrify railways and phasing out diesel and petroleum vehicles by 2030.Nepali activists say the country's NDC could have gone much further to set realistic firm pledges, since it is starting from such a low carbon base."We could have easily set a target of net-zero by 2050. In fact, we can achieve it by 2030 if we are really committed," says environmentalist Bhushan Tuladhar. "Our emission is negligible, we are a low-carbon economy and have much cleaner sources of energy like hydroelectricity at our disposal."In 2014, a report showed that Nepal's forest area had doubled in 25 years, and it absorbed half of Nepal's total emissions from burning fossil fuels. However, another report last year showed that carbon emission was rising faster than vegetation cover, and frequent wildfires were themselves pumping more CO2 into the atmosphere.<a style="font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/ipcc-report-and-nepals-food-security/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Manjeet Dhakal</a>, adviser to the Least Developed Countries support group at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) says: "I'm pretty confident we will achieve net-zero by 2050. But what is important in this discussion is that, while we may be among the smallest emitters, our emissions are increasing and forests are not absorbing CO2 as they used to."<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181124/636be2959c7e80680e083eb8jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="555"><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181124/636be2989c7e80680e083eb9jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="425"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181124/636be29b9c7e80680e083ebajpeg.jpg" alt="" width="890" height="464">Nepal's annual per capita carbon emission is one of the lowest in the world at 0.29 tons. In comparison, an average American pumps 16 tons of carbon every year, and Qataris burn 37 tons. However, Nepal's per capita emission is rising significantly due to the growing import of petroleum products and thermal electricity from India.As new roads are built and more vehicles imported, Nepal's main driver of fossil fuel consumption is the transportation sector. Motorcycles account for 80% of all vehicles in Nepal, and phasing them out for battery-powered two-wheelers would significantly reduce petroleum imports.Electric public transport will need subsidies from the government and investors but it also means utilising Nepal's clean energy from hydropower and further reducing our carbon footprint. Last fiscal year, Nepal's petroleum import reached Rs200 billion— 2.2 times higher than the country's total income from exports. Imports of diesel, petrol, aviation fuel and LPG went down slightly in 2020 due to the pandemic and lockdowns.<a style="font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/cleaner-air-with-greener-buses/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Switching to electric public transport</a> and battery vehicles to reduce the petroleum import bill by just 10% would save Rs21 billion a year. This will also clean up the air. Air pollution <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/double-whammy-air-pollution-and-covid-19/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">killed 41,000 people in Nepal last year</a>. This winter that risk for patients with respiratory issues is combined with Covid-19 complications.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181124/636be29d9c7e80680e083ebbjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="576" height="683"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Bishwo Nath Oli, Secretary at the Ministry of Forest and Environment agrees. "We plan to produce 15,000MW of clean energy by 2030 and we need a strategy so that it is properly consumed and utilised. Electrification of transport is the best way to go about it, along with electric stoves and biomass to cut emissions significantly."Nepal's Enhanced NDC has set a target of turning 25% of all private passenger vehicles sales, including two-wheelers, to electric. It also aims to make 20% of all four-wheel public transport battery-powered by 2025. Most of Nepal's three-wheel vehicles are already electric.Planners hope to increase these numbers to 90% and 60% by 2030. Similarly, in 10 years Nepal aims to develop 200km of electric rail network.But activists are sceptical. Prime Minister KP Oli had declared in 2018 that 25% of all vehicles in Nepal would be electric by 2020. However, Finance Minister Yubaraj Khatiwada <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/why-nepal-needs-to-restore-ev-tax-subsidy/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">scrapped tax subsidies for electric vehicles</a> in this year's budget, although his successor has restored some rebate for smaller battery-powered cars.But even if these targets are met, they are too conservative, says Bhushan Tuladhar. "Our targets are often too ambitious or too relaxed. With the new NDCs, we can see this pattern in sectors such as industry, waste and agriculture which are either too vague or too conservative," he adds.Planners have also not taken into account that the cost of electric vehicles is already at par with diesel vehicles of the same capacity, and will decline further as the price of lithium-ion batteries continues to fall. Increased affluence means more people will opt for two-wheelers and automobiles, most likely electric, especially as India and China phase out production of diesel and petrol vehicles.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181124/636be29f9c7e80680e083ebcjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>While Nepal's voluntary commitment sets a target to reduce coal consumption and air pollution from brick and cement industries by 2030, it does not mention how, and by how much. The NDC document only says the government will 'formulate guidelines and establish mechanisms' by 2025 to monitor emissions from large industries.On the waste sector, the NDC says that by 2025, 380 million litres/day of wastewater will be treated before discharge to natural courses, and 60,000 cubic meters/year of faecal sludge will be managed. But it has targeted only 100 of Nepal's 753 municipalities for waste segregation, recycling and waste-to-energy programs by 2030.Nepal's 2016 NDC pledged to increase forest cover to 40% of the total area, and here the country exceeded the target and current forest cover stands at 44.74%. The new NDC has included more community forests, and says 60% of Nepal's area will be forest, pledging to stop deforestation of the Chure range.Similarly, intercropping, agroforestry, conservation tillage and <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/building-an-information-bridge-for-nepals-farmers/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">climate-smart agricultural technologies</a> are all mentioned in the NDC, but missing conspicuously from the discussion is farm mechanisation.Nepal aims to <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/decentralising-hydropower/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">increase hydroelectricity generation </a> rom the current 1,400MW to 15,000 by 2030. Of this, 5,000MW is an unconditional target, and the remainder is contingent on funding from the international community. In fact, Nepal will need $25 billion to meet its NDC targets, and most of this will be dependent on foreign aid.Manjeet Dhakal admits the targets in the new NDC may not be ambitious, but he says they are realistic. He adds: "For the longest time Nepal was the most vulnerable to climate change. But time has come for us to show our leadership and commitment to net-zero by implementing the targets set."

Sonia Awale

Blueprint for a net-zero Nepal

<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221107171136/636934219c7e80680e03dfdajpeg.jpg" alt="" width="720" height="720"/>NEW YORK – The drama of Donald Trump’s presidency has centered around whether an extremist president would be able to carry out an extremist policy agenda against the will of the majority of Americans. So far the answer has been no, and the midterm elections make it far less likely. Yet Trump’s rising frustrations could push him over the edge psychologically, with potentially harrowing consequences for American democracy and the world.None of Trump’s extremist policy ideas has received public support. The public opposed last year’s <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/09/27/more-americans-favor-raising-than-lowering-tax-rates-on-corporations-high-household-incomes/">Republican-backed corporate tax cut</a>, Trump’s effort to <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/02/23/support-for-2010-health-care-law-reaches-new-high/">repeal the Affordable Care Act</a> (Obamacare), his <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/02/24/most-americans-continue-to-oppose-u-s-border-wall-doubt-mexico-would-pay-for-it/">proposed border wall with Mexico</a>, the decision to <a href="http://cdn.cnn.com/cnn/2018/images/05/07/rel5c.-.iran.pdf">withdraw</a> from the Iran nuclear agreement, and the imposition of <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/05/10/americans-are-generally-positive-about-free-trade-agreements-more-critical-of-tariff-increases/">tariff increases</a> on China, Europe, and others. At the same time, contrary to Trump’s relentless promotion of fossil fuels (coal, oil, and gas), the public favors <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/01/23/two-thirds-of-americans-give-priority-to-developing-alternative-energy-over-fossil-fuels/">investments in renewable energy</a> and <a href="http://climatecommunication.yale.edu/publications/paris_agreement_by_state/">remaining</a> in the Paris climate agreement.Trump has tried to implement his radical agenda using three approaches:<ol><li>To rely on the Republican majorities in the two houses of Congress to pass legislation in the face of strong popular opposition. That approach succeeded once, with the 2017 corporate tax cut, because big Republican donors insisted on the measure, but it failed with Trump’s attempt to repeal Obamacare, as three Republican senators balked.</li> 	<li>To use executive orders to circumvent Congress. Here the courts have repeatedly intervened, most recently within days of the election, when a federal district court <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/09/climate/judge-blocks-keystone-pipeline.html">halted work on the Keystone XL Pipeline</a>, a project strongly opposed by environmentalists, on the grounds that the Trump administration had failed to present a “reasoned explanation” for its actions. Trump repeatedly and dangerously oversteps his authority, and the courts keep pushing back.</li> 	<li>To rally public opinion to his side. Yet, despite his frequent rallies, or perhaps because of them and their incendiary vulgarity, <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/203207/trump-job-approval-weekly.aspx?g_source=link_newsv9&amp;g_campaign=item_203198&amp;g_medium=copy">Trump’s disapproval rating</a>has exceeded his approval rating since the earliest days of his administration. His current overall disapproval rating is 54%, versus 40% approval, with strong approval from around 25% of the public.</li></ol>In the midterm elections, which Trump himself described as a referendum on his presidency, the Democratic candidates for both the House and Senate <a href="https://elections.huffingtonpost.com/2018/results/hq">vastly outpolled</a> their Republican opponents. In the House races, Democrats received 53,314,159 votes nationally, compared with 48,439,810 for Republicans. In the Senate races, Democrats outpolled Republicans by 47,537,699 votes to 34,280,990.Nonetheless, the Republicans hold a slight majority in the Senate, where each state is represented by two senators, regardless of the size of its population, because they tend to win their seats in less populous states, whereas Democrats prevail in the major coastal and Midwestern states. Wyoming, for example, elects two Republican senators to represent its nearly 580,000 residents, while California’s more than 39 million residents elect two Democratic senators. Democrats win more votes, but Republicans win more seats.Without control of the House, however, Trump will no longer be able to enact any unpopular legislation. Only policies with bipartisan support will have a chance of passing both chambers.On the economic front, Trump’s trade policies will become even less popular in the months ahead as the American economy cools from the “sugar high” of the corporate tax cut, as growing uncertainty about global trade policy hamstrings business investment, and as both the budget deficit and interest rates rise. Trump’s phony national-security justifications for raising tariffs will also be challenged politically and perhaps in the courts.True, Trump will be able to continue appointing conservative federal judges and most likely win their confirmation in the Republican-majority Senate. And on issues of war and peace, Trump will operate with terrifyingly little oversight by Congress or the public, an affliction of the US political system since World War II. Trump, like his recent predecessors, will most likely keep America mired in wars in the Middle East and Africa, despite the lack of significant public understanding or support.Nonetheless, there are three further reasons to believe that Trump’s hold on power will weaken significantly in the coming months. First, Special Counsel Robert Mueller may very well document serious malfeasance by Trump, his family members, and/or his close advisers. Mueller kept a low profile in the run-up to the election. We will most likely hear from him soon.Second, the House Democrats will begin to investigate Trump’s taxes and personal business dealings, including through congressional subpoenas. There are strong reasons to believe that Trump has committed serious tax evasion (as the New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/10/02/us/politics/donald-trump-tax-schemes-fred-trump.html">recently outlined</a>) and has illegally enriched his family as president (a lawsuit that the courts have <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2018/11/02/politics/donald-trump-emoluments-clause-dc-maryland/index.html">allowed to proceed</a> alleges violations of the emoluments clause of the Constitution). Trump is likely to ignore or fight the subpoenas, setting the stage for a major political crisis.Third, and most important, Trump is not merely an extremist politician. He suffers from what author Ian Hughes has <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07H44BMM6/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&amp;btkr=1">recently</a> called “a disordered mind,” filled with hate, paranoia, and narcissism. According to two close observers of Trump, the president’s grip on reality “<a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/07/27/inside-the-mind-of-donald-trump-219074">will likely continue to diminish</a>” in the face of growing political obstacles, investigations into his taxes and business dealings, Mueller’s findings, and an energized political opposition. We may already be seeing that in Trump’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/09/us/politics/matthew-whitaker-donald-trump.html?smid=fb-nytimes&amp;smtyp=cur&amp;fbclid=IwAR0MxF9dqRt5w1M5HT6Gy6syoaqbsJjfg6SRlN4JhcdURUrV-btCv_pHgt4">erratic</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdFe-LmFRV8&amp;t=1s">aggressive</a> behavior since the election.The coming months may be especially dangerous for America and the world. As Trump’s political position weakens and the obstacles facing him grow, his mental instability will pose an ever-greater danger. He could explode in rage, fire Mueller, and perhaps try to launch a war or claim emergency powers in order to restore his authority. We have not yet seen Trump in full fury, but may do so soon, as his room for maneuver continues to narrow. In that case, much will depend on the performance of America’s constitutional order.  © <a href="https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/weaker-trump-more-unstable-and-dangerous-by-jeffrey-d-sachs-2018-11?utm_source=Project+Syndicate+Newsletter&amp;utm_campaign=8154a24117-sunday_newsletter_18_11_2018&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_term=0_73bad5b7d8-8154a24117-93570157##" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Project Syndicate</a>Jeffrey D Sachs is Professor of Sustainable Development and Professor of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University and his books include <a href="http://jeffsachs.org/books/the-end-of-poverty/">The End of Poverty</a>, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Building-New-American-Economy-Sustainable/dp/0231184042" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> Building the New American Economy</a>, <a href="https://cup.columbia.edu/book/a-new-foreign-policy/9780231547888">A New Foreign Policy: Beyond American Exceptionalism</a>.

Trump’s diminishing power and rising rage

Sha Bahadur Gurung was 30 years old when he was arrested for participating in a peaceful protest. He died aged 65 last week in Bhutan’s Chamgang Central Prison. He was among 31 prisoners of conscience in Bhutan, many of whom are serving long sentences for opposing the regime’s forcible expulsion of 100,000 of its Lhotsampa people in the early 1990s. ‘Mr Gurung died on 15 December in his prison cell under circumstances that raise serious concerns about custodial negligence and long-term abuse,” said a statement by the Global Campaign for the Release of Political Prisoners in Bhutan (GCRPPB) based in The Hague which demanded an external probe, justice and release of remaining political prisoners. Gurung was from Chirang and was arrested in 1990 while serving in the Royal Bhutan Army, and accused of having sympathies for the Lhotsampa people. He was mostly held at the notorious Rabuna Prison in Wangdi Phodrang District.&nbsp; Gurung’s relatives in the United States said he had endured prolonged physical and psychological abuse during his imprisonment, and repeatedly subjected to torture and inhumane treatment. They believe the decades of ill-treatment had damaged his health, ultimately leading to his death. Earlier this month, Gurung was transferred from Rabuna to Chamgang Central Prison. On 14 December. He had gone to bed after dinner without any visible sign of distress. He was found unconscious in his cell the next morning.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251224151248_5fc8305ecd320d89b9e343c04a1a897dc1353353da55b6d277f5398034b265ea.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20251224151248_5fc8305ecd320d89b9e343c04a1a897dc1353353da55b6d277f5398034b265ea" data-rendition-name="original" width="902" height="1103" loading="lazy" alt="Sha Bahadur Gurung NT"> <figcaption>Sha Bahadur Gurung, who died at age 65 in prison in Bhutan after serving 30 years for expressing political opinion.</figcaption> </figure>  He was referred to a hospital in Thimphu, suggesting that he was still alive during transfer to a local health post. But it appears that he had already died before being taken from prison. Gurung’s death occurred two days before Bhutan’s National Day on 17 December, when families, supporters, and human rights advocates worldwide had hoped for the release of political prisoners through a royal amnesty. Instead, the death of one of the longest-serving political prisoners has caused grief and anger in the Bhutanese diaspora.&nbsp; “We strongly condemn the treatment and death of Gurung, a peaceful and justice-loving Bhutanese citizen,” the V statement said. ‘This tragedy raises serious questions about the treatment of political prisoners in Bhutan and stands in stark contrast to the country’s international image under the principles of Gross National Happiness, compassion, and mindfulness.’ Earlier this year, The <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/special-procedures/wg-arbitrary-detention/opinions-adopted-working-group-arbitrary-detention/opinions-adopted-working-group-arbitrary-detention-its-101st-session" target="_blank">United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention</a> said the Bhutan government was detaining citizens without parole for <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/detainees-in-dire-straits-in-bhutan-s-prisons" target="_blank">expressing political opinion</a>. The New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in 2023 that there were least 37 <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/03/13/bhutan-free-long-term-political-prisoners" target="_blank">political prisoners</a> in Bhutan’s jails. Of them, 32 belong to the Nepali-speaking Lhotshampa community, which has faced <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2003/06/18/nepal-bhutanese-refugees-rendered-stateless" target="_blank">decades of discrimination and abuse</a> and eviction. Most of them were convicted because of prohibited political activity between 1990 and 2008. One political prisoner, <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/no-country-for-dissent?fbclid=IwAR07lpitMBWAYSkny_3d_smQBlmoxAOQm1OxdNtl-27h8mV0RNO9IxVY2qs" target="_blank">Madhukar Monger</a>, who was released in 2023 after serving 29 years described brutal conditions in <a href="https://www.hrw.org/asia/bhutan" target="_blank">Bhutan</a>'s jails. Political prisoners were not given enough food, and medical care, he said, urging the internaitoonal community to press for the release of prisoners of conscience.&nbsp; In March, <a href="https://www.hrw.org/about/people/meenakshi-ganguly" target="_blank">Meenakshi Ganguly</a>, Deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch, urged Bhutan’s international partners to call on the Bhutan government to release all remaining political prisoners immediately.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251224161216_9d11a78ed5490091c595341900e4c26f5c0dd0328718f6930ef19c1e9b7f95a6.jpg" data-media-id="editor_8" data-image-id="20251224161216_9d11a78ed5490091c595341900e4c26f5c0dd0328718f6930ef19c1e9b7f95a6" data-rendition-name="original" width="1000" height="1422" loading="lazy" alt="Bhutan political prisoners NT"> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251224161216_176855f3d3df42d24ac7e77372bbf49115695b732a6c094a66267e969111dfca.jpg" data-media-id="editor_9" data-image-id="20251224161216_176855f3d3df42d24ac7e77372bbf49115695b732a6c094a66267e969111dfca" data-rendition-name="original" width="1000" height="1420" loading="lazy" alt="Bhutan political prisoners NT"> </figure>  &nbsp;

Bhutan political prisoner dies in detention

‘Get out of my house.’ ‘All my sickness is because of you.’ ‘You’re a millstone around my neck.’ Arundhati Roy heard these admonitions from her mother over and over throughout her life.&nbsp; This must be a singular, yet universal experience. There must be very few daughters who make it through life unscathed by their mothers. And vice-versa.&nbsp; How many of our mothers look at us and see in us the potential of all of the lives they could have lived? How many resent us for it, or want us to live those lives in their stead? And how many of us look back at our mothers and imagine what they would have achieved had they not been expected and assigned to play the role of wife, daughter-in-law, mother — had we never existed in their lives? How many mothers project their experiences onto their own daughters and continue the cycle? No daughter seems to escape it — no matter how well-behaved, docile, unruly, or rebellious. Certainly not the child who would go on to become a Booker prize-winning author. Arundhati Roy’s memoir Mother Mary Comes To Me chronicles her complex relationship with her mother Mary, or Mrs Roy, as her educator mother had her two children refer to her. In December, Arundhati Roy was in Kathmandu to sign books and briefly interact with readers at two bookshops in the city. She describes a childhood overshadowed by her mother’s volatility towards her and her brother. Mary herself was raised by an abusive father to escape whom she married the first man who proposed — Arundhati’s father who in her mother’s words turned out to be an alcoholic ‘Nothing Man’.&nbsp; Mary left her husband in Assam and eventually wound up with her two children in her town of Aymanam in Kerala, encountering other family members along the way who did not treat her, or her children with respect. The trauma and cruelty her mother endured could not be contained in her body, and spilled out onto her two children, towards whom she was physically, verbally, and emotionally abusive.&nbsp; While she treated her children with disregard, she would build a school in the nearby town of Kottayam from the ground up, educate thousands of children, take up a legal fight that led to the Supreme Court granting Syrian Christian women in India equal inheritance rights, and uplift many orphaned children and women in Kerala.&nbsp; Arundhati lived with both her mother’s brutality and brilliance. And like her daughter, readers must reconcile the indefensible parts of Mary Roy’s personality — the cruelty of calling her nine-year-old daughter a bitch, or shooting the family dog that mated with a stray — with her unyielding drive to educate thousands, fight for equal rights, and challenge the way her world viewed women.&nbsp; Mrs Roy had little kindness for her own children, but plenty for the students, children, and women whose lives she shaped, and made better. And her kindness was not rooted in empathy, but in anger at the hand she had been dealt in life. Eventually, Arundhati decided to temporarily cut all contact with Mrs Roy — not because she did not love her, she writes, but so that she could continue to love her. Her desire to get away from her abusive mother, and her fascination with the ideas inspired by the architect who built her mother’s school, would lead her to the Delhi School of Architecture at age 16. In Delhi, Arundhati became roommates with Hisila Yami before she and her Maoist ideologue husband Baburam Bhattarai went underground to lead Nepal’s decade-long armed struggle. &nbsp; But architecture was not her calling. In Delhi, the heart of India’s statecraft, Arundhati came into young adulthood against a backdrop of the country’s changing socio-politics, which began to take a turn for the hyper-nationalist, Hindu supremacist community that it has now largely become. The winds of those changes have now blown into Nepal. In the city, far from her mother, Arundhati met the man who would become her partner of many years, collaborating with him on several films and screenplays before finding the language (‘I needed to hunt [language] down like prey,’ she writes) she needed to become the writer she is now.&nbsp; She went on to write her Booker prize-winning novel The God of Small Things, but the wealth and status the book brought her did not sit comfortably. So she smashed her newly-built gilded cage, as she describes it, and became more political. Contrary to norm, she published several works of non-fiction, and would only publish her second novel, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, in 2017, 20 years after The God of Small Things. &nbsp;&nbsp; Her fierce opposition to India’s nuclear policies, to a dam that would displace millions of indigenous people and ecologically damage the Narmada Valley, her championing of Kashmiri self-determination, and her time spent with Maoist rebels in the forests of Chhattisgarh as they took up arms to defend their land and resources against corporate interests made her an enemy of the state.&nbsp; Meanwhile, being raised by a single mother had never sat well within her Syrian Christian community. ‘I wasn't Christian enough. I wasn't Hindu enough. I wasn't communist enough. I wasn't enough,’ Roy writes in her memoir. For all her love for India, the nation did not seem to reciprocate. The circumstances might be different, but it might strike a chord with readers in Nepal, many of whom marched on the streets in September hoping for a better tomorrow, but were gunned down by the very institutions meant to protect them. It might resonate with those who are not seen as citizens of this nation simply because they might not fit into an imagined idea of Nepali nationhood.&nbsp; Arundhati’s relationship with her mother, who was simultaneously proud and disdainful of her daughter’s accomplishments, continued to be tumultuous until the end of Mary Roy’s life.&nbsp; One of Mrs Roy’s last messages to her daughter before she passed was: ‘There is no one in the world whom I have loved more than you.’ Arundhati muses that her lifelong refusal to stop loving her mother must have finally breached her barriers. One wonders if that final declaration of love was solace enough, apology enough, for all the pain caused.&nbsp; But for Arundhati Roy, her love for her mother and her motherland outweighs the cruelty both have shown her. This, too, must be a singular, yet universal experience.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025122208128_32b171acb09df2184495367b74efd91fe2896b0f5ba75b276e1533276268761c.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="2025122208128_32b171acb09df2184495367b74efd91fe2896b0f5ba75b276e1533276268761c" data-rendition-name="original" width="1136" height="702" loading="lazy" alt="Mother Mary Comes to Me review"> </figure>

The sins of our mothers

Samrat Upadhyay’s newest novel <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/10/books/review/darkmotherland-samrat-upadhyay.html" target="_blank">Darkmotherland</a> imagines a Kathmandu in political turmoil after a large earthquake. In the aftermath, Home Minister Giridharilal Bhagirath Kumar stages a ‘koo’, and has convinced people that he is the answer to the crisis.&nbsp; He is now known as ‘PM Papa’, and picks up classic dictatorial ways — propaganda, statue-making, history-revising, and a gang of Shiva-worshipping ‘Fundys’.&nbsp; We are introduced to two complicated protagonists. The first is Kranti, a fetching young woman and ‘Madam Mao’, her Communist professor mother. The chef father loved classic rock and died by gas cylinder suicide. Kranti hates her mother, and the Communist group which congregates at her home to plot against PM Papa, although they seem to take forever to get anything done.&nbsp; Kranti has a complicated relationship with the handsome Bhaskar, the middle son of the Ghimirey family oligarchy that is aligned with the dictator. She loves him, but as Bhaskar gets more and more involved with her mother and the Communist group, finds herself heading out to the ‘Bhurey’ (Bhu-kampa Rey-fugee) tents, to spend time with poet Kabiraj.&nbsp; Kranti is also given to delusions, paranoia, and psychosis, convinced that Bhaskar’s family is spying on her, and that one in the Communist group has supernatural powers of suggestion that led to her father’s suicide. Despite mental issues, she marries Bhaskar and into the Ghimirey clan, and the complex nexus between business and politics.&nbsp; The second is Rozy, initially the genderqueer lover of PM Papa who he discovered in the streets, and is described as a ‘gorgeous homosexual’. She turns heads due to her sexuality and beauty, and gets more and more politically powerful as the story moves along.&nbsp; Upadhyay tells us Nepali writers writing in English often feel a pressure to create an “all-embracing world” (interview), but that is what he seems to be getting at with the monumental plot of his novel. Unlike the realism in his previous novels, this one drifts off into magical realism. His narrative blends the ever-present risk of a big earthquake and the actuality of political tremors. The speed of political upheaval seems a little unrealistic for anyone who lived through the 2015 earthquake, although the GenZ protests showed just how quickly a regime can be reduced to a heap of rubble. The age-old question: oppression can be overcome, but what comes after? The PM Papa character is a Gyanendra-Oli-Deuba-Prachanda-Modi-Trump-Papa Doc composite who is good friends with the not even thinly veiled President Corn Hair.&nbsp; Through the character of Kranti, Upadhyay conveys the dynamic between a parent and a child who is now a full adult, on relationships in Kathmandu as marriage looms, on pervasive corruption which one might denounce but have to take advantage of to get things done.&nbsp; Through Rozy, Upadhyay brings attention to the non-binary identity, one that has existed forever in Nepal, and although is discussed a lot in the West lately but not so much here. Upadhyay explores the origins, the present, and the various advantages and disadvantages of the queer.&nbsp; Storytelling in the early parts of the book oscillates between the real and absurd fantasy amidst the physical and political backdrop that does not have to be Nepal -- it could be Modi's India or Trump's America.&nbsp; The reader sees the world through Kranti’s psychosis, or PM Papa’s displays of power, such as when a ‘Sweej’ wrestler is beaten to death with a mace in a wrestling spectacle.&nbsp; These elements <a href="https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/authors/profiles/article/96329-samrat-upadhyay-wants-you-to-expect-the-unexpected.html" target="_blank">coagulate in the novel</a>, and Upadhyay has all the pages at his disposal to prod and push them against one another to see what happens. The novel is still at its best and most engaging when describing vulnerable scenes, of Kranti and her mister, or of Rozy’s messed-up childhood.&nbsp; Any Nepali reading his weighty novel can recognise the allusions and nudges such as the Tourist Area: Thamel, Open Stage: Khula Manch, Tri-Moon: Tri-Chandra etc. But anyone not from these parts may have a tough time keeping track. Keeping a notebook handy may be useful.&nbsp; Ultimately, the novel does work, it provokes and entertains. For best results, serialise the reading over 30 days, not 3 like this reviewer.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025122005124_88d92d9a2c5718436354d9c1ce6a2576931ef3242a37f6b90d84da15fe96dd8d.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="2025122005124_88d92d9a2c5718436354d9c1ce6a2576931ef3242a37f6b90d84da15fe96dd8d" data-rendition-name="original" width="1136" height="702" loading="lazy" alt="Darkmotherland NT"> </figure>  <h2>More things change, more they remain the same</h2> First US-published Nepali Samrat Upadhyay is the award-winning author of novels and short story collections like Arresting God in Kathmandu, The City Son, Mad Country, and Buddha’s Orphans. Upadhyay is also the Martha C. Kraft Professor of Humanities at Indiana University, where he teaches Creative Writing.&nbsp; Recently in Kathmandu, he talked to the Nepali Times over coffee in Boudha about his writing, his teaching, and his newest novel, DARKMOTHERLAND.&nbsp; Nepali Times: Darkmotherland is 732 pages long. What was it like writing a much longer book? Samrat Upadhyay: Torturous Ha ha ha. Around 2014 I started a story. I knew it was going to be a novel. It was about this woman who is accused of being a Mangalik. Then the big earthquake happened in 2015. I was in the US but my parents were still here, they were living in tents. Then I started thinking, what would happen if a dictator came to power. That’s how PM Papa was born. I think mostly because of his character the novel exploded. I had never written a character like him before. I don’t do any plot outlines when I write. Let’s see where it goes. I like the process of writing to lead to discoveries. If I knew everything then I’d get bored. Not knowing where the storyline might go is very exciting. All these different threads started coming in, the character of Kranti started taking on a big role. Her mother, a Communist-leaning professor, started taking shape. Kranti also had a love-interest from an oligarchical family. The novel just took off and I just continued writing. A novel is as long as it needs to be. The initial draft was 1,700 pages. I was writing pretty fast. I don’t pause to see if the sentences are pretty. I whittled it down, and by the time I sent it to my agent it was 1,100 pages. He was able to sell it to Soho Press. I worked with an editor who suggested some further cuts and expansions. The editing part was even harder than the initial writing, because by that time I was tired of looking at the novel. There was a bit of a delay because of Covid, then we got back on track. What’s your daily process of getting the words on paper? I am a morning writer. I get up in the morning and start writing. You can have all kinds of theories but there is this saying, Shut Up and Write. The writing is where the meat is. You encounter difficulties in writing that you may not encounter when thinking about it. I see this in my students. I knew this was a big project so I knew that if I wanted to get it out I would need to write a lot per day. I got a couple fellowships in the university that gave me a few semesters off teaching. I would write for about 4 or 5 hours. Sometimes I would give myself a 1,000 word deadline, but I’m flexible with it if I don’t get there. You have to be kind and patient. What is your inspiration behind the gender-queer character, Rozy? I’ve always been a strong supporter of LGBT. I would say that at this point half of my students are non-binary or on the gender spectrum. Some of them are going through transitions. In some ways Nepal has become more accepting, but in other ways not. I did a workshop with Blue Diamond Society, and heard pretty harrowing stories. I didn’t intend to create a gender-queer character, but it seemed like the novel was demanding that. Especially in terms of the tyrannical stronghold that PM Papa has over the entire country, it made sense that there would be a counterpart, I wanted to put these things in motion and see how they interact. As I was writing Rozy, her character became very formidable. How much do you draw from Nepali politics? Do you form characters off people you know? Not in a very concrete sense, but I’m always drawing from them. I grew up in the Panchayat System, and lived in Lainchaur. The palace was there. The monarchy was such an institution. But then I was in the US, so I wasn’t here when the pro-democracy movement happened. In some ways it felt like things had changed, but were the same in other ways. I feel the same way now. I do draw upon people. I think my father makes an appearance in my work in various forms, I disguise him, of course. You’ve taught creative writing for a while now, how is literature changing?&nbsp; My students are also writing non-binary characters, because they want to be reflected in the stories. This is something new that we didn’t have. White authors, characters were the default. People of Color on the margins. African American and then Hispanic, South Asian authors were always pushing back on this status quo. When I was growing up in the classroom we were reading a lot of white male authors, but in my own life I was reading Salman Rushdie, African, South African friends and writers. My students have a lot more interest in fantasy, many are writing dystopian. One student is writing a novel where the characters start playing a game, and then they enter the game, and an entire new world opens up. On the one hand there are complaints that students aren’t reading enough, which is true, but my students are producing smarter work. Writing that is a lot more insightful. The calibre of discussion in my graduate-level novel writing classes is mind-boggling to me, and makes me want to keep on teaching. Do Nepali writers who write in English feel a certain pressure, from the market or self-imposed, to make their stories more Nepali? My experience for a long time was that there was a pressure, I felt it true in my case, I was supposed to be the representative of every Nepali. But Nepali writers writing in Nepali are not asked, how are you representing Nepal. At that time there was a lot of pressure to write a novel that is all-embracing, that is supposed to speak on all aspects of the country. Politics felt like an integral part of it, that these novels had to make big political statements. I always felt like this was wrong. I mean, people have to write what they want to write. &nbsp;You write what you want to write, and if it resonates with readers, that’s great. If it doesn’t, that’s fine too. Art isn’t going to speak to everyone. We do a competition every couple of years called Writing Nepal. We make a call for stories, and we decide the best ones. I find it refreshing now that the writing isn’t all about Nepal. The best stories are quite varied. What are Nepalis writing about?&nbsp; Several of the stories are about the role of women in our society, done with a lot of nuance, about the sort of multitasking they have to do. Some of it was deeply historical, some dystopian, the coming of AI. Some of them have an old-timey type of feel, and some of them are very modern, contemporary. The general level of art in movies, TV shows, and novels seems to have regressed compared to say the 90s.&nbsp; I don’t think that’s entirely true. Publishing has been harder, for sure, but there are a lot of novels being published every year. My writing workshop had always been a good vehicle for short stories, but a lot of my students now—even undergraduates—are working on novels. I haven’t formulated my thoughts on AI, it is so new and has hit us so hard. Many of my students are using AI, especially when writing response papers to works of literature or peers, which I find appalling. That’s going to be a struggle. I tell my students, who are you fooling? If you feel that you want to be an artist, or a writer, then what’s the point of using AI? AI-generated stories are also just not that good. They’re almost too perfect, too well put-together, making moves that are easy to detect. There is something about human-written stories that are messy and exciting. But there are also plenty of students who want to do original work and don’t want anything to do with AI.

A dystopian motherland

From its headwaters near Mansarovar on the Tibetan Plateau to its confluence with the Ganga in India, <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/faith-to-reality">the Karnali</a> remains one of the last great free-flowing rivers in the Himalaya. At a time when most major Asian rivers have been dammed by concrete, the Karnali still surges, migrates, floods and recedes according to its own natural rhythms. This sustains an entire living system -- wildlife, communities and cultures — that cannot be replicated once a river is turned into a staircase of reservoirs. The Karnali is a natural artery for western Nepal. It nourishes fertile floodplains, recharges aquifers, supports fisheries and connects remote communities.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251221101240_213faa0e9da42af63e6c4f8a41e23a96efbd9f29a1d148227d65d2f16bb64b53.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20251221101240_213faa0e9da42af63e6c4f8a41e23a96efbd9f29a1d148227d65d2f16bb64b53" data-rendition-name="original" width="2500" height="1875" loading="lazy" alt="Karnali"> <figcaption>Confluence of the Humla and Mugu Karnali.</figcaption> </figure>  Bardia National Park and its rich biodiversity, including the tiger and fresh water dolphins, depend on the river and its seasonal interaction with the floodplain and wetlands. Riverine birds, crocodilians, endemic fish, all depend on the river. Millions of people in Nepal and India rely on the Karnali (called Ghaghara in India) for household use, irrigation and livelihoods. This living river now faces <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/dams-and-dreams-a-journey-down-the-karnali">a cascade of proposed hydropower projects</a>. So far, the Upper Karnali &nbsp;(900MW) and the massive Karnali-Chisapani (10,800MW) have been purposed. Both have been mired in controversy and have been delayed. Construction of smaller projects like the Bheri-Babai Diversion are already underway.&nbsp; The Upper Karnali is a Rs146 billion project first purposed in 2006. It started construction earlier this year with the Indian conglomerate GMR leading the task. Even so it faces a setback as Bangladesh cancelled the power purchase deal of 500MW.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025122109124_80c381c4299dd7e18dbbcacb26e567edc5cfffba76d428e3b325dd194eae8a47.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="2025122109124_80c381c4299dd7e18dbbcacb26e567edc5cfffba76d428e3b325dd194eae8a47" data-rendition-name="original" width="4284" height="5712" loading="lazy" alt="Karnali"> <figcaption>Free-flowing Upper Karnali.</figcaption> </figure>  The project is located on the stupendous Karnali Bend where the water can be pushed through a 2.5km tunnel over a drop of 130m, creating a huge generation capacity. But Nepal’s move towards big dams comes at a time when scientists warn of more extreme weather events like floods and landslides in the already fragile Himalayan landscape. Nepal now needs investment in storage projects as most hydropower plants are of the run-of-river type, which means power generation drops in the dry season. But a piecemeal dam-by-dam approach risks destroying a unique resource for benefits that could be achieved elsewhere with far less ecological cost. Once a free-flowing river is fragmented, its sediment delivery is choked, fish migrations are cut off, floodplains dry out and local cultures that revolve around seasonal flows begin to unravel. These changes are effectively permanent.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025122109120_4f59b09b6e03889457b9b98d72d6b604d3519895f8825b4b03f486d67ea299af.jpg" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="2025122109120_4f59b09b6e03889457b9b98d72d6b604d3519895f8825b4b03f486d67ea299af" data-rendition-name="original" width="2500" height="1875" loading="lazy" alt="Karnali"> <figcaption>Local children play indigenous musical instrument.</figcaption> </figure>  “The Karnali is the last and most pristine Himalayan River left, most others are already exploited. It should be protected as a wild, scenic, free flowing river as a gift to future generations,” says activist Megh Ale, who wants the river to be developed as an eco-tourism corridor on the pilgrim trail to Mt Kailash and Mansarovar.&nbsp; “We have many big tributaries to the Karnali,” Ale adds. “We can keep the main stream of the river as free flowing, and develop hydro projects on the tributaries. More than 6,000MW can be produced without touching the main river stem.”  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025122109128_223faf7f50c43f3bf008a7745b90131fa91975689109533b71ed7d9dcdb8c53e.jpg" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="2025122109128_223faf7f50c43f3bf008a7745b90131fa91975689109533b71ed7d9dcdb8c53e" data-rendition-name="original" width="1875" height="2500" loading="lazy" alt="Karnali"> <figcaption>Rafters say Karnali is one of the best places for white water rafting in the world.</figcaption> </figure>  Nepal has abundant alternatives to hydropower: solar energy has been hardly tapped, and integrating them with pump storage systems are cheap, quick to build and are low impact. Smarter siting and design, modern transmission links and regional power trading can deliver reliable energy without sacrificing the country’s last pristine river. Preserving the Karnali would also pay dividends in climate resilience: free-flowing rivers buffer <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/climate-denial-in-the-himalaya">extreme floods and droughts</a>, carry sediment that builds deltas and replenishes nutrients on farmland, and provide insurance against glacial and monsoon variability.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025122109124_a5726642ee785b624ee3e6d81a051091c91a8d388dba8c33f4a03bab1fddc97f.jpg" data-media-id="editor_7" data-image-id="2025122109124_a5726642ee785b624ee3e6d81a051091c91a8d388dba8c33f4a03bab1fddc97f" data-rendition-name="original" width="2500" height="1875" loading="lazy" alt="Karnali"> <figcaption>Tharu women repair a channel fed by the Karnali, which is a life line for their farms.</figcaption> </figure>  The Karnali is also a cultural and economic asset in its own right. As a rare, undammed Himalayan river, it underpins nature-based tourism, scientific research, and a way of life for Indigenous and local communities. Kalashtham Tharu, 32, is an elephant mahout in Bardia, and says the Karnali is an important source of water for animals and farming. Diversion for irrigation near Chisapani has meant that a channel going into Bardia National Park has gone dry, affecting biodiversity and nearby farms. &nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025122109120_6d3a45a440263e859d64c427a8543c6ede5a447a411797d25a6a41d713d33e91.jpg" data-media-id="editor_8" data-image-id="2025122109120_6d3a45a440263e859d64c427a8543c6ede5a447a411797d25a6a41d713d33e91" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="2000" loading="lazy" alt="Karnali"> <figcaption>Panning for gold on the banks of the Karnali. She makes Rs200,000 per year. </figcaption> </figure>  Similarly, the Sonahar community in Bardia relies on the river to pan for gold, their sole source of income. Anita, 40, says there is much less water in the Karnali this year. On an average, she makes Rs200,000 from middlemen for the gold she pans during non-monsoon months. &nbsp; WILD RIVERS Around the world, countries are beginning to recognise the value of keeping a few great rivers wild. Protecting the Karnali would place Nepal at the forefront of that movement and strengthen efforts to seek international recognition for the river’s outstanding natural heritage. Any decision should be grounded in a transparent, basin-wide assessment that weighs the full social, ecological and economic costs—not just the megawatts on a project spreadsheet. That means evaluating alternatives, safeguarding critical habitats and migration routes, and recognising the rights and knowledge of the people who live along the river. It also means asking a simple question: If Nepal can meet its energy goals without damming the Karnali’s main stem, why wouldn’t it?  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025122109128_3e357c863de55b397f09cfd666c762de297a8b07ac024a41a8bb5b9e8d3a76cf.jpg" data-media-id="editor_9" data-image-id="2025122109128_3e357c863de55b397f09cfd666c762de297a8b07ac024a41a8bb5b9e8d3a76cf" data-rendition-name="original" width="2000" height="1500" loading="lazy" alt="Karnali"> <figcaption>River mining the Karnali in Kalaili district causing uneven landscape with the river flowing away from Bardia National park.</figcaption> </figure>  Advocates have petitioned Nepal’s Supreme Court to protect the Karnali, with a hearing scheduled in Kathmandu on 22 December. International lenders and investors should take note: Financing high-impact dams on the Karnali would run counter to emerging global standards on biodiversity, <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/dancing-with-the-river">climate resilience</a> and free-flowing river protection. Funding clean energy in Nepal should not require sacrificing the country’s most pristine river. For three decades, I have documented the Karnali from its source in Tibet to its entry into India, capturing the river’s seasons and the lives it sustains. The images I have captured and the voices of people who depend on the river, tell a simple truth: a free-flowing Karnali is irreplaceable. Once the concrete is poured, there is no going back.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025122109128_760ae5218d5f7e961c198da0a6c8696247e34281752a2857de935f9e8aec2c5c.jpg" data-media-id="editor_11" data-image-id="2025122109128_760ae5218d5f7e961c198da0a6c8696247e34281752a2857de935f9e8aec2c5c" data-rendition-name="original" width="1504" height="1502" loading="lazy" alt="Karnali"> <figcaption>Inner sanctum of Mt Kailas in the vicinity of Manasarovar and Rakshas lakes in Tibet.</figcaption> </figure>  Nepal has many options for generating power. <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/a-karnali-portrait?%2F">It has only one Karnali</a>. Keeping this river wild would be a gift to the living Earth and to future generations — a legacy measured not in megawatts, but in life. Says Megh Ale: “We are very rich in natural resources but manage them very poorly. We want instant solutions but do not have a long-term vision. We are not against development but there needs to be a good balance with nature.” &nbsp;