If visitors to the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/its-a-jungle-out-there">Bardia National Park </a>are lucky, they can sometimes spot a bevy of otters frolicking with their pups along <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/the-karnali">the Karnali River.</a> Or they might be out fishing, brown fur gleaming in the sun as they emerge from the water with a fish in the mouth. But on a recent daytime visit to the national park in Kailali, there was no such luck. All that pointed to their presence were tracks on the sand by the banks of the Karnali (pictured, below).&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250314030320_9c5ba49b740896453946aedc632f1cb8df8e886cda7107996f5a40893d99f016.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20250314030320_9c5ba49b740896453946aedc632f1cb8df8e886cda7107996f5a40893d99f016" data-rendition-name="original" width="1200" height="1600" loading="lazy" alt="Otters footprint "> <figcaption>Photo: SUDIKSHA TULADHAR</figcaption> </figure>  When it comes to <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/human-animal-interface-in-nepal-wildlife-corridor">wildlife</a>, the news cycle in Nepal is dominated by <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/in-conservation-nepal-is-not-out-of-the-woods-yet">tigers and rhinos</a>, and their <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/is-wildlife-conservation-a-victim-of-its-own-success-in-nepal">conservation success stories</a>. This means other <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/lesser-known-endangered-species">endangered mammals </a>like pangolins and otters remain in the shadows.&nbsp; Many Nepalis are not even aware that otters exist in Nepal. There are three species found here: the Eurasian Otter (Lutra lutra), Smooth-coated Otter (Lutrogale perspicillata), and Asian Small-clawed Otter (Aonyx cinereus). All are usually nocturnal, or most active at dawn or dusk to avoid predators like <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/crocodile-chronicle">crocodiles</a>, <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/does-nepal-really-have-too-many-tigers">tigers</a>, and <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/clouded-future-for-the-clouded-leopard">leopards</a>. Otter species found in Nepal prefer freshwater <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/importance-of-ecosystems-for-people-and-the-planet">ecosystems </a>along fast flowing <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/saving-what-is-left-of-himalayan-rivers">Himalayan rivers</a> and the <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=18976">wetlands</a> that they feed. The Asian Small-clawed Otter feeds on crabs and mollusks, the Smooth-coated otter, primarily found in rivers of Karnali and Narayani, preys on fish, playing a crucial role in maintaining balance in the aquatic ecosystem.&nbsp; Their dependence on <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/solution-to-kathmandu-s-water-crisis">clean water</a> makes otters bioindicators, which means their abundance shows a healthy ecosystem and unpolluted water bodies.&nbsp; Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/people-tigers-trees-and-rivers">People, tigers, trees and rivers</a>, Shashank Poudel “Otters hunt in the water, but they spend most of their time on land, often along the boulders and sand on the banks,” explains Arun Sonaha, otter conservation expert from the indigenous Sonaha community. Otter scat contributes to nutrient cycling as well as the fertilisation of riverbanks and wetlands, indirectly promoting vegetation. Smooth-coated Otters and Asian small-clawed Otters prefer lowland habitats. The former have adapted to survive in human-altered landscapes, and have been found to reside in <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/pouring-concrete-on-rice-fields">rice fields</a> and <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/latest/infrastructure-for-wildlife-in-nepal">irrigation canals</a>.&nbsp; However, Eurasian Otters adapt to <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/nepal-must-prepare-for-climate-migration">seasonal changes</a> by moving up to 3,660m during the summer, and migrating to lower elevations in the winter. The presence of Eurasian Otters has been recorded in 24 districts across Nepal, while the Smooth-coated and Asian Small-clawed species have been documented in 12 districts. Otters have been spotted in the Karnali, Narayani, Kosi, and Mahakali <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/india-nepal-ignore-climate-crisis-in-river-talks">river systems</a>. The smallest of the 13 known otter species, Asian Small-clawed otters, were recorded in Nepal for the first time in 185 years earlier this year in February in Dadeldhura.&nbsp; “We track the movement of Smooth-coated Otters using 18 camera traps in Bardia,” explains Aashish Kapali from the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/world-lost-2-3-of-its-animals-in-50-years-wwf-report">World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Nepal</a>. Smooth-coated otters have still been observed in healthy numbers along the Karnali, but the otter population is in decline. The smooth-coated otter and Asian small-clawed are currently listed as ‘vulnerable’ in the IUCN Red List, while the Eurasian Otter is ‘near endangered’.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250314030324_f20e9290f9e92401be7a5c8c53d080c80e8c0583fa991def89bb3081329255dd.png" data-media-id="editor_20" data-image-id="20250314030324_f20e9290f9e92401be7a5c8c53d080c80e8c0583fa991def89bb3081329255dd" data-rendition-name="original" width="2048" height="1521" loading="lazy" alt="Otters 2"> <figcaption>PHOTO: SAGAR GIRI/ WWF NEPAL</figcaption> </figure>  <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/multimedia/rivers-be-dammed">River damming</a>, indiscriminate and illegal fishing, changing rainfall patterns and <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/decarbonisation-needs-to-begin-today">extreme weather</a>, rapid urbanisation in Nepal’s lowlands have contributed to loss of otter habitats and depletion of food sources. Pollution from <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/20-years-ago-this-week/clearing-the-air-ha86ztz4">raw sewage and industrial waste </a>has also added to<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/between-existence-and-extinction-in-nepal"> habitat degradation</a> while <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/from-the-nepali-press/banned-pesticides-are-widely-used-in-nepal">pesticides </a>have directly impacted their prey population. “The pesticides sprayed on fields drain into the rivers, affecting the fish population,” says Kapali. “This reverberates across the food chain and affects otter numbers.”&nbsp; Until a few years ago, otter poaching also ran rampant. Between 1989 and 2017, 755 otter pelts were confiscated in Nepal but <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=18566">communities living along the Karnali </a>have since stepped up efforts to protect the mammals. “Our continuous conservation efforts have meant that we currently do not have issues with poaching,” says Sonaha. Read also:<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/protecting-pangolins-from-being-eaten-to-extinction"> Protecting pangolins from being eaten to extinction</a>, Sonia Awale Community members are also working to revive the indigenous knowledge about over-fishing, and they also get skills training for alternative livelihoods.&nbsp; “The training not only enables us to earn a living but also helps us conserve otters,” says Buddhi Singh Tharu, chair of Himal Samuha community group for otter conservation. Fishing in the river is still allowed, but it must be done in a way that ensures smaller fish and tadpoles, the primary prey for otters, are not caught. “We use fishing nets that allow smaller fish to escape so that numbers in the river are balanced and under control,” explains Tharu. Across <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/multimedia/nepal-villages-cope-with-climate-induced-floods">Kailali and Bardia</a>, 15 Community River Stretch Management Groups have been established to conserve Smooth-coated otters. Women have been significantly more active in otter <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/women-conserve-men-still-conservative">conservation efforts</a>, with a 68% participation rate. Sudha Chaudhary, 45, was once a fisher, but now has transitioned to <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/the-superfoods-of-the-andes-and-the-himalaya">chili and tomato farming</a> with support from WWF Nepal and believes that conserving otters is essential for maintaining and sustaining the Karnali ecosystem. Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/conversation-with-mr-conservation">Conversation with Mr Conservation</a>, Sonia Awale Meanwhile, despite constant monitoring, sand mining and inadequate <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/managing-everest-s-waste-problem">waste management</a> continue in the Karnali, including by local officials, destroying otter habitats. <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/conservation-at-the-crossroads">Community conservation groups</a> here have expressed concerns about municipal authorities dumping waste near <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/the-karnali">the Karnali River</a>. However, experts also point to a lack of policies when it comes to otter conservation. While the Aquatic Animal Protection Act of 1961 and the National Parks and Wildlife Conservation Act of 1973 exist, they are inadequate for the conservation of these vulnerable semi-aquatic animals. Talks are underway for the government to approve a new action plan for otter conservation. For now, <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/remembering-nepal-s-conservation-heroes">conservationists</a> emphasise the need for <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/wildlife-people-coexistence-in-nepal-national-park">human-wildlife coexistence</a> to foster sustainable ecosystems that protect <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/the-great-trans-himalayan-bird-migration">Nepal’s biodiversity</a>, to achieve which continued <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/comment/villagers-step-up-to-protect-nepal-s-tigers">community conservation</a>, education and awareness efforts are crucial. Says Tharu: “It is our responsibility to conserve otters to ensure their survival for generations to come.”

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Saving the Karnali otters

More than 300,000 tourists visited Chitwan National Park (CNP) in the past year, more than half of them from Nepal. In total, they injected Rs307 million in revenue to the park which also had income from timber sales and regulated sand mining and fines.&nbsp; The park’s buffer zone spreads across 729km and includes 12 rural municipalities in Chitwan, Parsa, Nawalparasi, and Makwanpur districts. There are 21 Buffer Zone User Committees, and 73 community forest committees.&nbsp; Nepal’s population of tigers has tripled, and most of the wild cats roam inside the Chitwan National Park. The prey density is still adequate, but tigers, rhinos and wild elephants often venture into the buffer zone and nearby settlements.&nbsp; “Despite high prey density within the national park, there are still wildlife attacks,” admits Dil Bahadur Purja Pun of CNP. Last year alone, there were 10 fatalities, mostly from tiger attacks.&nbsp; Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/crocodile-chronicle">Crocodile Chronicle</a>, Shristi Karki Although this number is high, it is also an indication of Nepal’s conservation success story. &nbsp;Efforts are now underway among CNP rangers and staff, conservationists, as well as organisations like the WWF’s crossborder Terai Arc Landscape (TAL) program to minimise human casualties.&nbsp; Madi municipality is inside the buffer zone surrounded by Chitwan National Park to the east, west, and north, and India’s Valmiki Tiger Reserve to the south. Communities here have close and frequent encounters with wildlife. Wounded tigers which cannot hunt usual prey venture out to attack livestock, wild elephants trample through farms that are on their traditional migratory paths, and leopards stalk domestic animals. The village of Pandav Nagar is one of the most impoverished and there is no community forest here. Outmigration is rife, and most youth have moved to Bharatpur and beyond. The young and elderly who are left behind are more vulnerable to predators.&nbsp; Conservation organisations have erected a kilometre-long cement wall with mesh wire that keeps elephants out, but there are still gaps through which the animals can get through. The TAL program facilitates an awareness campaign called Behaviour Change Communication for Conservation.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241029091012_f6768dd1f6a3b1a4edc4e79c1f43a0f3f5e9a89cbf4debb813c78178fd2bfa91.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20241029091012_f6768dd1f6a3b1a4edc4e79c1f43a0f3f5e9a89cbf4debb813c78178fd2bfa91" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1125" loading="lazy" alt="wildlife and human coexistence"> <figcaption>Fish ponds constructed in Madi as an alternative to crop farming.</figcaption> </figure>  One of the trainees is Poonam Pandey, a teacher from Panch Pandav village, who now instructs children in her community about how to avoid contact with wildlife and help conservation efforts.&nbsp; “In the past, people here used to say that the wild animals have given them nothing but conflict and grief, but there has now been a change in attitude,” says Pandey. “Now, they are actively engaged in conservation.” Some of the older residents who have had close shaves with wildlife are still not convinced that co-existing with wildlife is possible.&nbsp; In Madi’s &nbsp;Chainpur, a group of women supported by conservation institutions plant turmeric as cash crops, which wild elephants do not like to eat. Other buffer zone communities grow other cash crops like lemon, which are less in risk of being destroyed by wildlife.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241029091012_05ee644c055d42107b6a45297aae235fc7de76bcd55feaa9f0378683e076a795.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20241029091012_05ee644c055d42107b6a45297aae235fc7de76bcd55feaa9f0378683e076a795" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1125" loading="lazy" alt="wildlife and human coexistence"> <figcaption>A predator-proof pens (PPP) goat shed in Chainpur.</figcaption> </figure>  “In the past, we used to have to go into the forest for fodder and firewood,” says one participant of the program. “With these cash crops, we now generate our own income and the elephants leave us alone.”&nbsp; Conservation groups have also helped local communities with predator-proof pens to protect their goats. In June this year, Chainpur village was declared a PPP model village.&nbsp; Over in Meghauli near Bharatpur, there are five community forests in the buffer zone where rhinos, tigers, elephants, and deer roam in abundance. Wetlands have been constructed so the wildlife have watering holes and ample grazing land.&nbsp; With an abundance of prey, there is less likelihood of tigers and leopards venturing out into residential areas. The prey attract tigers which means tourists on safari trips can enjoy sightings. The eco-tourism possibility of Rapti Hariyali Community Forest has gone up just from the increased chances of observing tigers and rhinos in the wild.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241029091012_f765265ed36044a85262ff61ad9399b7ae87e9e696323346cd2f1b03bb205ceb.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20241029091012_f765265ed36044a85262ff61ad9399b7ae87e9e696323346cd2f1b03bb205ceb" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1125" loading="lazy" alt="wildlife and human coexistence"> <figcaption>Sikaribaas corridor that connects CNP, Parsa NP, and Valmiki tiger reserve.</figcaption> </figure>  “Although Sauraha and Kasara are the popular entry points for tourism, we want to spread the visitors out to Meghauli as well,” says Yum Bahadur Thapa of Rapti Hariyali Community Forest. “It is proof that conservation, income generation, and tourism can go hand in hand.” The Nirmal Thori Buffer Zone User Committee is the park’s only buffer zone in Parsa district. It lies on the tri-junction of Chitwan and Parsa National Parks and India’s Valmiki Tiger Reserve. Conservation officers here coordinate closely with the Indian reserve to minimise human-wildlife contact. “Our goal here is to minimise wildlife contact and generate income for the communities through ecotourism,” says Bal Kumar Basnet, chair of the Nirmal Thori Buffer Zone User Committee. “That includes jungle safaris, and homestays, and other tourism promoting activities.” However local government must ensure that visitor numbers does not exceed the carrying capacity. Nepal’s conservation success could be in jeopardy if there is a rush to excessively monetise nature. The federal government has amended the National Park and Wildlife Conservation Act to allow private sector investment in Nepal’s protected areas. In theory, this is to ensure that local communities benefit more from conservation.&nbsp; But this could kill the goose that lays golden eggs. The feeling here is that while resorts and homestays can be opened in the buffer zones, they should never be allowed inside the national park. One conservation official told us: “Allowing private companies to build inside protected areas will spell disaster.”

Buffering nature in Chitwan

In July, less than a month after it was first introduced in parliament, Nepal President Ramchandra Paudel authenticated a Bill to amend some laws to spur investment. Among the bill’s provisions is the amendment of the <a href="https://www.forestaction.org/app/webroot/js/tinymce/editor/plugins/filemanager/files/National_Park_Act_1973_Nepal%20(1).pdf">1973 National Parks and Wildlife Conservation Act</a>.&nbsp; Section 5A of the Act, which has provisions related to prohibited activities within national parks and reserves, now includes an added clause: ‘The Government of Nepal may designate highly-sensitive areas within protected areas including National Parks, Reserves or Conservation Areas through a notice in the Nepal Gazette if it deems it necessary.’ This could mean that the government is now trying to disingenuously classify areas within <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/does-nepal-need-the-army-to-guard-parks">protected wildlife habitats</a> also as ‘non-sensitive’ to allow private sector investment in resorts, cable cars and other infrastructure. Read also: <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/More-trouble-in-Chitwan-National-Park,2956">Restoring resorts</a>, Smriti Basnet The 1973 Act lays out definitions of National Park, Strict Nature Reserve, Wildlife Reserve, and Hunting Reserve, and stipulates that those areas are set aside for conservation and management of the natural environment in areas of ecological importance. By designating some parts of these reserves as ‘sensitive’, activists say, the government is trying to defuse criticism of investment by the private sector. &nbsp; The 1973 Act has been critical in Nepal’s conservation success story, ensuring that nearly a quarter of the country’s area is protected, the tripling of Nepal’s tiger population and protection of its habitat, and the doubling of forest cover to 46% in the past 25 years. &nbsp; “Conservation areas are created for biodiversity-sensitive regions, and as such, only a minimal part of such areas can be categorised as not being highly sensitive,” says Rajesh Rai, professor at Tribhuvan University's Institute of Forestry. Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/economic-benefits-of-saving-the-ecology">Economic benefits of saving the ecology</a> The amendment also states: ‘Apart from the areas specified under section 5A, the Government of Nepal can approve specified projects of national priority, projects approved by the Investment Board or national pride projects in any intermediate zone within national parks, wildlife reserves, conservation areas while maintaining the co-existence of nature and human beings.’  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240910080928_8f1ae1e1c7acd2f0ebd5ca946a173c492f040844a79dfdb4af75081b0e2d169a.jpg" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="20240910080928_8f1ae1e1c7acd2f0ebd5ca946a173c492f040844a79dfdb4af75081b0e2d169a" data-rendition-name="original" width="1250" height="600" loading="lazy" alt="Tiger conservation in Nepal NT"> <figcaption>Photo: WWF</figcaption> </figure>  This conservationists say, would mean disturbance of protected wilderness areas, and open them up to construction and disturbance by all three levels of government which are not known for transparency and rule of law. In fact, there is such an unhealthy alliance between politicians and their business cronies that it is becoming difficult to tell them apart. Projects under consideration that directly impact protected areas include the Kori cable car proposal in Sikles of Kaski, the 80km Pokhara-Jomsom gondola cable car, new resorts inside Rara, Chitwan and Bardia National Parks.&nbsp; Constitutional experts assert that the Act goes against Nepal’s Constitution, the <a href="https://dnpwc.gov.np/media/publication/convention-on-biological-diversity-e.pdf">1992 United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity,</a> the<a href="https://whc.unesco.org/en/convention/"> 1972 World Heritage Convention</a> and the <a href="https://dnpwc.gov.np/media/publication/Convention_ramsar.pdf">1971 Convention on Wetlands</a>. “This Act will destroy wildlife habitats, undermining gains in Nepal’s biodiversity protection,” adds Rai, explaining that ensuing habitat fragmentation will lead to wildlife relocating beyond protected areas, thereby increasing human-wildlife conflict. Even though laws and governance related to conservation areas and wildlife protection fall under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Forests and Environment, it is significant that the bill was tabled by the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Supplies.&nbsp; Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/business/gambling-on-the-future">Gambling on the future</a>, Sikuma Rai And while it typically takes years for Parliament to pass any law, this bill was passed by both the lower and upper Houses within 26 days, and verified by the President’s office on the same day that it was passed by the National Assembly. All this has given credence to critics who smell a rat.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240910080928_17b880e02db74bbea29bc27e215a80c17aa379d29aa5a63ef0de0e1e29ae27ec.jpg" data-media-id="editor_9" data-image-id="20240910080928_17b880e02db74bbea29bc27e215a80c17aa379d29aa5a63ef0de0e1e29ae27ec" data-rendition-name="original" width="1400" height="933" loading="lazy" alt="elephant conservation NT "> <figcaption>Photo: WWF</figcaption> </figure>  This is not the first time that corporate groups have eyed development inside nature conservation areas, and have lobbied repeatedly for ordinances, procedures and regulations. This amendment comes at a time when major corruption scandals and have rocked the highest echelons of government. In fact, the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/nepal-government-changes-again">coalition reshuffle in June</a> after which the NC-UML government came to power has been attributed to the two parties protecting their top leaders from investigations by the previous RSP home minister into scandals. &nbsp; But even the previous coalition led by Maoist chair Pushpa Kamal Dahal amended the National Parks Act in April by issuing the Ordinance Amending Some Nepal Acts Related to Investment Facilitation 2024. Before that, the government published the Construction of Physical Infrastructure Inside Protected Areas in January, which allows hydropower and other infrastructure within protected areas. Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/multimedia/rivers-be-dammed">Rivers be dammed</a>, Pinki Sris Rana In 2018, businesses bypassed laws to prepare for infrastructure construction including ropeways, hotels, resorts and campsites in conservation areas and buffer zones after the Ministry of Forests published a draft outlining procedures to operate and regulate tourist services within protected areas. Conservationists and analysts have called for the immediate repeal of this Act that puts commercial interests over the protection of Nepal’s wildlife and biodiversity. They say the law is unjust and hypocritical because it punishes villagers for foraging fodder inside protected areas, while giving politically-connected businesses the freedom to build whatever they want inside wilderness areas.&nbsp; “Businesses must not be allowed to operate anywhere in our protected areas, not just biodiversity-sensitive regions,” says Rai. “In the event that such commercial activities are allowed, priority must be given to the indigenous communities and locals who have been historically displaced in the process of creating these conservation areas.”

Not out of the woods yet in Nepal

Villagers in Nepal’s Kanchenjunga region were baffled-- wild animals were preying on their livestock but they had ruled out leopards. Finally, a camera trap caught a dhole (Cuon alpinus) also known as the Asiatic Wild Dog at an altitude of 3,800m. Subsequent scatology study concluded that 22% of the dhole’s excrement contained remains of goats and juvenile cattle, confirming that they were the culprits. This study, led by researcher Ambika Prasad Khatiwada, was the first to research the habitat and habits of wild dogs in Nepal. Since then, other studies have identified the presence of the animal in the southern plains of Chitwan and Parsa. The research concluded that Nepal’s wild dogs are seriously endangered, and only about 200 remain. With habitat loss, wild dogs increasingly venture near human settlements where they are trapped and killed. Despite being on the brink of extinction in the country, the conservation of tigers, rhinos, wild elephants, snow leopards and other charismatic species <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/news/2-nepal-tiger-reserves-awarded">get more priority in Nepal</a>. This is why the wild tiger population in Nepal has rebounded with total numbers tripling in the past 13 years. Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/wildlife-people-coexistence-in-nepal-national-park">Wildlife-people coexistence in Nepal national park</a>, Kunda Dixit But such extensive focus on iconic wild mammals has meant that other wildlife like wild dogs, pangolins, porcupines, snakes and others have been largely ignored and do not get as much targeted protection. The Cuon alpinus is native to Asia, is brown with large rounded ears and a black muzzle, and a drooping black-tipped tail. Wild dogs have a lifespan of about 16 years and can grow up to 17 inches in height and up to a metre in length. They move in packs of five to ten and can swim, usually living in caves or under rocky outcrops near a water source. They collaborate to chase and attack their prey, able to hunt animals ten times their size. Other predators like tigers and leopards do not attack wild dogs, deterred by their packs. Dholes are found across 11 Asian countries, including Nepal, India, Bhutan, Bangladesh, China, Malaysia, Myanmar, Indonesia, Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand. India currently has the largest population of wild dogs at 2,500. Dholes are listed in Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) list of endangered species, meaning the animals are not necessarily now threatened with extinction but may become in the near future. They are similarly included in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, and currently updated data confirms that this species is critically endangered or rare. “Because critically endangered and rare species are at risk of extinction, their conservation must be done expeditiously,” says dhole researcher Ambika Prasad Khatiwada. Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/champions-of-nepals-conservation-movement/">Champions of Nepal's conservation movement</a>, Lisa Choegyal  <figure><img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20230725070740_9efd2f0d926e43eef4732c1f020c98228354a5365616dddc13965f4d7ef2d0eb.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20230725070740_9efd2f0d926e43eef4732c1f020c98228354a5365616dddc13965f4d7ef2d0eb" data-rendition-name="original" width="800" height="502" loading="lazy" alt="Dhole NT 2"></figure>  In Nepal, Dhole sightings have occurred up to 4,350m above sea level in the Rara and Khaptad National Parks, the Dhorpatan Hunting Reserve in the western Himalaya, the Kanchenjunga Conservation Area in the east and Chitwan and Bardia National Parks as well as Parsa and Shuklaphanta Wildlife Reserves in the Tarai. Wild dogs are sighted in several districts outside protected areas, but populations are low and threatened by low prey base, poisoning and habitat loss. Indeed, an increase in the number of tigers has meant that wild dogs are in direct competition with dholes which share their prey base. “An in-depth study is required to find out if it is this scarcity that has drawn them out in the Parsa region,” says Khatiwada. That wild dogs have begun to attack and feed on cattle seems to support the theory that dwindling prey has drawn the previously elusive species nearer to human habitats, and locals have retaliated by poisoning the prey to protect livestock. Because the species move across the Nepal-India border, there must be international efforts in its conservation, says Martin Gilbert, a veterinarian at Cornell University conducting conservation research in Nepal. In 2019, dhole experts, researchers, and scientists from across the world came together at the first International Dhole Conference in Thailand. The following conference was held in Chitwan in 2023 and saw the participation of 42 experts from 14 countries, including 11 members of the IUCN Dhole Working Group. Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/is-wildlife-conservation-a-victim-of-its-own-success-in-nepal/">Is wildlife conservation a victim of its own success in Nepal?</a>, Mukesh Pokhrel Khatiwada is a member of the IUCN group and represents Nepal in the study of wild dogs, and says the conference has renewed momentum for wild dog conservation. So far none of the wild dog range countries have formulated a Conservation Action Plan. As important as the government’s role is to the protection of dholes, experts believe that local efforts will be much more effective than national laws. Khatiwada explains: ”In other countries, the danger to wild dogs stems from habitat loss, but in Nepal, it comes directly from humans.” Indeed, while there is less <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/comment/nepal-needs-wildlife-friendly-highways-wt3rbx2v">human-wildlife conflict </a>because dholes move within protected areas in the Tarai, the same cannot be said for mountain regions of Nepal and Bhutan where the animals are hunted, trapped, and poisoned for preying on livestock. According to Nepal’s National Parks and Wildlife Conservation Act 1973, those who kill, injure or otherwise harm protected wildlife are punishable by imprisoned for 6 months to 1 year, a fine ranging from Rs20,000-Rs50,000 or both. As with snow leopard and tiger conservation, financial compensation can reduce the hostility of local farmers towards wild dogs. Says Khatiwada: “Some compensation is already provided to those who lose livestock to protected animals provided the livestock are insured. This provision must be amended to provide people with full compensation when there are attacks on livestock so farmers do not poison endangered wild dogs." Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/lesser-known-endangered-species">Lesser known endangered species</a>, Nepali Times

Nepal’s wild dogs also need to be saved

Nepal’s success in doubling its forest cover in 30 years has been possible for two reasons: community management of woodlands, and the protection of the country’s national parks by the Nepal Army.
But questions are now being raised about why national parks need to be guarded with guns when protection by <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepali-women-at-forefront-of-saving-tigers">local communities</a> have been so successful.
“Our internal evaluation has shown that it is due to the presence of the military that endangered species have been successfully protected,” says Megh Nath Kafle of the Ministry of Forest’s Department of Biodiversity and Environment. “Without the army, conservation would have been much more difficult.”
However, some activists say giving all the credit for Nepal’s successes in conservation solely to the military would be a disservice to the scores of local communities that have been even more successful in <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/comment/villagers-step-up-to-protect-nepal-s-tigers">protecting wildlife habitats</a>.
Read Also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/protecting-protected-areas-from-infrastructure">Protecting protected areas from infrastructure</a>, Sonia Awale
“People living at the edge of national parks have played the most important role in nature conservation,” says Bharati Pathak of the Federation of Community Forest User Groups.
“By praising only the army, we ignore the contribution of local communities. The Annapurna Conservation Area is an example of successful conservation even without a military presence,” she adds.
The Nepal Army has also been accused of harassing local communities for entering buffer zone forests to collect wild edibles, or grazing livestock even though those areas outside the parks are not within the army’s jurisdiction.
Conservationists, however, say that the military's presence is critical in parks along the border with India to deter poachers. Killing tigers and rhinos for their pelts, bones and horns nearly decimated India’s wildlife in the 1980s and 1990s. Poaching increased in Nepal during the Maoist conflict when the army was redeployed elsewhere.
The Royal Nepal Army’s involvement in guarding national parks started in 1975 after Chitwan National Park was established, mainly to protect the seriously depleted numbers of rhinos and tigers.
Today, more than 8,000 soldiers are stationed in Nepal’s various nature reserves, with battalions in Chitwan, Bardia, Shuklaphanta, Banke, Parsa, Shivapuri and Langtang, while there are company-strength bases guarding Khaptad, Sagarmatha, Bara, Shey Phoksundo, Makalu Barun, Kosi Tappu and Dhorpatan reserves. Conservation areas like Annapurna, Manaslu, Kanchenjunga and Gauri Shankar do not have an army presence.
The main duty of the soldiers is to control <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/in-conservation-nepal-is-not-out-of-the-woods-yet">encroachment and poaching</a> with regular patrols as well as to help with wildlife census and wildlife translocation activities.
Read Also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/wildlife-people-coexistence-in-nepal-national-park">Wildlife-people coexistence in Nepal national park</a>, Kunda Dixit
“Problems arise when villagers enter the national park from the buffer zones, and our patrols have to take action,” explains Brigadier General Krishna Prasad Bhandari. “Our units constantly work with the national park authorities to spread awareness about park rules.”
Even so, for many activists and locals it is not clear why nature needs to be protected with guns when local communities everywhere in Nepal have a proven track record in effective nature conservation.&nbsp;
“It would be much more effective if the army worked more closely with local communities because without their cooperation, genuine conservation is not possible,” says Ramprit Yadav, a pioneer naturalist who was involved in the establishment of Chitwan National Park.
Soldiers have been accused of terrorising local villagers, especially those from Indigenous communities like Tharu, <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/chitwan-s-bote-people-in-a-changing-world">Bote</a>, Chepang and Majhi.
“Conservation does not come out of the barrel of a gun, you have to involve local communities, especially Indigenous peoples who have traditionally managed their forest habitats,” says Naya Sharma Poudel of Forest Action Nepal.
Nepal’s <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/reviving-nepals-community-forestry-success-story">forest cover</a> has increased from 26% in 1992 to 45% today, largely due to the role of the community forestry program. Nearly 24% of the country's area is now protected nature reserves, and the army is deployed in 15 of them.&nbsp;
Read Also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/comment/villagers-step-up-to-protect-nepal-s-tigers">Villagers step up to protect Nepal’s tigers</a>, Teri D. Allendorf

Does Nepal need the army to guard parks?

Nepal's <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/reviving-nepals-community-forestry-success-story">community forestry program</a> doubled tree cover to 45% in 30 years. Nature sanctuaries make up a quarter of the country's area. Two years ago, Nepal’s national parks marked five years with zero rhino poaching. Nepal is also the first <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/2-nepal-tiger-reserves-awarded">tiger range country</a> to nearly triple its population of the big cats. But new linear infrastructure projects will soon be crisscrossing national parks along the Tarai, disturbing the habitat and blocking <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepal-s-wild-elephants-are-also-on-the-move">wildlife migration</a> routes. Nearly 400km of the 1,028km East-West Highway slices through national parks in Parsa, Chitwan, Bardia and Banke districts. Transmission lines have been built through protected areas, more are planned. Irrigation canals such as Babai, Ranijamara and Sitka obstruct wildlife movement pathways. “Nepal is among the fastest growing countries in terms of infrastructure, but projects are also the least well planned,” says World Wildlife Fund Nepal (WWF-N) Country Director Ghana Gurung. Development vs <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/conservation-at-the-crossroads">conservation</a> has been a longstanding dilemma for countries like Nepal, but experts say it need not be. Around the world, planners are now building infrastructure with climate-smart and wildlife-friendly safeguards. With technical expertise and investment, there is no reason Nepal cannot do the same. In fact, the 30km Narayanghat-Mugling Highway features the first two of Nepal’s <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/underpasses-to-reduce-roadkill-in-nepal">wildlife underpasses</a> where the busy highway artery passes through an important animal migration corridor. Camera traps at underpasses showed deer, wild boar and other animals used them regularly, with half the wildlife movement occurring in winter when animals search for water The Narayanghat-Butwal highway, which is being upgraded, will have 40 wildlife crossings along the Daunne-Gaidakot section. Their location is being determined after monitoring wildlife movement in the area. The project funded by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) will also monitor how much the animals use the crossings. <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/infrastructure-for-wildlife-in-nepal">The facilities</a> are necessary not just to prevent the fragmentation of wildlife habitats, but also to reduce roadkill of endangered species.  <figure><img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2023032316030_c6b778a207c5a2fd618af03fc656535d3ab2f445a1618f573394169724e9fbd4.png" data-media-id="editor_6" data-image-id="2023032316030_c6b778a207c5a2fd618af03fc656535d3ab2f445a1618f573394169724e9fbd4" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1083" loading="lazy" alt="Map"></figure>  But there is contradiction between road engineers and <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepal-conservationist-wins-whitley-award">conservationists</a>, with the former prioritising connectivity while the latter are blamed for one-dimensional advocacy for wildlife. Bridging this gap is the recently launched Asia’s Linear Infrastructure safeGuarding Nature (ALIGN) project which aims to protect protected areas from the impact of new infrastructure. Funded by USAID and implemented by WWF, the ALIGN project was launched at the United Nations Biodiversity Conference in Montreal in December 2022 with an initial focus on three countries: Nepal for its rich biodiversity, Mongolia for its fragile protected areas, and India which is accelerating investment in infrastructure. ALIGN has three main objectives: refine and strengthen existing policies such that they align with international best practices, enhance partnerships to promote and support investment, and implement safeguards for linear infrastructure and capacity building. “As it stands we have a very weak policy framework but we must strengthen it to avoid the impacts of big infrastructure. Soon we will be reviewing them,” says Semina Kafle of the ALIGN project. She adds: “Our focus is on producing our own experts.But there is a big gap between how an engineer thinks versus a conservationist. So we have decided to go back to school and make the impact of linear infrastructure on climate and wildlife an integral part of engineering studies.” ALIGN is working with the Institute of Engineering (IOE) in Pulchok Campus to develop a syllabus for an elective for students of civil and electrical engineering, and urban planning. The team is also collaborating with American universities to bring engineering lecturers to the Institute. As the demand and interest for the course increases, the elective will be upgraded to a core course or even a Master’s program. “It is crucial that we equip our students with the latest technologies and construct linear infrastructure while also ensuring the safety of the wildlife,” says Shashidhar Joshi, dean of IOE.  <figure><img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2023032316030_73628a3d88b550287dc7439f6fc6fe5b035d99943381590466a8df621fd58be6.jpg" data-media-id="editor_8" data-image-id="2023032316030_73628a3d88b550287dc7439f6fc6fe5b035d99943381590466a8df621fd58be6" data-rendition-name="original" width="2500" height="1667" loading="lazy" alt="Protecting protected areas from infrastructure NT 2"></figure>  He adds: “This is already practiced elsewhere in the world and we are integrating it now into our engineering studies to redefine infrastructure and planning." Poorly planned highway, power line, or railway alignments now <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/in-conservation-nepal-is-not-out-of-the-woods-yet">threaten to undo Nepal's conservation success</a>. With poaching controlled to a large extent, protected areas are now getting overcrowded leading to more frequent contact between people and tigers, wild elephants and leopards. Wildlife crossings over or under highways or irrigation canals can make them safer for <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/news/protecting-nepal-s-endangered-wild-cattle">endangered species</a>. Otherwise roadkill will be a problem on upgraded highways because of more vehicles and their speed. Safe routes for animals will also reduce <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/is-wildlife-conservation-a-victim-of-its-own-success-in-nepal">human-wildlife contact</a>. They provide drainage, preventing inundation especially as climate-induced weather extremes lead to more downpours and flash floods. <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/human-animal-interface-in-nepal-wildlife-corridor">Wildlife friendly structures</a> across highways and irrigation canals are helpful, but they need to be maintained and monitored. An underpass in Barandabhar, a 29km-long forest corridor bisected by the East-West Highway in Chitwan is often cited as a notable wildlife crossing. But, says Sandesh Singh Hamal of the ALIGN Project, lack of upkeep has turned it into a garbage dump. He adds: “Who should be responsible for their maintenance? There should be no conflict regarding the jurisdiction, we cannot pass the buck from one agency to another.” The ALIGN project has a performance period until September 2025 during which it will also facilitate learning and sharing between the three focal countries. With Nepal embarking on mega projects like the East-West Railway, Nijgad Airport and the Kathmandu-Tarai Expressway, wildlife crossings need to be integrated into their planning. Says Ghana Gurung of WWF: “We will work with governments and try to bring engineers and conservationists together to ensure infrastructures do not disturb protected areas.”

Sonia Awale

Protecting protected areas from infrastructure

<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111413114/63722f599c7e80680e0c250fjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1001"/>Tucked away in northern Chitwan between the Prithvi and Mahendra Highways is a land that has been bypassed by time. And this has helped protect the unique <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/model-for-post-covid-ecotourism/">landscape and biodiversity of Gadi-Siraichuli</a>.The mountain forest here is one of a network of sites in the world designated as an Important Bird and Biodiversity Area by BirdLife International. It is the habitat of the Spiny Babbler (Turdoides nipalensis), the rare and shy bird that is found only in Nepal.Ironically it is state neglect of the past decades that has protected the unique ecosystem of Gadi-Siraichuli. The mountains also have historical significance for the 18th century fort that dates back to the Anglo-Nepal wars of the early 19th century.A five- day trekking itinerary takes visitors through remote villages and wilderness areas so untouched that it is hard to believe Gadi-Siraichuli is that close to the national highways.The <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/Chepang-living-edge,3136">nomadic Chepang people</a> still practice Shamanism, and it is the only health care for villagers before they can reach hospitals in Bharatpur. Children along the trail have to travel two hours each way to reach the three government schools in the area.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111413114/63722f5c9c7e80680e0c2510jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1125">Thanks to the <a href="https://besnepal.org/">Bird Education Society</a>, the trail from Kot to Upardang Gadi via Kaaule has become a popular hike for birders from Nepal and around the world.The trail begins in the village of Hugdi along the Kathmandu-Pokhara highway, from where it is an uphill to Kot Pass that leads to the fort. When the clouds part, there is a panoramic view of Himalchuli and Annapurnas, with Himalayan vultures wheeling overhead.The walk then follows the Rigdi Khola to the nightstop at Lower Kaaule village. Lush sub-tropical broad-leaf forests cover the valley sides. Black and Bonelli’s Eagles appear over the skyline.Lower Kaaule is a Magar and Chhetri settlement with 25 houses situated by the river amidst terraced fields. There are homestays here where the owners are used to trekkers passing through. Villagers practice agroforestry, bee-keeping and organic farming, and there are orange, peach and pear trees along the paths. Recently, tea gardens and black cardamom plantations have sprung up.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111413114/63722f5f9c7e80680e0c2511jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1125">The autumn nights are clear and starlit, with the Milky Way, shooting stars and satellites crossing the sky. Visitors fall asleep listening to the calls of Collared Owlets and Mountain Scops Owls nearby.The next morning it is a climb up a steep forested slope alive with flycatchers, warblers and babblers on the trail to Kotari, and onward to Upper Kaaule where there is also a homestay.This is where the Spiny Babbler was sighted in 2020, marking a new locality for this bird. The next morning the trail climbs through the dense rhododendron forest of Gadi-Siraichuli to Upardang Gadi village via Chisapanitar. There are plenty of homestays, and the area is a haven for birders. There are stunning mountain views, especially before sunrise.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/spiny-babbler-tourism/">Spiny babbler tourism</a>, Kamal MadenThe fort at Upardang Gadi is situated at 1,275m with unsurpassed views of Chitwan Valley to the south and the mountains to the north. Birds of prey soar over the fort, with sightings of the Greater Spotted, Steppe Eagles and Pied Harriers. At dusk Lesser Kestrels hawk acrobatically for termites.The next day it is downhill to Shaktikhor in Chitwan, where a forest was cleared for a UN-supervised camp for the demobilisation of the Maoists after the conflict ended in 2006, and then on to the highway.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111413114/63722f639c7e80680e0c2512jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1125">Gadi-Siraichuli forest has been designated one of Nepal’s 37 Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas, which are of global importance for birds and other wildlife. It includes the largest extent and the highest quality of subtropical mixed broadleaved forest remaining Nepal that supports significant populations of bird species as well as four globally threatened and 20 nationally threatened species.The Chepang people followed a nomadic lifestyle until recently, and various factors including influx of settlers forced them to take up a more sedentary subsistence  agriculture. But Chepang families still harvest wild food from the forest which serves as the watershed providing drinking water for seven villages in Chitwan, but it is still outside Nepal’s protected area system.Designating the area as a Watershed and Bird Sanctuary would be invaluable in protecting the forest for wildlife and as a resource for local communities, including their precious water sources. Promoting eco-tourism would also raise incomes and help in conservation of this precious habitat.Carol Inskipp is a UK conservationist and author of books on Nepal birds and their conservation, who has been coming to Nepal since 1977.Prem Thapa is an avid birder,  trekker, and life member of Bird Education Society, and works at Samsara Trekking &amp; Safari in Kathmandu.Read more: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/protecting-the-last-home-of-the-spiny-babbler/">Protecting the last home of the Spiny Babbler</a>, Carol Inskipp and Rupendra Karmacharya

Eco-tourism in Gadi-Siraichuli

<figure><img width="437" height="329" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114111120/637216be9c7e80680e0ba9acjpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>Fishing cat found dead in small sugarcane patch, approx. 20m from the road. Photo: DIVISION FOREST OFFICE, NAWALPARASI</figcaption></figure>In January this year, my husband sent me an image of a small dead cat. A forest officer in West Nawalparasi had sent it to him to find out what it was. I recognised immediately from its pelt that it was a fishing cat, Prionailurus viverrinus, possibly male.  <figure><img width="780" height="439" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114111120/637216c09c7e80680e0ba9adjpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>As a researcher of fishing cats, I was shocked by the specimen and decided to explore it. Early next morning, I left for Nawalparasi to inspect the site at Pratappur where forest guard Ram Piyari led me to where he had buried the carcass of the cat. The cause of the death could not be determined, but when Piyari had found it, he said there was blood coming out of its mouth. Based on the size and other physical features, it was possibly a young (sub-adult) male weighing less than 5kg. It was found on a downward slope some 20m from a gravel road, and did not have any scars suggesting a struggle or fight. So the most logical conclusion was that the cat was roadkill. Growing up, my dog had died in similar circumstances after an auto-rickshaw ran over it, and he had no external injury. It died after a few minutes some distance away. Since then, I have witnessed several similar <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/nepal-needs-wildlife-friendly-highways/">cases of wildlife being killed on highways</a>.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/protecting-the-worlds-largest-squirrel-in-nepal/">Protecting the world’s largest squirrel in Nepal</a>, Bashu BaralFishing cats are medium-sized wild cats from South and Southeast Asia, living near <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=4663#.Ym9LtdNBxH0">wetlands</a> and are found ‘fishing’ for prey on ponds, rivers and lakes. They are an indicator species, meaning their presence signifies that the body of water is ecologically sound.But increasing threats from habitat loss, <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=18976#.Ym9LsNNBxH0">destruction of wetlands</a> and poaching have contributed to the rapid decline in their numbers in Asia, and it is listed as <a href="https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/18150/50662615">Vulnerable on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List</a>. <figure><img width="504" height="456" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114111120/637216c39c7e80680e0ba9aejpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img width="498" height="371" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114111120/637216c59c7e80680e0ba9afjpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>In December 2021, I was involved in collaring fishing cats in the Sunsari district to understand their ecology in the human dominated landscape. The research included their movement patterns between fish farming communities along the Kosi River. One day I received an image of two kittens from the Parsa National Park (PNP) Office, asking to verify their species. They were unmistakably P. viverrinus kittens, recognisable through their yellowish-grey fur and black lines and spots.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/protecting-lumbinis-rare-cranes/">Protecting Lumbini’s rare cranes</a>, Rajendra N SuwalSome farmers in the Bara district had taken them to their house from the sugarcane field where the kittens had been found. After a few days, the farmers handed them to the District Forest Office in Bara, which then transferred them to PNP. From there, the kittens were taken to National Trust for Nature Conservation, Biodiversity Conservation Centre in Chitwan, but only one of them survived. The good news is that the other cat will soon be released into the wild. This, however is proof of a chronic lack of awareness about small cat species and proper rescue centres that could provide optimum care and safely rehabilitate them in the wild. Another similar case is from April 2021 when a fishing cat was trapped in Gurusinghe in Kapilvastu. The locals had set up the snares to capture a wild boar, but it caught the cat instead. Fortunately, it was safely rescued and released into the wild.These endangered cats face threats in Nepal’s densely populated Tarai either because of <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/republic-of-nepals-animal-kingdom/">unplanned infrastructure</a>, or <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/wildlife-poachers-active-during-lockdown/">traps laid by animal poachers</a>. Most incidents go unnoticed due to limited knowledge about rare species of cats.  <figure><img width="428" height="451" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114111120/637216c69c7e80680e0ba9b0jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>As its name suggests, fish make up a large part of the cat’s diet, but they also prey on smaller animals and insects harmful to agriculture. But lack of awareness means farmers and fishermen consider them a nuisance and often kill them.  <figure><img width="706" height="499" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114111120/637216c89c7e80680e0ba9b1jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Globally, over 90% of fishing cats’ potential range lies <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.01.16.476498v1.full">outside the protected areas</a>. In Nepal as well, around <a href="https://www.authorea.com/users/432020/articles/538304-predicting-the-distribution-of-vulnerable-fishing-cat-prionailurus-viverrinus-in-nepal">70% of its potential habitat in Tarai</a> is outside national parks, adding to its <a href="https://www.nepjol.info/index.php/njz/article/view/38284">anthropogenic threats</a>. Even within their native habitat, the cats are much less well studied than their charismatic cousins, the tiger and leopard.To ensure the long-term survival of fishing cats and other small cats, we need to remove the threats to their existence by raising awareness about the species, their ecology and behaviour. This might deter people from randomly picking the kittens up from the farmland forest. Similarly, drivers should be mindful not to over-speed to prevent road kill. More importantly, we need to discourage bushmeat. Fishing cats are integral to the ecosystem, and the only way to help them thrive in the wild for future generations is to educate and involve the local communities in their conservation. Rama Mishra is a PhD Candidate at the University of Antwerp, Belgium, and is involved in the Terai Fishing Cat Project, Nepal.Read more: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/villagers-step-up-to-protect-nepals-tigers/">Villagers step up to protect Nepal’s tigers</a>, Teri D Allendorf

Curiosity did not kill these cats

<img width="800" height="466" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114101136/63720c559c7e80680e0b7863jpeg.jpg" alt=""/>3 May 2009 has a special significance for Tulsi Laxmi Suwal, as it was the day she found a mother pangolin with her new-born pup inside the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/who-now-owns-nepals-forests/">community forest</a> area in Bhaktapur.Suwal, who is a researcher of <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/protecting-pangolins-from-being-eaten-to-extinction/">pangolins</a> and a conservation activist, took the shy and harmless little creatures to the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/its-a-zoo-out-there-2/">Central Zoo</a> in Jawalakhel where she began to study them. Co-incidentally, her own child was five years of age then, and watching the mother pangolin feed, cuddle and take care of her pup, Suwal felt a growing emotional attachment with the pair.“For 15 days I would go to the zoo every morning,” Suwal recalls. “Then I would observe them all day and return home in the evening.”This experience, Suwal adds, helped her gain a more holistic knowledge of the scaly mammals. Later the mother and the pup were released back to the Bhaktapur community forest.Read more: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/protecting-pangolins-from-being-eaten-to-extinction/">Protecting pangolins from being eaten to extinction</a>, Sonia AwalePangolins are small mammals, between 30 to 100cm in size, with large, protective keratin scales covering their skin. There are eight extant species found in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, all of which are currently <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/lesser-known-endangered-species/">considered threatened</a> by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). They are the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/the-routes-for-the-worlds-most-trafficked-mammal/">most trafficked mammals in the world</a> because of illicit demand for their meat and scales in China.Nepal is home to two species: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/the-day-of-pangolins/">the Chinese and Indian varieties</a>. Both species are in Nepal’s protected list and the killing, poaching, transporting, selling or buying of the scaly anteater is punishable with Rs1 million fine and/or up to 15 years in jail.However, <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/protecting-pangolins-from-being-eaten-to-extinction/">100,000 pangolins are smuggled live</a> from Southeast Asia and Africa into China every year where its scales are believed to have therapeutic value and its meat is considered a delicacy. Some ethnic groups in Nepal also consume pangolins for their supposed health benefits.<a href="https://www.savepangolins.org/">Save Pangolins</a>, a global organisation that supports conservation actions in Africa and Asia, and raises awareness of pangolins around the world, estimates that one million of the animals have been killed worldwide in the last decade alone. <img width="4000" height="3000" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114101136/63720c589c7e80680e0b7864jpeg.jpg" alt="">Suwal was first introduced to pangolins in 2007 when she came upon a picture of the animal in a book. She was at the time a post-graduate student at the Central Zoology department in Tribhuvan University.Curious, she looked for more information on pangolins and discovered the works of conservationists Juddha Gurung and Daniel Challender. As her interest grew, so did her affection for the animals, which appear to her like new-born babies. Then in 2009, along with her studies, Suwal also began her conservation work, joining Nepal's <a href="https://smcrf.org/">Small Mammals Conservation and Research Foundation (SMCRF)</a>.For her dissertation on pangolins, Suwal chose to work in Balthali in Kavre district where the private forest is a good habitat for the animals, studying them for months. This was almost 12 years ago when female students of Zoology would usually choose parasitology as their field of study. <img width="126" height="150" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114101136/63720c5b9c7e80680e0b7865jpeg.jpg" alt="">Read more: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/the-routes-for-the-worlds-most-trafficked-mammal/">The routes for the world’s most trafficked mammal</a>, Nepali Times“When we were studying, even botany and environment were more popular choices among girls,” says Suwal. “But I picked zoology and focused on ecology.”Her passion for pangolins has taken Suwal all over the country, often to identify the different species found in the community and national forests. However, she feels that many people are still unfamiliar with the animal and its significance.She would inform people, wherever she went, about the role of pangolins in our ecology and biodiversity. She even started a campaign to impart relevant news and information about the animal through the social network. <img width="1600" height="1200" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114101136/63720c5c9c7e80680e0b7866jpeg.jpg" alt="">Gradually the interest took on momentum and more people have come to join the conservation efforts in recent years. Suwal works with the local people, media, community forest groups, security forces, the Ministry of Forests and Environment, the Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation, and also conducts discussions and talks in communities, schools, colleges and universities on pangolins to raise awareness.By 2012, there was already a growing interest among locals as well as post-graduate students. So far, the number of studies done by the university on pangolins is 35, which includes the participation of government institutions involved in conservation and habitat protection. Suwal, who is currently pursuing PhD in Taiwan, is nearing the completion of her research, which will make her the first female zoologist from Nepal with a doctorate on pangolins.Taiwan has the highest population density of pangolins in the world. “Taiwan is proof that China can also reduce its demand for pangolins through education, stricter laws, transboundary collaboration and enforcement,” adds Suwal.“I wanted to study,” she says thinking back on her journey. “All of this has been possible because of the support from various people in my life.” Her husband Manoj Bakhunche who is an engineering officer with the Armed Police has been her strongest supporter. <img width="3603" height="2590" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114101136/63720c609c7e80680e0b7867jpeg.jpg" alt="">Born in Chochhe of Bhaktapur, Suwal wanted to be a teacher like her father when she was a child. She began to teach at Dipendra Police School in Sankhu when she was 19 after her mother passed away, and continued to teach until she completed her Bachelor eight years later.Even as she took evening post-graduate Sociology classes at Tri-Chandra College, her true interest was Zoology, and promptly returned to it after taking two year’s unpaid leave of absence from teaching.Through her expertise and involvement in pangolin conservation, she was made a member of the <a href="https://www.iucn.org/">IUCN</a>’s pangolin specialist group in 2012. She is among seven Nepalis in the group and this network brings her together with 148 experts from 37 countries. Further, her dissertation is aided by Save Pangolins, which recently recognised and honoured her conservation work. <img width="583" height="443" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114101136/63720c639c7e80680e0b7868jpeg.jpg" alt="">“Pangolins are critically endangered in the world,” says Suwal: “But the growing concern for its conservation is promising. It is important that we all work together to keep the mammal from going extinct.”An example of such work is the observation of the World Pangolin Day on the third Saturday in February annually across the world. Another is also the ‘pangolin pavement’ in the Bagh Bhairab Community Forest in Kathmandu’s Machhegaun – a first in Nepal. As conservation institutions expand their work, they are also beginning to include pangolins in their scope and programs.However, Suwal believes that while community and organisations are now taking pangolins seriously, current efforts are not enough. A major concern is that there is no budget allocated especially for pangolin conservation, and nor have regular programs for long-term study and research been decided.She adds: “Conservation work need to be expanded across the country systemically to save more pangolin lives.” Translated from the Himalkhabar Nepali <a href="https://www.himalkhabar.com/news/128424">original</a> by Ashish Dhakal.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/lesser-known-endangered-species/">Lesser known endangered species,</a> Nepali Times

Planet of the pangolins

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161152/636d1e909c7e80680e0af418jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="540" height="504"/><figcaption>Former Prime Minister Kirti Nidhi Bista in a program with host Suman Kharel. Photo: SUMAN SANGA</figcaption></figure>I was watching a talk show. The host was grilling the celebrated Panchyat-era figure former Prime Minister Kirti Nidhi Bista about his political experiences. But my attention was solely fixed on the tiger pelt hanging on the wall behind.The episode was shot at Bista’s living room and for a researcher who had recently visited several prisons across the country to interview people jailed in wildlife crimes, it was a bitter reminder of the impartiality in the way the Nepali state treats citizens.Under Nepal’s laws, wildlife crime also entails transport and collection of contraband, not just peaching. But regulatory authorities have been blatantly ignoring this. Pelts of tigers and leopards have become showpieces for the rich and powerful to flaunt, and are openly exhibited in public spaces.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/what-drives-wildlife-poaching/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">What drives wildlife poaching?</a>, Sonia AwaleFollowing that tv interview in August 2016, we took to social media urging an investigation into the tiger pelt and how it came to be in an ex-prime minister’s possession. We also filed a complaint through Hello Sarkar, but the agency that is always quick to reply on every matter stayed mum on this.Sometime later, during a visit to the head office of Citizens Bank in Kamaladi, I saw a stuffed tiger head hanging on the wall. Thereafter I found more places in Kathmandu where wildlife parts are openly displayed, flouting the law.A leading weekly paper in 2012 named a select few families in Kathmandu that had tiger, bear, wild ass, leopard and deer parts in ancestral property settlements.It is clear for everyone to see that there are rampant wildlife parts in private uses in Nepal. But why does the law apply only to the poor while those in the positions of power openly display them? Why are some <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/wildlife-smuggler-caught-in-kathmandu-after-15-years/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">wildlife crimes</a> punished while others are ignored?<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161152/636d1e929c7e80680e0af419jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="924"><figcaption>A stuffed tiger head in the head office of Kamaladi, Kathmandu. Photo: KUMAR POUDEL</figcaption></figure>I was born in Barabise of Sindhupalchok district bordering Tibet. From a young age, I knew about crossborder smuggling of wildlife parts from Nepal to China. Many locals in the region and even some of my classmates made money from smugglers transporting red sandalwood across the border up north.When I came to Kathmandu in 2006 for higher studies, I got to learn more about this illegal trade. I also found out that Nepal has some of the strictest penalties for the crime in the world, and yet is among the countries with the highest wildlife crime rates.This means our legal system does not discourage criminals, there is rampant impunity and existing laws are applied unfairly and without transparence. This is a clear lack of legal bias: while small-time criminals are prosecuted, ringleaders even when arrested <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/lax-laws-make-nepal-haven-for-tiger-poachers/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">find loopholes in a corrupt judicial system</a>.Regulatory bodies do not even have a record of how many wildlife crime prisoners are in Nepal and which prisons they are held in. I had to call every prison across the country to collect this data. In 2016, there were 384 inmates, most of them from indigenous communities.Some of the prisoners were not even aware of why they were arrested in the first place. Others told me they were taken into custody when they had gone to collect fodder in the forest. I found inmates who ended up in jail because they were trying to make an extra Rs500. But there were also those who were part of international wildlife trafficking syndicates.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161152/636d1e959c7e80680e0af41ajpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1200" height="686"><figcaption>Animal pelts seized from a local's house in Tribeni of Bajura district in July 2020. Photo: NEPAL POLICE BAJURA</figcaption></figure>From the centre to local governments, there are many wildlife crime and poaching control groups at work in Nepal. Some 8,000 Nepal Army soldiers are deployed to guard national parks across the country and the Nepal Police even has a separate <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepals-wildlife-watchdogs-honoured/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">branch for wildlife crime</a>.And yet Nepal is a <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/better-nepal-china-connectivity-helps-wildlife-smugglers/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">flourishing hub for wildlife trade</a>. Contraband from Africa and Asia are transported to China and beyond across the Himalaya. The country’s location is no help – it is situated between India, which is one of the most biodiverse countries in the world with a 1,300km open border, and China that is the world’s largest wildlife market.According to the National Parks and Wildlife Conservation Act 1972, no one is allowed to use, sell or distribute wildlife without permission in Nepal. But even before it was issued, the law stipulated that those in the possession of wildlife parts must get a permit within 35 days by disclosing their source.But no such permit has ever been issued according to the Department of Wildlife Conservation and the Department of Forest and Soil Conservation. I reported the illegal wildlife parts in use in Kathmandu with evidence and lobbied for them to be brought under the purview of the law. But I was warned to keep quiet, with authorities even threatening to end my career. I chased them for two years but with no other progress and alternative, I went to court.<a style="background-color: #ffffff; font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/rare-anti-cancer-tree-on-verge-of-extinction/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Being a wildlife specialist</a>, legal matters are not my forte. I also realised just learning about ecology is not enough to save wildlife in Nepal. So, I joined Nepal Law Campus where I met advocate Padma Bahadur Shrestha, who specialises in environmental law.He helped me prepare the writ and in May 2018 we went to the Supreme Court with our petition. The staff at the registration read the writ and laughed. The head of the branch said it was an important case but refused to register it. It got registered the second day because there was no basis not to, and the date for the hearing was fixed for the very next day.The judge on the bench was Cholendra SJB Rana. I could hear advocates say, “Most of the wildlife parts are in the Rana family. How do you expect the judge to give a verdict?”After reading the writ, judge Rana smiled and said, "Immediate order may be difficult to implement, so I have given a show cause order to the government with priority."For the last three years, I am following up on the Supreme Court. The authories who did not respond to my report have sent written answers to the court. From the office of the prime minister to the forest department, they have all come up with varying excuses.The Ministry of Forests and Environemnt requested the writ petition to be dismissed claiming that the wildlife parts currently in the display, private or otherwise may have received permits. But responsible departments say they have never issued any permits. This means all the wildlife parts that are in private possession is illegal.The Supreme Court had fixed 19 December this week for the hearing of our petition. But it has now been postponed to 17 April 2022 due to a public holiday that coincided with the day.If the order is issued as per our demand, the government will be obliged to keep a record of the historic wildlife parts in private use across the country, then give a permit if there is a legal basis or confiscate and take action if found illegal.This will also shine a light on culprits and bring them under the purview of law while helping to curb the crime that is taking place under the guise of ancestral trophy hunting. Ignoring this aspect of wildlife crime will only boost the morale of criminals and add to the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/in-conservation-nepal-is-not-out-of-the-woods-yet/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">existing challenges of conservation</a>.Wildlife trafficking is not a local but an international problem, and as such needs cross-border collaboration between countries. Nepal’s legal capacity is also important for the conservation of wildlife in South Asia and the world.Translated from <a href="https://www.himalkhabar.com/news/127298?" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the Nepali original</a> in the Himal monthly.Kumar Paudel is an MPhil graduate from the University of Cambridge and is co-founder of Greenhood Nepal based in Kathmandu.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161152/636d1e989c7e80680e0af41bjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="109" height="109">

Nepal's unequal wildlife laws

Nepal’s former king Gyanendra was greeted by flag-waving supporters as he arrived at Kathmandu Airport on Sunday afternoon from Pokhara after attending pro-monarchy rallies in various parts of the country. Gyanendra and his family were escorted from the airport by supporters to his residence at Nirmal Niwas, where his family has been living since 2008 when the Constituent Assembly abolished the monarchy. The 2015 Constitution then turned Nepal into a federal democratic republic. The deposed monarch had been on a two-month long tour of religious sites and local communities across western Nepal, ending in a two-week stay in Pokhara. After staying out of controversy, Gyanendra made a statement on Nepal’s Democracy Day last month in which he said he was willing to play a role in “saving the country”. There has been a surge of pro-monarchy posts and videos on social media, where the country’s previous kings have been glorified as being nationalists who were respected by the international community.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250309120340_07b324fee8d082ed3f8566544e24d45fcd600bbb122374fc39c7a94ce3d044f2.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20250309120340_07b324fee8d082ed3f8566544e24d45fcd600bbb122374fc39c7a94ce3d044f2" data-rendition-name="original" width="1914" height="1276" loading="lazy" alt="The ghost of monarchy returns to haunt Nepal NT"> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250309120340_769f688f3a5eb3602f4c24c350ba1caa6965a171c079d783e28db0f746b810d0.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20250309120340_769f688f3a5eb3602f4c24c350ba1caa6965a171c079d783e28db0f746b810d0" data-rendition-name="original" width="2000" height="1333" loading="lazy" alt="The ghost of monarchy returns to haunt Nepal NT"> </figure>  Nepal’s monarchists, which include Gyanendra’s backers, several pro-monarchist parties and other anti-government figures, think <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/editorial/new-year-same-difference">public disillusionment </a>with the country’s ageing and ineffective leaders and institutions is at breaking point.&nbsp; There is also disappointment with elected leaders and technocrats from new parties like the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP), with its <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/rabi-s-detention-churns-nepali-politics">leader Rabi Lamichhane under investigation</a> for his alleged involvement in a scandal involving diverting funds from cooperatives. One of the staunchest backers of Gyanendra’s comeback as king is former BBC journalist Rabindra Mishra, who has been active on social media platforms posting videos and text extolling the monarchy. He has referenced recent street uprisings in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Syria, cautioning Nepal’s mainstream leaders not to dismiss support for the monarchy. ‘Support for a return to monarchy is increasing even though the mainstream parties may dismiss it,’ wrote Mishra. ‘Like the leaders of Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, they should not try to suppress the voices on the streets.’  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250309120340_d8758f6b7474c9f3aea3661ccd60955d8553971cb0d799039bbfd232aa1a0691.jpg" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="20250309120340_d8758f6b7474c9f3aea3661ccd60955d8553971cb0d799039bbfd232aa1a0691" data-rendition-name="original" width="1890" height="1260" loading="lazy" alt="The ghost of monarchy returns to haunt Nepal NT"> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250309120340_63613759744c0fac33ff3eabc298079c3e525063882f4b3760954bbc0833b5cd.jpg" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="20250309120340_63613759744c0fac33ff3eabc298079c3e525063882f4b3760954bbc0833b5cd" data-rendition-name="original" width="2000" height="1333" loading="lazy" alt="The ghost of monarchy returns to haunt Nepal NT"> </figure>  But for all their bluster, Nepal’s mainstream politicians who have rotated leadership of the country between themselves, seem worried about the crowds on the streets in support of the monarchy. The TikTok ban last year, which the government said was to ‘maintain social harmony’ was put into effect to prevent pro-monarchy groups from organising on the platform. The ban on TikTok has now been lifted, and supporters of the monarchy have mobilised platforms to fan nostalgia of the golden age of royalty, and to brand former kings Mahendra and Birendra as <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/review/a-past-foretold">nationalists who upheld Nepal’s sovereignty during the Cold War</a> and commanded respect worldwide. Archival video clips of Mahendra being received by President Eisenhower in 1960 and <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/if-birendra-was-alive-nepal-could-still-be-a-monarchy">Birendra </a>by President Reagan in 1983 have been liked by thousands. Comments contrast this to the incompetence and poor standing of Nepal’s current prime ministers.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250309120340_7dab05f5703e17a82da73277f0b39bf178c1005e0758aa50077ffe1a037f4af6.jpg" data-media-id="editor_8" data-image-id="20250309120340_7dab05f5703e17a82da73277f0b39bf178c1005e0758aa50077ffe1a037f4af6" data-rendition-name="original" width="1810" height="1206" loading="lazy" alt="The ghost of monarchy returns to haunt Nepal NT"> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250309120340_1ab38cdccfd076babd78579fa345520a7b2fa9c838322226a259540c8c290437.jpg" data-media-id="editor_9" data-image-id="20250309120340_1ab38cdccfd076babd78579fa345520a7b2fa9c838322226a259540c8c290437" data-rendition-name="original" width="1812" height="1206" loading="lazy" alt="The ghost of monarchy returns to haunt Nepal NT"> </figure>  While most of the people present at the demonstration included the older demographic, younger people have especially used social media to express their support for the monarchy. Young Nepalis, disillusioned with leaders who have been prime minister multiple times since the mid-1990s, are attracted to the idea of reinstating the monarchy as a form of anti-incumbent protest, but also because they have little to no memory of living under an authoritarian absolute monarchy. ‘Those who say the monarchy is paramount today are the ones who did not live through it in the past, and are dissatisfied with the current state of affairs,’ wrote Guna Raj Luitel, Chief Editor of Nagarik Daily, in an op-ed in the newspaper on Sunday.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250309120340_720d0059207b9918def39e983d9b5c114b6afb4e7ac0ed1dadd2cba2f20f9aa6.jpg" data-media-id="editor_10" data-image-id="20250309120340_720d0059207b9918def39e983d9b5c114b6afb4e7ac0ed1dadd2cba2f20f9aa6" data-rendition-name="original" width="2000" height="1333" loading="lazy" alt="The ghost of monarchy returns to haunt Nepal NT"> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250309120340_bfe50ebd413d1b177ebd02df5f837038d8a04c9d343afe39be1ebcde36db893a.jpg" data-media-id="editor_11" data-image-id="20250309120340_bfe50ebd413d1b177ebd02df5f837038d8a04c9d343afe39be1ebcde36db893a" data-rendition-name="original" width="2000" height="1333" loading="lazy" alt="The ghost of monarchy returns to haunt Nepal NT"> </figure>  He added: ‘For those of us who have spent parts of our lives under the rule of the king… we have not yet forgotten those days, when the institution was unable to do any useful work, a disheartening period characterised by Nepalis being unable to speak freely.’ Commentators have especially been pointing to Gyanendra’s military coup in 2005 when he dissolved parliament, and tried to take the country back to the time of absolute monarchy, just like his father Mahendra did in 1960. Gyanendra became king after his brother and most of his family were killed in the royal palace massacre in 2001. Many Nepalis still seem to believe that Gyanendra was responsible, and some of this is reflected in comments on monarchist social media posts. As the monarchist rallies spread, Prime Minister K P Oli said last week that if Gyanendra really wanted power, he should form a political party and run in the next elections in 2027. Other leaders have urged the former king to honour the 2008 Constitutional Assembly decision to abolish the monarchy, as well as Nepal’s 2015 Constitution.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250309120340_978ef979c7774312ac00d3192803d974ea57ec45d704f89663b301f4f0cc9704.jpg" data-media-id="editor_12" data-image-id="20250309120340_978ef979c7774312ac00d3192803d974ea57ec45d704f89663b301f4f0cc9704" data-rendition-name="original" width="1832" height="1221" loading="lazy" alt="The ghost of monarchy returns to haunt Nepal NT"> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250309120340_d11276de0161d258f135e8fba4d3eb37d0a9e579b06a4819c6609b4ecdbbe51e.jpg" data-media-id="editor_13" data-image-id="20250309120340_d11276de0161d258f135e8fba4d3eb37d0a9e579b06a4819c6609b4ecdbbe51e" data-rendition-name="original" width="2000" height="1333" loading="lazy" alt="The ghost of monarchy returns to haunt Nepal NT"> </figure>  &nbsp;In response, royalist leaders including Kamal Thapa, Rajendra Lingden, and Rabindra Mishra have responded that the monarchy is above the electoral system, calling for the reinstatement of a constitutional monarchy in which Gyanendra would be a figurehead. “There is no question of the king contesting an election, that is our job,” said RPP-Nepal chair Kamal Thapa in a tv interview. “The monarchy is a custodian of the nation, it is an institution above electoral politics.” However, there does seem to be a disagreement between hardline royalists who want a return to absolute monarchy in which Gyanendra would actually hold executive powers, and those who favour a ceremonial one. Gyanendra recently visited Bhutan, where he was given a royal welcome, and has made several trips to India where there is some support for reinstating Nepal as the world’s only Hindu kingdom.

The ghost of monarchy returns to haunt Nepal

Kathmandu was once a lake inhabited by <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/snakes-on-plains">serpents</a>, until Manjushree visiting from present-day China saw a fluorescent lotus in the water. To reach it, the sage used his flaming sword to cut a gorge <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/from-the-nepali-press/dry-port-at-chobhar-faces-resistance">at Chobhar</a>, draining the lake and turning it into a fertile valley. The Manjushree Trail Race (MTR) is inspired by this legend. There are five categories along a near-circular route around the rim of <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/bringing-silicon-valley-to-kathmandu-valley">Kathmandu Valley</a>: 10k, 30k, 50k, 100k, and one that is 100 miles that is 157.7km (map, right). The 100 miles category starts at 8AM on 14 March, and runners have 52 hours until noon on 16 March to complete it. Arjun Kulung Rai’s 26:52:56 is the current record, set in 2024. “<a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=17327">The Manjushree legend</a> and the perfect loop make the race very meaningful, and I wanted to do it,” says participant Dong Sheng from the northern Chinese city of Harbin who started running in 2016 with 5k until he accomplished a 100 miler in 2022. “<a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/first-edition-ultra-trail-kathmandu,1050">Running </a>is spiritual, as you are always trying to overcome what you could previously do.” Sheng is one of 131 international runners who have signed up for the Manjushree race, where there are a total of 502 participants this year, 94 of them women. The first edition of the race only had 7 runners total. Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepali-trail-running-champions">Nepali trail running champions</a>, Preeti Khattri “A reason this race is popular is because it is a good mix of rural and accessible,” says Jimmy Oostrom, a Dutch runner. “Often, 100-milers are way out of the way. Here, the start is only a short drive after landing in Kathmandu.”&nbsp; The 100 mile and 50km are now qualifier races for the Asia Trail Masters, an international series of trail races based in Hong Kong. Last year, a Nepali team competed and won in the Asia Trail Master Championship series in Borneo. The 100-mile category starts and finishes at Single Tree on Nagarjun, other distances have different start and end points. On the winning team was Rashila Tamang, who is part of Trailmandu that implements logistics for the race, such as recruiting and training volunteers, and marking the route. “Nepal has great <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=9938">geography</a> for <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/mira-rai-racing-to-help-other-runners">trail running</a>, but it is still very hard to make it your career,” says Tamang.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025031219034_98b83aa3d42c7d5e8a2ef2f80dc03512374413e31eb55441234cd075bea7e113.jpg" data-media-id="editor_8" data-image-id="2025031219034_98b83aa3d42c7d5e8a2ef2f80dc03512374413e31eb55441234cd075bea7e113" data-rendition-name="original" width="1244" height="598" loading="lazy" alt="Manjushree Trail map "> </figure>  The MTR has a guidebook detailing the categories, route, checkpoints, rules and what is available at each stop.&nbsp; “If we say we’re going to start at 8, we’re going to start at 8,” says Narayan Acharya, the man behind naming the race ‘Manjushree’. “People tried to sign up after the deadline, we had to tell them no.” Acharya who builds <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/foundations-for-sustainable-buildings-in-nepal">traditional rammed earth houses</a> through his company Sustainable Future Nepal, has been long involved with promoting trail running in Nepal, and hailing from Jumla himself, mentored <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/run-sunmaya-run">Sunmaya Budha</a> also from Jumla, now a trail running star in and outside Nepal. Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/sunmaya-budha-stays-in-the-running">Sunmaya Budha stays in the running</a>, Vishad Raj Onta&nbsp; The organisers are sponsoring up to 50 runners from <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/portrait-of-a-photographer-in-rural-nepal">rural Nepal</a> who may not afford the Rs6,000 entry fee to participate. “It is hard to get sponsors to give us money because Nepal is still a pretty small market,” says Oostrom, currently on crutches due to an ACL injury. “We also have to take the necessary precautions to make sure we can quickly help a runner in trouble.” The logistics of an ultra trail race are more complicated than a <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=1223">marathon</a>. Marking and maintaining the trail requires careful work, especially as signs often get lost. The <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/multimedia/the-steadfastness-of-a-long-distance-runner">long distances </a>also require runners to run through the night.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025031219030_19111e03939541b8980007437c89966dc7a8fd6246b8407440694503bf7890a3.jpg" data-media-id="editor_15" data-image-id="2025031219030_19111e03939541b8980007437c89966dc7a8fd6246b8407440694503bf7890a3" data-rendition-name="original" width="2250" height="1501" loading="lazy" alt="Manjushree Trail "> </figure>  A <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/business/buddha-air-gets-state-of-the-art-flight-tracking-system">live tracking system </a>would ensure a runner’s safety as well as prevent cheating, but for now organisers are relying on vigilant volunteers and fellow runners to find runners needing help. There are strict rules for the race, and breaking them can result in significant time penalties or even disqualification. Get food or drink assistance outside of the checkpoints and you get a penalty of 15 minutes. Miss any pieces of mandatory gear and an hour is added to your time. Take some sort of shortcut or cheat using a vehicle, and you are disqualified. There are dangers like cliffs <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/page/cantilever-trail-nepal">along the trail</a>, lightning on exposed ridges, <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/disasters-in-nepal-come-in-waves">landslides caused by earthquakes</a>, <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/trekking-to-save-nepals-snow-leopards">leopards</a>, and hornet swarms. Ultra running takes a massive toll on the body. The brain may shut off certain areas to be able to keep going, so volunteers watch runners carefully.&nbsp; “After mile 50, your body starts digesting itself,” says Oostrom.&nbsp; Alongside Acharya and Oostrom, the organising crew is made up of race director Ashish Mishra, and Jeevan Lama and Rashila Tamang from Trailmandu. “We can execute this race well because we are all passionate runners ourselves,” says Acharya. The team has taken measures to make the race safe and comfortable for female participants. ‘Run freely, speak openly, and wear what makes you feel comfortable in our races,’ says the guidebook. Prize money is the same for male and female winners, across categories.&nbsp; Lately, Nepal has been steadily building itself as a destination for<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/taking-the-high-line"> adventure sports </a>such as <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepal-pushes-mountain-bike-tourism">mountain biking</a> and trail running. And with the Manjushree race, enthusiasts have hopes to set the standard for other trail races in the country. Sheng has been part of big races in China. “The better the economy, and more money people have, the more they can get involved in such pursuits,” he says. “But I have to say, for the scale of this race, everything has been done very professionally.”&nbsp;

Around Kathmandu in 100 miles

Throughout human history, civilisations have been named after the rivers along which they flourished: Indus Valley, Nile, Tigris-Euphrates. Many of these cultures later collapsed, partly because they could not manage their water needs properly. Three recent books about Himalayan rivers look at their history and geography, and how they nourished civilisations downstream. The rivers gave birth to the world’s major religions, their waters and the mountains from which they sprang were revered. Mythology and geology converge in High Asia. Mt Kailash is holy to the Hindu, Jain, Buddhist and Bon faiths as the centre of the world and the abode of the gods. Indeed, from its vicinity emerge Asia’s great rivers: the Indus and Sutlej, Ganga and the Yarlung Tsangpo (Brahmaputra) and Karnali (Mapcha Tsangpo).&nbsp; Legend has it that Kathmandu Valley was once a primordial lake drained by Manjushree who cut a mountain with his flaming sword. There is scientific evidence that the paleo lake was indeed emptied in stages starting 40,000 years ago after a tsunami unleashed by a major earthquake epicentred in Langtang. The Bon faith describes the Tibetan Plateau being pushed up from a roiling primeval sea, confirming current evidence about the orogenesis of the Himalaya. In local lore, supernatural lha (animal deities) and lu (serpents, naga) moved from sea to land, just as the theory of evolution explains the emergence of early amphibians and land creatures. In <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Rivers-of-the-Asian-Highlands-From-Deep-Time-to-the-Climate-Crisis/Gamble-Tan-Xu-Beavis-Maurer-Pittock-Powers-Wasson/p/book/9781032490595?srsltid=AfmBOopjkpgcN1_7t1jTI_Z1_27yRthBTbdHA15OWcE9Ge3S409jhUX3">Rivers of the Asian Highlands: From Deep Time to the Climate Crisis</a>, Himalayan historian <a href="https://scholars.latrobe.edu.au/rgamble">Ruth Gamble</a> and co-authors begin by tracing the genesis of the Himalaya, citing evidence that the Tibetan Plateau pre-dated the collision of the Indian and Eurasian plates 50 million years ago. Asia’s main rivers co-emerged with the mountains, their waters cutting canyons through rocks as they were uplifted. The gigantic pileup acted as a moisture trap for the proto-monsoon, the rain and ice sculpting peaks as they rose. But so strong were tectonic forces that the uplift outpaced erosion on the Tibetan Plateau. These dynamic processes are still at work, but in many places across High Asia there is a new factor at play: modern infrastructure (like haphazard road-building in Nepal) is increasing erosion faster than the uplift rate.&nbsp; ‘This is an example of human action overcoming tectonics,’ write the authors in Rivers of the Asian Highlands, in which the chapters look at Himalayan rivers from a planetary scale, their socio-cultural histories, to present-day engineering to regulate them. An ongoing dam-building spree and anthropogenic climate breakdown combine to bring about the most rapid change the Himalaya and their rivers have seen for millions of years. One example is the Medog Hydropower Station being built on the Yarlung Tsangpo at a bend on the Brahmaputra before it enters India. The river drops 2,000m within a 50km stretch, the gradient allowing it to generate 60,000MW — the biggest single hydroelectric plant in the world. Gamble and the authors of Rivers of the Asian Highlands highlight the Gravitational Potential Energy (GPE) of the Himalaya that allows falling water to be converted into electricity. But GPE also unleashes landslides, rockfalls, avalanches, Glacial Lake Outburst Floods (GLOFs) and Landslide Lake Outburst Floods (LLOFs), the risks posed by them magnified by climate change and seismicity. <blockquote>The Asian Highlands’ abundance of Gravitational Potential Energy (GPE) can support the region’s energy transition, but it needs to be produced in much less hazardous and less environmentally and socially impactful ways. The best means of doing this is through off-river, pumped-storage hydropower stations that back up solar and wind energy generators. Smaller projects such as this would also involve less risky tunneling and displacement.</blockquote> Rivers of the Asian Highlands: From Deep Time to the Climate Crisis by Ruth Gamble, et al. There is geological evidence that megafloods on Himalayan rivers are more responsible than mass wasting in weathering down the mountains. One big LLOF, for example, could ‘move 1,000 times more sediment than would otherwise be transported over millions of years’. Permafrost melting in the Tibetan Plateau and inside moraines caused recent back-to-back GLOFs in Chamoli in the Indian Himalaya, Melamchi in Nepal, and the South Lhonak in Sikkim — all deadly disasters that together destroyed billions of dollars worth of infrastructure downstream. Rivers of the Asian Highlands travels from deep time to the present climate crisis, taking readers through neatly divided chapters titled Mountain Rivers, Climatic Rivers, Frozen Rivers, Living Rivers, Human Rivers, Territorializing Rivers, Agricultural and Pastoral Rivers, even NGOs and Rivers.&nbsp; Although the book’s title is about the ‘Asian highlands’, it <a href="https://www.himalmag.com/comment/eastern-himalaya-cradle-ethnogenesis">focuses mainly on the Dri Chu (Yangtse)</a> and Yarlung Tso (Brahmaputra). Readers looking for references to Nepal’s rivers will be disappointed, although there is quite a bit about Bhutan. This is surprising because 70% of the annual flow in the Ganga is from tributaries in Nepal, some of them rivers like Karnali, Arun or Bhote Kosi that traverse the Tibetan rimlands. As demand for water and energy grows in the large and increasingly affluent population of north India, and climate breakdown melts Himalayan glaciers, storing monsoon runoff on reservoirs in Nepal is going to be the geopolitical issue of the next decades.&nbsp; The chapter on NGOs and Rivers also fails to cite the work of Nepal’s civil society groups like the Alliance for Energy that built international solidarity in 1995 against the Arun III project on a river that starts in Tibet and flows into Nepal. Ultimately, the World Bank pulled out of the project and the Nepal government invested in smaller decentralised plants. Today, a cascade of power plants are being built by Indian companies on the Arun which do not seem to have taken into account the <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ads2659">2023 Sikkim GLOF</a> that swept away the $1 billion dollar Teesta III and destroyed other infrastructure. The World Bank itself is back with the Upper Arun project located directly below expanding glacial lakes in Tibet.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250222020256_f2b33e60e6b386308bdf59b58b59e116e90e2e4466a06200faf76fd851f53505.jpg" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="20250222020256_f2b33e60e6b386308bdf59b58b59e116e90e2e4466a06200faf76fd851f53505" data-rendition-name="original" width="5712" height="3213" loading="lazy" alt="Teesta"> <figcaption>The Super Trisuli project in Nepal has ruined the most scenic and ecologically sensitive part of the river to generate just 100MW of power. Photo: KUNDA DIXIT</figcaption> </figure>  Despite geographical gaps, Rivers of the Asian Highlands reads like an encyclopedia of Himalayan rivers. The authors look at them not in isolation but as interconnected systems which need a multidisciplinary approach to study the geological, religio-cultural, infrastructure, climate and ecosystem services aspects of catchments.&nbsp; Mt Kailash (Kang Rinpoche) is a case in point. It is fascinating to think that it was part of a mountain range even before the collision of the continents that formed the Himalaya, and was probably buried in ice 3km thick till 15,000 years ago during the Last Glacial Maximum.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025022203020_23c02ec4671f5c3c561fa6b450c1f209720a25794e067b9bb5db0f4649b1b6dc.jpg" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="2025022203020_23c02ec4671f5c3c561fa6b450c1f209720a25794e067b9bb5db0f4649b1b6dc" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Mt Kailash"> <figcaption>Mt Kailash. Photo: NABIN BARAL</figcaption> </figure>  Lake Mansarovar and Mt Kailash are also the subject of the new Nepali language book छालबाटो (Road by the Waves) by environmental journalist <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/nepal-and-china-to-study-trans-himalayan-railway">Ramesh Bhushal</a> in which he walked, rafted and drove from the source of the Karnali in Tibet, right through 500km of western Nepal, and on to India <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/dancing-with-the-river">where the river meets the Ganga</a>. In his entourage is activist, <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/regular-columns/Comment/rivers-fighting-back,993">Megh Ale</a>, who is on a campaign to stop dams and infrastructure on <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/dams-and-dreams-a-journey-down-the-karnali">Nepal’s longest and only free-flowing river</a>. The book profiles his lonely upstream struggle to conserve the country’s rivers. “We worship rivers, but we don’t love them,” laments Ale. Bhushal’s book is as much about the landscape of this transboundary river as it is about the people he meets along the way, and their relationship with <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/climate-denial-in-the-himalaya">a river that most regard as a curse </a>keeping them poor because they believe it flows out of Rakshas Tal (Lagngar Tso) in Tibet, regarded as a lake of demons, unlike the sacred Mansarovar nearby. The expedition is out to prove that the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/a-karnali-portrait">Karnali River</a> actually starts in the mountains 50km southwest of the Mansarovar (Mapamyu Tso) at the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQ9Za5QDkvY">Peacock Falls (Mapchu Khambap)</a>. The Indus is called Sengge (Lion), Sutlej is Langchen (elephant) and the Brahmaputra is Tamchok (horse), all starting within 60km of Mansarovar but flowing out in different directions. <blockquote>“I have visited hundreds of rivers around the world, but for some reason I have never seen a river as beautiful as the Karnali. One day I would like to visit its source.”</blockquote> River conservation activist Megh Ale quoted in छालबाटो by Ramesh Bhusal. But all this reverence for the mountains and rivers may not be enough to save the region from the impact of climate breakdown. Heat stress in the Subcontinent will coincide with a shortage of water in the coming decades.&nbsp; <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/01/opinion/himalayas-mountains-dams.html">Sunil Amrith</a> in his 2019 book, <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/the-monsoon-and-nature-s-arithmetic">Unruly Waters: How Mountain Rivers and Monsoons Have Shaped South Asia’s History</a> takes a broader look at how geotectonics, geopolitics, colonialism and nationalism have determined the relations between human beings and rivers. The Himalayan water cycle starts from monsoon moisture that precipitates with orographic uplift along the mountains, atmospheric rivers unleash cloudbursts, ground water emerges from springs that join up to flow down to rivers and the ocean. The Third Pole is the biggest repository of fresh water stored as ice after the polar regions. But it is a hotspot both because of the climate crisis and geopolitical tensions, which impacts on river basin cooperation, early warning data sharing, and ultimately in mitigation of greenhouse gas emission and planning for new risks faced by infrastructure. After independence, India adopted the colonial extraction model for rivers. Inaugurating the Bhakra-Nangal Dam in 1953, Jawaharlal Nehru called it “a temple of &nbsp;modern India … worthy of worship’. Gamble also alludes to this in her book about the European attitude about rivers as a resource to be ‘enclosed, extracted, scrutinised, commodified’. <a href="https://dialogue.earth/en/water/review-unrully-waters/" target="_blank">Amrith</a> profiles the work of Sir Arthur Cotton who was building canals linking rivers in British India at about the same time his contemporaries like botanist <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/republic-of-nepal-s-animal-kingdom" target="_blank">Joseph Dalton-Hooker </a>were exploring the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/saving-kangchenjunga" target="_blank">Teesta and other rivers</a> in the Himalaya to catalogue new plant species. India's current National River Linking Project that would join 37 rivers with 9,000km of canals builds on Cotton’s early work. <blockquote>If there is one consistent lesson in Unruly Waters, it is that water management never has been, and can never be, a purely technical or a scientific question; neither can it be addressed on a purely national scale … the battle continues to understand the monsoons and mountain rivers that shape Asia.</blockquote> Unruly Waters: How Mountain Rivers and Monsoons Have Shaped South Asia’s History by Sunil Amrith And in Nepal, hydropower has become the holy grail as the government unveiled an Energy Development Roadmap to generate 28,500MW by 2035 at a cumulative cost of nearly $50billion. This means no river in Nepal will be left free-flowing. The Trisuli along the Prithvi Highway is being dammed for only 100MW of power, destroying the most scenic part of a river that has rapids famous internationally for white water rafters. Even before it was completed, the dam site suffered Rs200 million in damage in last September’s flood.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025022203020_d9610a11bccb593d32bf4d214479caa17dfbdd6cdfe5e8c38fdcb8eb752fc0ec.jpg" data-media-id="editor_18" data-image-id="2025022203020_d9610a11bccb593d32bf4d214479caa17dfbdd6cdfe5e8c38fdcb8eb752fc0ec" data-rendition-name="original" width="4032" height="2268" loading="lazy" alt="Trisuli"> <figcaption>Boulders and sediment 80m deep were brought down by the Teesta after a GLOF destroyed the $1 billion Teesta III plant in Sikkim in 2023. Photo: KUNDA DIXIT</figcaption> </figure>  In Sikkim, there is strong <a href="https://india.mongabay.com/2025/02/political-stir-follows-expert-panels-approval-to-rebuild-teesta-dam-in-sikkim/">local opposition to rebuild Teesta III</a> but investors are looking at the huge economic windfall from the river as it drops from 5,000m below Kangchenjunga to 300m within 80km — one of the highest Gravitational Potential Energy of any river in the world. Besides Nepal and Bhutan, the ‘watersheds’ of the Himalaya are turning into ‘powersheds’ as India and China compete for hydro-hegemony. India is said to be planning to dam the Brahmaputra to offset the disruption caused by China’s Medog Dam upstream (see map, below).&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025022203024_37c60bd2a45a32cd23928c900615b6c7045b2e0265050c4761c3749361181999.png" data-media-id="editor_20" data-image-id="2025022203024_37c60bd2a45a32cd23928c900615b6c7045b2e0265050c4761c3749361181999" data-rendition-name="original" width="1918" height="668" loading="lazy" alt="Himalayan rivers map"> </figure>  The thread running through all three books is the need to recognise the ecosystem services that the inhabitants of High Asia provide by protecting our rivers. Not all rivers need to be monetised, conserving rivers and the cultures they retain protects a nation’s natural wealth into the future as the humans of High Asia try to survive climate breakdown. The highlands will be under even more pressure in the coming decades as people in the plains migrate en masse to higher latitudes or higher altitudes to escape deadly heat and ocean expansion.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025022203028_524a74bf65111db3826bfd246576329c45cd4bd0a48b15024b6a520582bbf05a.jpg" data-media-id="editor_21" data-image-id="2025022203028_524a74bf65111db3826bfd246576329c45cd4bd0a48b15024b6a520582bbf05a" data-rendition-name="original" width="1136" height="702" loading="lazy" alt="River of Asian Highlands cover"> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025022203028_20c17a9b92b11c8bb33df5f2fc2781498464288533c310ccd61e1245e709d99c.jpg" data-media-id="editor_22" data-image-id="2025022203028_20c17a9b92b11c8bb33df5f2fc2781498464288533c310ccd61e1245e709d99c" data-rendition-name="original" width="1136" height="702" loading="lazy" alt="Unruly waters cover"> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250222030212_649cc2ba02e806da2b128fccaf5de2e5c830e10646ba0b43d56da39f65a70f9f.jpg" data-media-id="editor_23" data-image-id="20250222030212_649cc2ba02e806da2b128fccaf5de2e5c830e10646ba0b43d56da39f65a70f9f" data-rendition-name="original" width="1136" height="702" loading="lazy" alt="Chaalbato cover"> </figure>

Saving what is left of Himalayan rivers

Frustrated with revolving door <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/the-geopolitics-of-nepal-s-politics">politics</a> with the same <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/editorial/tried-tested-and-failed">tired, tested and failed </a>leaders, Nepal’s cybersphere is harking back to the good old days when we had strongmen rulers like <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/multimedia/jung-bahadur-s-destitute-descendants">Jang Bahadur Rana </a>or <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/king-mahendra-didn-t-pay-hunting-bill-in-us">King Mahendra</a>. The<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/inside-story-of-nepal-s-rana-dynasty"> century-long Rana oligarchy</a> ended 74 years ago this week, and the Shah kings airbrushed <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/the-insect-that-changed-nepal-s-history">Nepal’s history</a> to downplay their achievements and glorify their own dynasty. After <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/if-birendra-was-alive-nepal-could-still-be-a-monarchy">the monarchy</a> was abolished in 2008, <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/review/the-role-of-rituals-in-royalty">the Shah kings</a> were similarly vilified. But Nepali society is mature enough to realise that the truth is not all black and white. Jang Bahadur may have usurped power in a ruthless coup, but he was a geopolitical strategist way ahead of his time. Whatever you may say about King Mahendra’s efforts in quashing <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/is-democracy-too-expensive-for-nepal">democracy</a> and pushing a unitary state, he defended <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/guest-editorial/nepal-should-recognise-palestinian-sovereignty">Nepal’s sovereignty</a> and projected its international image right through the sensitive Cold War period. Jang Bahadur in England is a new Nepali language book by journalist Gajendra Budhathoki about the visit in 1850 by Nepal’s prime minister to England and France, the first by a South Asian potentate. He met Queen Victoria and by all accounts was able to establish Nepal’s presence on the world stage. Historians have long mulled why a devout Hindu like Jang Bahadur would want to break the taboo and cross the Black Waters. Budhathoki recounts the incident upon his arrival at Southampton on 2 May 1850, when British customs officials tried to check the belongings of the Nepali entourage. Furious, Jang Bahadur threatened to sail right back to France if they opened any of the bags. Jang had three main reasons for his trip. Essentially he was on a spy mission to assess <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/a-forgotten-gurkha-rebellion-e8z403ab">British military</a> might to decide if it was worthwhile for Nepal to try to militarily take back territory ceded to British India in the Sugauli Treaty of 1816. So, Jang asked his perplexed hosts to show him cannon factories, artillery and naval yards. He even visited Woolwich Arsenal (now the Royal Arsenal) not once, but three times.&nbsp; Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/looking-back-at-the-1923-nepal-britain-treaty">Looking back at the 1923 Nepal-Britain Treaty</a>, Santa Gaha Magar Suitably impressed, Jang decided to be Britain’s BFF, and even rode down to Lucknow with 3,200 Nepali troops to rescue the British from the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857. As a reward, the British gave back the Tarai districts of Banke, Bardia, Kailali, and Kanchanpur (Naya Muluk). This close relationship continued with Jang’s descendants right till the time the British left India in 1947. Jang Bahadur was also fed up with the Governor General Lord Dalhousie in Calcutta who tended to bully Nepal, and wanted to build direct contacts with his bosses in London. The British told him Dalhousie was their man in India, and Jang should deal with him. <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/the-way-we-were">Jang’s visit to France</a> does not get as much attention in the book, but he was also trying to gauge France’s strength and to see if its military was more powerful than Britain’s. At that time, France was Britain’s main rival and was trying to make inroads in India. At the Louvre, Jang Bahadur was drawn to exhibits reflecting French military prowess. Later, when he met Louis Napoleon III, he asked if he could see a parade of 900,000 troops to assess France’s military might.&nbsp; Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/review/nepal-france-ties-in-photos">Nepal-France ties in photos</a>, Reeti KC Freshly returned from <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/a-long-way-to-europe">Europe</a>, an emboldened Jang Bahadur Rana led Nepal in a war against Tibet in 1855 which ended with the Treaty of Thapathali a year later. This was the third time Nepal and Tibet had fought, the first time being soon after <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/regular-columns/guest-editorial/Prithvi-Narayan-Shah-a-visionary-leader,1102">Prithvi Narayan Shah</a> in 1788.&nbsp; The Qing Dynasty came to the rescue of Tibet, and while both sides claimed victory, the Sino-Nepalese War ended essentially as a stalemate with the Treaty of Betrawati.&nbsp; All of this is detailed in Axel Michaels’ book, Nepal: A History from the Earliest Times to the Present which is a recent English translation of his German Kultur und Geschichte Nepals published in 2018.&nbsp; Michaels is a Professor of Classical Indology and Religious Studies at Heidelberg University, and writes that Nepal mattered little to China. Proof of this is that while both Nepal and Tibet agreed to accept the suzerainty of the Qing emperor following the war, Nepal managed to retain its autonomy but Beijing asserted its control over <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/business/himalaya-to-lhasa">Lhasa</a>. And despite a clause in the treaty which stated, ‘if a foreign power attacks Nepal, China shall support Nepal’, China never did so during the1814–16 war with the East India Company.&nbsp; This practice has continued to this day. Aside from token petroleum shipments, Beijing did not help out Nepal during the Indian Blockade of 2015. Even though Nepali leaders have tried to play India off against China, the two do not find Nepal important enough to fight over and prefer to leave it as a buffer state between them.&nbsp; In that sense, Britain also did not press home its victory after 1816 and left Nepal alone. The malarial jungles to the south, rugged Himalayan terrain and the lack of marketable products (except soldiers) may have persuaded the traders at the East Indian Company that it was not worth the effort. There is a lesson from history here for Nepal: the country must look out for itself, and this requires deft diplomacy to understand what our giant neighbours really want and leverage it for our gain. This may require strategies like the ones made by Jang Bahadur and King Mahendra after all. Michaels is not a fan of either the Rana or the Shah dynasties. He says that although the Rana era is characterised as ‘a century of tyranny’, the description holds true for the Shah period as well.&nbsp; Michaels does not mince his words about Gurkha recruitment into the British and Indian Armies (another legacy of the Sugauli Treaty). He calls the mercenaries ‘cheap labour’ and Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘represents a continuation of the King-Brahmin alliance’. In fact, he goes at length to discuss how the Khas-Arya used ‘Hindu state’ to homogenise a country that couldn’t have been more diverse. But democracy has not served Nepal well either. Corruption, impunity and lack of transparency are rife. And so, Michaels asks if Nepal is a failed state. No it is not, but it is a fragile state. He leaves us with these parting words: ‘If Nepal succeeds in continuing down this road, preserving its ethnic and cultural diversity, leaving the ethnic populations with a certain degree of autonomy, while at the same time integrating them into political decision-making processes, and if it manages the reforms needed for land-ownership, labour, education, infrastructure, then the country can become a model for unity in diversity, even in the age of leveling globalisation.’&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250222070248_a32db0a1e39c4a3a5158af81bbcf927aeb96524bcbc6b41086a223685642b367.jpg" data-media-id="editor_17" data-image-id="20250222070248_a32db0a1e39c4a3a5158af81bbcf927aeb96524bcbc6b41086a223685642b367" data-rendition-name="original" width="1136" height="702" loading="lazy" alt="Jang Bahadur in England "> </figure>  &nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250222070252_e2fa5309f10d36f963243c24ea06d7d354d3dfaf24c7ef283d70369fbeabd02e.jpg" data-media-id="editor_18" data-image-id="20250222070252_e2fa5309f10d36f963243c24ea06d7d354d3dfaf24c7ef283d70369fbeabd02e" data-rendition-name="original" width="1136" height="702" loading="lazy" alt="Nepal Book"> </figure>  &nbsp;

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