One of the few arenas for which Nepal has got well-deserved international praise is conservation. Nearly a quarter of the country’s area is protected, the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/how-many-tigers-in-nepal">wild tiger population</a> has tripled in 12 years, rhino poaching has been curbed, and forest cover has doubled in the past 30 years to 45% of Nepal’s area.&nbsp; And that makes Forest and Environment Minister Birendra Prasad Mahato of the JSP salivate. He is the architect behind a series of proposals that could undermine Nepal’s hard-earned conservation achievements, forgetting that his portfolio is for protecting forests, not destroying them. Nepal was the first tiger range country to not just double but nearly triple the population of big cats. The minister now wants to auction tiger trophy hunting licenses because Nepal has “too many tigers”.&nbsp; “Beyond just the unethical and unscientific, the proposal to cull tigers is illegal, illogical and unimplementable,” says <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/interview/Hemanta-Mishra-on-eco-tourism-in-Nepal,1029">Hemanta Mishra</a>, one of the founders of <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/review/chitwan-national-park-handbook-book-review,1612">Chitwan National</a> Park in 1973, which rescued Nepal’s tigers and rhinos from the brink of extinction.&nbsp; “The proposal violates the CITES treaty and Nepal’s own laws. Even if super-wealthy foreigners shoot tigers in Nepal, they will certainly be breaking the laws of their own countries if they take the trophies back. In short, it ain’t doable,” says Mishra, who is now Global Ambassador at <a href="https://wellbeingintl.org/">WellBeing International</a>. Indeed, many find Minister Mahato’s assertion laughable that Nepal can earn up to $25 million through tiger hunting licenses and that would underwrite the cost of maintaining national parks.&nbsp; The tiger is on Appendix 1 of CITES, and Nepal is among 184 countries to have signed this international treaty. Nearly half of all <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/wildlife-people-coexistence-in-nepal-national-park">tourists coming to Nepal visit national parks</a>, and there are growing numbers of Nepali tourists also contribute to local jobs and income.&nbsp; In fact, 90% of the revenue of the parks is from tourism. Chitwan and <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepal-s-tiger-conservation-too-successful">Bardia</a> are world class national parks and any loss of biodiversity would undermine tourism. Admittedly, the increase in tiger numbers has affected prey density forcing some to venture outside national parks and leading to contact with villagers outside. Expansion of forests has also led to crop loss from wildlife. There are protocols in place to deal with man-eating tigers, and crop damage by wildlife.&nbsp; The government is trying to dismantle other areas in which Nepal has achieved success, like <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/who-now-owns-nepals-forests">community forestry</a>, by allowing ‘management’ of trees. It is strongly backing the Nijgad Airport project that would decimate the last remaining native forests in the eastern Tarai, and it is drafting a bill to amend laws to allow resorts, hotels and infrastructure inside national parks. &nbsp; “Minister Mahato clearly has no understanding of how conservation works,” says environmentalist Babu Krishna Karki. “Someone who dreams of making a national park a source of revenue doesn’t know the first thing about conservation. How can he consciously spout such nonsense?”  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20230915050944_6bbe3df3771b76221ad7902060ee1f567309531f4254dc0376238eb56f2e1ed6.jpg" data-media-id="editor_7" data-image-id="20230915050944_6bbe3df3771b76221ad7902060ee1f567309531f4254dc0376238eb56f2e1ed6" data-rendition-name="original" width="1800" height="1200" loading="lazy" alt="Birenda Mahato Forest Minister"> <figcaption>Forest and Environment Minister Birendra Prasad Mahato. Photo: RSS(Photo: HARRAM BHETUWAL)</figcaption> </figure>  Minister Mahato has accused national park employees of colluding with wildlife poachers, and even blamed international development partners of making money from Nepal’s achievement in <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/nature-without-borders">tiger conservation</a>. Mahato was appointed forest minister in May by Upendra Yadav’s Tarai-based JSP and has been brazenly trying to find ways to cash in by allowing extractive projects inside national parks. Given this government’s lack of transparency and impunity for corruption, he may well get his way. “We have to be very careful not to kill the goose that lays golden eggs,” warns Ghana Gurung of WWF Nepal. “Tiger culling is an absolute no-no, and any decision to allow resorts inside national parks has to be consultative and transparent.” Indeed, Tarai national parks like Chitwan, Parsa, Bardia already face threats from encroachment, poaching, river pollution, and the climate crisis. Allowing <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/in-conservation-nepal-is-not-out-of-the-woods-yet">infrastructure like roads, railways and irrigation canals inside</a> them will further damage the ecosystem. &nbsp; Mahato has formed a task force under the Director General of the Forest Department Shivkumar Wagle to relax the restrictions to collect Tamarix dioica, a kind of lichen locally known as jhau that has medicinal properties. A ban has been in place in harvesting this shrub since 2010.&nbsp; Botany professor Krishna Kumar Shrestha says that some lichens found in branches of trees or on rocks are <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/between-existence-and-extinction-in-nepal">rare species</a>, and as such should be studied thoroughly first. “We have to ensure the reproduction of those lichen species before lifting the ban otherwise we are destroying biological diversity,” he adds. Experts who have spoken against Mahato’s proposals are being sidelined by his ministry. &nbsp;Forest Secretary Rewati Raman Poudel was transferred after he raised objections and was replaced by Deepak Kharel of the Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation. Mahato himself has no background in conservation, and his only claim to fame is that he is the brother of Belarussian billionaire of Nepali origin Upendra Mahato, and was the chair of Machhapuchche Bank and has investments in hydropower.&nbsp; As minister, Mahato has also exerted pressure to pass the EIA of the Rs3 billion Pathibhara Cable Car project which is opposed by the local indigenous Yakthung Limbu people. He has also forced officials to ignore EIAs on several <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/balance-of-power">hydropower projects</a> in which he has investments. The National Park and Wildlife Conservation Act has provisions to operate facilities inside the park for tourism, but the regulation stipulates that any decision has to be transparent so it does not impact on the ecosystem. Under Nepal’s current governance climate, that is problematic.&nbsp;

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Conservation vs Conservatives

<figure><img width="1500" height="1000" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111410118/637205929c7e80680e0b28c4jpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption></figcaption></figure>Two nature reserves in Nepal have been recognised for their success in <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/villagers-step-up-to-protect-nepals-tigers/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">involving local communities</a> to conserve their tiger habitats. 
<a style="font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/its-a-jungle-out-there/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Bardia National Park</a> in Nepal and the Khata Forest Corridor in the western Tarai have been awarded for contributing to Nepal becoming the first tiger range country to fulfil an international pledge to double its tiger population.
Bardia and Sathyamangalam Tiger Reserve in India won this year's TX2 Award for doubling their population of wild tigers since 2010, while Khata Forest Conservation Area in Nepal that serves as a transboundary <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nature-without-borders/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">connectivity for tigers between Nepal and India</a>, won the Tiger Conservation Excellence award.
“They demonstrate what can be achieved through long term commitments to tiger conservation,” said Stuart Chapman of the Tiger Alive Initiative of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). “The dedication of field teams, conservation partners and communities living with tigers are behind these extraordinary results.”
WWF Nepal Country director Ghana Gurung said the award is a testament to the continuous effort, dedication and commitment shown by the government, communities, buffer zone and the national park for tiger protection. "I also deeply appreciate the enormous role communities of Khata corridor that live alongside the tigers and thrive under challenging conditions have played in establishing Khata as a globally recognized and functional corridor," he added.
The awards celebrate the upcoming launch of the 2022 Lunar Year of the Tiger. In September, tiger range countries will convene at the second Global Tiger Summit in Vladivostok to assess progress towards the ambitious TX2 goal to <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepals-tiger-conservation-too-successful/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">double the number of tigers</a> in the wild. The conference will also identify tiger conservation priorities for the next 12 years.
The tiger population in Bardia National Park did not just double, but increased almost five-fold from less than 20 tigers in 2009 to almost 90 in 2018 — an astounding achievement given it is situated in one of the most densely populated regions of the world. 
“Successful <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/unsung-heroes-of-nepals-tiger-recovery/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">tiger conservation</a> involves continuous management and improvement of habitats at the landscape scale, rigorous monitoring of tigers and their prey, and working extensively with local communities, said Sugoto Roy of the Integrated Tiger Habitat Programme at the International Conservation Union (IUCN). “All of these criteria have been met with excellence, giving us these globally significant results.“
Sathyamangalam, which India designated a Tiger Reserve in 2013, was home to only 25 tigers in 2011 but today there are an estimated 80 individuals in the area. Sathyamangalam Tiger Reserve, located in the Western Ghats Biodiversity Hotspot, connects with two other protected areas, supporting one of the most important and largest tiger populations in the world.
The transboundary Khata corridor was also recognised for its <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepali-women-at-forefront-of-saving-tigers/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">community-based conservation efforts</a>, including a network of 74 community forests covering 202 km2 which have secured safe passage for tigers between Bardia National Park in Nepal and Katarniaghat Wildlife Sanctuary in India. 
Over the last five years 46 individual tigers have been detected on camera traps using the corridor together with other iconic and threatened mammal species including the Asian elephant, and the greater one-horned rhino.
The TX2 goal is one of the most ambitious <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/habitat-destrcution-of-tiger-in-Tarai,3423" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">conservation goals</a> ever set for a single species and the second Global Tiger Summit in Vladivostok, September 2022, offers the opportunity to set a new vision to secure their future. 
Tigers numbered perhaps 100,000 a century ago but dropped precipitously to as few as 3,200 in 2010. Their numbers have slowly recovered to approximately 3,900, based on estimates from tiger range countries compiled in 2016. 
Nepal is currently conducting a tiger census, and the number are expected to be even higher than in the last census. The last  census in 2018 showed that Nepal's tiger population had doubled to 235 from the previous tally in 2009. This made Nepal the first country to attain the <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=16820#.W6d_Atcza71" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id%3D16820%23.W6d_Atcza71&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1643365111069000&amp;usg=AOvVaw18lnqEeRRRTPh00Thfo-8P">TX2 target of doubling its wild tiger population</a> adopted at the St Petersburg Tiger Summit in 2010.  
The awards are presented by the Conservation Assured Tiger Standards (CATS), Fauna and Flora International (FFI), Global Tiger Forum (GTF), IUCN’s Integrated Tiger Habitat Conservation Programme (ITHCP), Panthera, UNDP, The Lion’s Share, Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and WWF.
Said Dale Miquelle of the Wildlife Conservation Society: “The results demonstrated by these three sites demonstrate what tiger conservation success can look like when government agencies, non-governmental bodies, and local communities work together to create a better future for both tigers and people.”
<a href="https://tx2tigeraward.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://tx2tigeraward.org/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1643365111069000&amp;usg=AOvVaw0l2Whdc1RYg_1r9WcKdKPr">https://tx2tigeraward.org/</a>

2 Nepal tiger reserves awarded

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111410114/637204fd9c7e80680e0b2890jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1400" height="582"/><figcaption>Ganges river dolphin back in Nepal’s Narayani River. Photos: TEK MAHATO.</figcaption></figure>It is the best possible New Year 2022 present. A local nature guide in Nepal, Tek Mahato took several photos of a Ganges <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/the-wellbeing-of-the-wilderness/">river dolphin</a> in the Narayani River, the first time there has been photographic evidence of a dolphin in the river in years.One of the country’s four largest rivers, the Narayani crosses the border into India as Gandaki, and used to be part of the species’ traditional range, which has dwindled considerably in recent decades.Ganges river dolphins are now rare throughout Nepal. In 2016, the Department of Wildlife Conservation and National Parks estimated the river dolphin population in the country at 52 individuals: 43 in <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/freshwater-dolphins-make-comeback-in-nepal/">the Karnali River</a> and its tributaries, and nine in the Kosi River. None were believed to still live in the Narayani River.Indeed, it was only last year that we finalised the current distribution map of the Ganges river dolphin, just <a href="https://www.riverdolphins.org/river-dolphins-worldwide/ganges-river-dolphin/">3,500–5,000 of which now inhabit</a> in the great Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna river basins.The Narayani is coloured in purple (map below) for population extinct as no dolphins had been officially sighted in the river for ten years.That is until the message about Tek Mahato’s remarkable sighting came in.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111410114/637204ff9c7e80680e0b2891jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1384" height="980"><figcaption>Ganges river dolphin distribution and density. Map: WWF</figcaption></figure>This teaches us two important lessons: nature is adaptive and bounces back whenever humans allow her to do so. This hopeful message is very welcome at the start of 2022, which is an absolutely critical year for <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/between-existence-and-extinction-in-nepal/">biodiversity</a> with a new global framework for nature due to be agreed at the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) conference in China.The return of Ganges dolphins to the Narayani shows that life will return to the world’s rivers if we take the right steps to restore and protect them.Freshwater species populations have collapsed by 84% since 1970 and all six river dolphin species are now facing extinction. However, we can reverse these trends if countries sign up to, and then implement, ambitious goals under the CBD to conserve and <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/too-little-too-much-or-too-polluted/">restore healthy rivers</a>, such as keeping rivers free flowing and tackling pollution. And if more businesses adopt a water stewardship approach as well as support critical water stewardship programs, like WWF-Nepal’s river restoration and collective action initiative on the Narayani.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111410114/637205039c7e80680e0b2892jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1400" height="1050"><figcaption>Ganges river dolphin in Narayani.</figcaption></figure>The second lesson is to conduct a detailed census of Nepal’s rivers to establish the true population status of its river dolphins, an activity that is in line with the government’s <a href="https://dnpwc.gov.np/media/publication/Dolphin_Conservation_Action_Plan.pdf">National River Dolphin Action Plan</a>, which was finalised in 2021.The most recent survey in 2016 was conducted over too short a period of time and, six years later, the situation has clearly changed. We need to know how many dolphins still swim in Nepal and in which rivers before the authorities, communities and conservation organisations (including my colleagues from WWF-Nepal) can develop the best way to help them survive and thrive.The challenges river dolphins face are huge, particularly in Asia where they live in some of the most densely populated river basins in the world.But this reappearance gives us real hope that our work, particularly with our partners under the <a href="https://wwf.panda.org/discover/our_focus/freshwater_practice/freshwater_inititiaves/river_dolphins_initiative/">WWF River Dolphin Rivers initiative</a>, can make a difference. That together we can help enhance the health of these rivers and rebuild their dolphin populations.©WWFDaphne Willems is the Lead at the WWF River Dolphin Rivers initiative. Read original article <a href="https://medium.com/@WWFWater/return-of-river-dolphins-to-narayani-8e5deb57c236">here</a>.

Freshwater dolphin comeback in Nepal

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110131124/636cee029c7e80680e09adfdjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"/><figcaption>All photos: PRAMOD NEUPANE/WWF NEPAL</figcaption></figure>On 2 January, the news of an adult tigress struck by a vehicle in Mahendra Highway made the rounds on social media. The photo of the striped big cat sprawled on the asphalt in a pool of blood touched many.But there was also anger. The roadkill followed the killing by another tiger of a middle-aged woman on a motorcycle with her son in the same stretch of highway.In December 2016, a speeding bus killed another tiger, and another in January 2019 left a tiger severely injured, the animal’s condition did not improve despite treatment and it died 13 months later.These examples of harrowing road kill and human-animal conflict are on the rise in Nepal, thanks to new infrastructure including roads, irrigation canals, transmission lines and even railways crisscrossing nature reserves and national parks.Case in point is the planned upgradation of the existing two-lane standard highway along the Pathlaiya- Hetauda, Hetauda-Narayanghat and Narayanghat-Butwal sections of Mahendra Highway, all of which will slice across protected areas including the Parsa National Park, Barandabhar Corridor and the buffer zone of Chitwan National Park.The phenomenon even has an acronym, Vehicular Wildlife Collisions (VWC), and these are only bound to rise. Of the unnatural wildlife fatalities in Nepal in the last four years, with roadkill accounting for nearly half of all deaths. At least 29 deer, 24 wild boars and 22 monkeys were identified as roadkill just in 2019.And despite reduced vehicular flow during the Covid-19 lockdown, there were 108 wildlife deaths in 2020 across highways that crisscross natural habitat and jungle corridors, and these do not include fatalities outside parks, which means many more deaths beyond protected areas go unrecorded.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110131124/636cee069c7e80680e09adfejpeg.jpg" alt="" width="600" height="360"><figcaption>Wildlife Death and Roadkill Records within Protected Areas. Source: DEPARTMENT OF NATIONAL PARKS AND WILDLIFE CONSERVATION ANNUAL REPORTS</figcaption></figure>VWCs don’t only harm animals, they put drivers and passengers of vehicles also in danger. We need a collective effort from highway authorities, planners, road security personnel, commuters and indigenous communities to tackle the mounting challenge.The good news is that the government has advanced efforts to integrate innovative wildlife crossing structures across highways. One such intervention is a timecard system introduced to check vehicular speed at a wildlife hotspot along the Mahendra Highway that cuts through Bardia National Park. Since its installation in 2017, VWCs here have declined by half.Similarly, the Department of Roads (DoR) is incorporating 55 small and large wildlife crossing structures, primarily underpasses, at critical locations along the Narayanghat-Butwal section of Mahendra Highway.The DoR has also prioritised detailed biodiversity assessments in environmental studies for upgradation of highway sections. Plans to incorporate wildlife friendly crossing structures in two critical forest patches of ghe Barandabhar Corridor in Chitwan and Aadhabhar section in Parsa National Park are also in the pipeline, raising hopes for improved connectivity with safe wildlife dispersal.Linear infrastructure, which fragment important biological areas (wildlife hotspots and corridors) have a direct relation to increased human wildlife conflicts.When wildlife using a certain perimeter for crossing are obstructed by vehicular movement, they often get deflected to nearby settlement areas, evident in critical wildlife corridors Khata, Mohana and Basanta. So far this year, tigers have killed 10 people in the vicinity of Bardia National Park, Khata and Basanta Corridor.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110131124/636cee079c7e80680e09adffjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000">Maintaining a safe corridor by integrating wildlife-friendly crossing zones inbuilt in linear infrastructure is the most sustainable and effective solution to ensure co-existence between humans and animals, particularly in areas where settlements are in close proximity to their habitat.The Postal Highway Directorate is planning to integrate a dedicated wildlife crossing structure along 556 m of critical wildlife crossing zones within a 2km Khata forest corridor fragmented by the Postal Highway. Such wildlife friendly planning can provide safe passage for wildlife to roam across the separated habitats to prevent roadkill.Meanwhile, the Ministry of Forest and Environment is in the final stage of endorsing its ‘Wildlife Friendly Linear Infrastructure Guideline’ which prioritises wildlife dispersal in developmental planning and implementation.Recent tiger sightings at an altitude as high as 2,500m and 3,165m in Dadeldhura and Ilam are indicative of the need for habitat connectivity for wildlife dispersal, particularly between the East-West and North-South parts of the country.Forging a harmonious relationship between humans and wildlife is critical for the survival of both species. If Nepal wants to become a middle-income country by 2030, it needs to balance the need for economic growth with ecological protection. This means ensuring that infrastructure and conservation go hand-in-hand.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110131124/636cee0a9c7e80680e09ae00jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000">Nepal is an international model for wildlife conservation. It is the first-tiger range country to double the number of its big cats and has dramatically reduced rhino poaching in recent years. It is important now more than ever, to address the challenges posed by linear infrastructure to sustain viable wildlife populations within protected areas and beyond.With areas planned for infrastructure coinciding with key conservation landscape, it is critical that wildlife-friendly development is recognised as a major agenda nationally.On the International Day for Biological Diversity on 22 May, let’s commit to developing a model for the world where a biodiverse country succeeds in achieving both development and conservation without laying waste its rich natural resources.All we need for planners to find ways to build new infrastructure without irreversibly harming the country’s biodiversity, a developmental strategy that supplements conservation.Pramod Neupane is a Senior Program Officer - Infrastructure, at WWF Nepal.

Nepal needs wildlife friendly highways

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109111148/636b85f19c7e80680e067820jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"/><figcaption>All photos: PRAMOD NEUPANE/WWF NEPAL</figcaption></figure>On 2 January, the news of an adult tigress struck by a vehicle in Mahendra Highway made the rounds on social media. The photo of the striped big cat sprawled on the asphalt in a pool of blood touched many.But there was also anger. The roadkill followed the killing by another tiger of a middle-aged woman on a motorcycle with her son in the same stretch of highway.In December 2016, a speeding bus killed another tiger, and another in January 2019 left a tiger severely injured, the animal’s condition did not improve despite treatment and it died 13 months later.These examples of harrowing road kill and human-animal conflict are on the rise in Nepal, thanks to new infrastructure including roads, irrigation canals, transmission lines and even railways crisscrossing nature reserves and national parks.Case in point is the planned upgradation of the existing two-lane standard highway along the Pathlaiya- Hetauda, Hetauda-Narayanghat and Narayanghat-Butwal sections of Mahendra Highway, all of which will slice across protected areas including the Parsa National Park, Barandabhar Corridor and the buffer zone of Chitwan National Park.The phenomenon even has an acronym, Vehicular Wildlife Collisions (VWC), and these are only bound to rise. Of the unnatural wildlife fatalities in Nepal in the last four years, with roadkill accounting for nearly half of all deaths. At least 29 deer, 24 wild boars and 22 monkeys were identified as roadkill just in 2019.And despite reduced vehicular flow during the Covid-19 lockdown, there were 108 wildlife deaths in 2020 across highways that crisscross natural habitat and jungle corridors, and these do not include fatalities outside parks, which means many more deaths beyond protected areas go unrecorded.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109111148/636b85f49c7e80680e067821jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="600" height="360"><figcaption>Wildlife Death and Roadkill Records within Protected Areas. Source: DEPARTMENT OF NATIONAL PARKS AND WILDLIFE CONSERVATION ANNUAL REPORTS</figcaption></figure>VWCs don’t only harm animals, they put drivers and passengers of vehicles also in danger. We need a collective effort from highway authorities, planners, road security personnel, commuters and indigenous communities to tackle the mounting challenge.The good news is that the government has advanced efforts to integrate innovative wildlife crossing structures across highways. One such intervention is a timecard system introduced to check vehicular speed at a wildlife hotspot along the Mahendra Highway that cuts through Bardia National Park. Since its installation in 2017, VWCs here have declined by half.Similarly, the Department of Roads (DoR) is incorporating 55 small and large wildlife crossing structures, primarily underpasses, at critical locations along the Narayanghat-Butwal section of Mahendra Highway.The DoR has also prioritised detailed biodiversity assessments in environmental studies for upgradation of highway sections. Plans to incorporate wildlife friendly crossing structures in two critical forest patches of ghe Barandabhar Corridor in Chitwan and Aadhabhar section in Parsa National Park are also in the pipeline, raising hopes for improved connectivity with safe wildlife dispersal.Linear infrastructure, which fragment important biological areas (wildlife hotspots and corridors) have a direct relation to increased human wildlife conflicts.When wildlife using a certain perimeter for crossing are obstructed by vehicular movement, they often get deflected to nearby settlement areas, evident in critical wildlife corridors Khata, Mohana and Basanta. So far this year, tigers have killed 10 people in the vicinity of Bardia National Park, Khata and Basanta Corridor.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109111148/636b85f69c7e80680e067822jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000">Maintaining a safe corridor by integrating wildlife-friendly crossing zones inbuilt in linear infrastructure is the most sustainable and effective solution to ensure co-existence between humans and animals, particularly in areas where settlements are in close proximity to their habitat.The Postal Highway Directorate is planning to integrate a dedicated wildlife crossing structure along 556 m of critical wildlife crossing zones within a 2km Khata forest corridor fragmented by the Postal Highway. Such wildlife friendly planning can provide safe passage for wildlife to roam across the separated habitats to prevent roadkill.Meanwhile, the Ministry of Forest and Environment is in the final stage of endorsing its ‘Wildlife Friendly Linear Infrastructure Guideline’ which prioritises wildlife dispersal in developmental planning and implementation.Recent tiger sightings at an altitude as high as 2,500m and 3,165m in Dadeldhura and Ilam are indicative of the need for habitat connectivity for wildlife dispersal, particularly between the East-West and North-South parts of the country.Forging a harmonious relationship between humans and wildlife is critical for the survival of both species. If Nepal wants to become a middle-income country by 2030, it needs to balance the need for economic growth with ecological protection. This means ensuring that infrastructure and conservation go hand-in-hand.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109111148/636b85f99c7e80680e067823jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000">Nepal is an international model for wildlife conservation. It is the first-tiger range country to double the number of its big cats and has dramatically reduced rhino poaching in recent years. It is important now more than ever, to address the challenges posed by linear infrastructure to sustain viable wildlife populations within protected areas and beyond.With areas planned for infrastructure coinciding with key conservation landscape, it is critical that wildlife-friendly development is recognised as a major agenda nationally.On the International Day for Biological Diversity on 22 May, let’s commit to developing a model for the world where a biodiverse country succeeds in achieving both development and conservation without laying waste its rich natural resources.All we need for planners to find ways to build new infrastructure without irreversibly harming the country’s biodiversity, a developmental strategy that supplements conservation.Pramod Neupane is a Senior Program Officer - Infrastructure, at WWF Nepal.

<img width="856" height="570" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181144/636be7859c7e80680e087806jpeg.jpg" alt=""/>Half the world’s biodiversity and half the quarter of world’s population reside along the mountains. And a half of the world’s population quenches its thirst from melt water originating from the planet’s mountain glaciers. The water fed by these perennial mountain river systems have also become sources of energy through hydropower, irrigation for agriculture, and large water related economies downstream. Mountains in Nepal are characterised as sub-tropical to alpine climatic patterns ranging from soft hilltop to steeper terrain.Nepal has within its vertical terrain, the same range of biodiversity that stretches thousands of horizontal kilometers from the tropics to the Arctic on the planet’s surface.  Lush forests with important flora and fauna intermingle with  pockets of mountain communities spread across the Himalaya. This ice cap on ‘The Third Pole’ provides a life support system for the region and the planet. Mountains are incredibly rich in biodiversity, and the Himalaya is home for wildlife including red panda and snow leopard as well as a wide range of resident and migratory bird species. The mountains also offer habitats for various endemic species of flora with important medicinal and aromatic plants, and non-timber forest products including rhododendron, Yarshagumba, Paanchaule, Sarpagandha -- specifically growing in the rangelands that lie immediately past the snowline.The diversity and uniqueness in the extremities provided by the geographical terrain are limitless. Mixed in with this natural variety of plant and animal life, are culturally rich and ethnically diverse human settlements.This biodiversity is now at risk with increasing threats, both natural and human-induced. Infrastructure development, invasive species proliferation, and deforestation of high-value trees that often takes an age to mature along with overuse of limited natural resources have taken their toll on the Himalaya. The climate crisis has come on top of these existing problems. Glacial lake outbursts threaten downstream valleys, affect freshwater availability, increase in landslides, flash floods and forest fires, and changes in timings of flowering and fruiting of important crop species. Raising awareness to adapt to these changes, while global action is taken to mitigate carbon buildup in the atmosphere has never been more important. That is why on 11 December International Mountain Day this year, the theme is to focus on protecting mountain biodiversity. Protecting Nepal’s mountain ecosystems and their wealth of flora and fauna require immediate attention. Various groups are working with the Nepal government to ensure that large swathes of these multiple-use mountain landscapes are secured and preserved under the protected areas system such as conservation areas (Api Nampa, Annapurna, Manaslu, Gaurishankar and Kanchenjunga), national parks (Khaptad, Rara, Shey-Phoksundo, Langtang, Shivapuri-Nagarjun, Sagarmatha, and Makalu Barun) and a hunting reserve (Dhorpatan). In addition, large areas of mountain ecosystems outside the protected areas are under direct management of division forest offices and community forest groups. Nepal’s community forest management system, in particular, has been lauded globally as a unique model of grassroots-based conservation.Special focus is now provided to species conservation in mountains where external influences have impacted wildlife, their habitats, and communities. Species such as red panda in mid-mountain and snow leopards in high mountains are flagship animals, and indicator species of the local ecosystems. <figure><img width="1000" height="688" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181144/636be7889c7e80680e087807jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> Photo: STUART CHAPMAN/WWF</figcaption></figure>Their persistence in nature has been used as an emblem for conservation success. In the past, the Nepal government and the conservation fraternity have taken initiatives such as nationwide surveys, awareness and sensitisation programs, strengthening anti-poaching efforts, and forests and corridor restoration measures, while expanding livelihood initiatives in the mountains. Habitat restoration programs such as afforestation and networking of community managed forests have also enhanced the species conservation and maintenance of critical ecosystems in the mountains. Recent paper on red panda distribution in Nepal <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0243450">published</a> in PLOSONE highlights the first baseline on red panda occupancy in the country. Approximately 40% of the potential habitat (nearly 22,453 km2) is currently being occupied by the red panda. Bamboo forests are highlighted as an important factor for red panda distribution in the mountain ecosystem. This is symbolic of the successes so far, and also point to the need to provide similar protection to the habitat of other species. Conservation of holistic mountain conservation guided by National Biodiversity Strategies, National Forests Strategies, landscape strategies, management plans, and species action plan including the community forest operation plan can weave together various strands of conservation work for the benefit of mountain, wildlife, and local communities.  <img width="81" height="109" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181144/636be78a9c7e80680e087808jpeg.jpg" alt="">Ananta Ram Bhandari heads the Mountain and Forest Programs at WWF Nepal. <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/peak-ambition/">Peak ambition</a>, Lisa Honan and Nimsdai Purja

Conserving mountains for people and nature

<img width="856" height="570" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109191116/636bee884b0ad905ca02ef4fjpeg.jpg" alt=""/>Half the world’s biodiversity and half the quarter of world’s population reside along the mountains. And a half of the world’s population quenches its thirst from melt water originating from the planet’s mountain glaciers. The water fed by these perennial mountain river systems have also become sources of energy through hydropower, irrigation for agriculture, and large water related economies downstream. Mountains in Nepal are characterised as sub-tropical to alpine climatic patterns ranging from soft hilltop to steeper terrain.Nepal has within its vertical terrain, the same range of biodiversity that stretches thousands of horizontal kilometers from the tropics to the Arctic on the planet’s surface.  Lush forests with important flora and fauna intermingle with  pockets of mountain communities spread across the Himalaya. This ice cap on ‘The Third Pole’ provides a life support system for the region and the planet. Mountains are incredibly rich in biodiversity, and the Himalaya is home for wildlife including red panda and snow leopard as well as a wide range of resident and migratory bird species. The mountains also offer habitats for various endemic species of flora with important medicinal and aromatic plants, and non-timber forest products including rhododendron, Yarshagumba, Paanchaule, Sarpagandha -- specifically growing in the rangelands that lie immediately past the snowline.The diversity and uniqueness in the extremities provided by the geographical terrain are limitless. Mixed in with this natural variety of plant and animal life, are culturally rich and ethnically diverse human settlements.This biodiversity is now at risk with increasing threats, both natural and human-induced. Infrastructure development, invasive species proliferation, and deforestation of high-value trees that often takes an age to mature along with overuse of limited natural resources have taken their toll on the Himalaya. The climate crisis has come on top of these existing problems. Glacial lake outbursts threaten downstream valleys, affect freshwater availability, increase in landslides, flash floods and forest fires, and changes in timings of flowering and fruiting of important crop species. Raising awareness to adapt to these changes, while global action is taken to mitigate carbon buildup in the atmosphere has never been more important. That is why on 11 December International Mountain Day this year, the theme is to focus on protecting mountain biodiversity. Protecting Nepal’s mountain ecosystems and their wealth of flora and fauna require immediate attention. Various groups are working with the Nepal government to ensure that large swathes of these multiple-use mountain landscapes are secured and preserved under the protected areas system such as conservation areas (Api Nampa, Annapurna, Manaslu, Gaurishankar and Kanchenjunga), national parks (Khaptad, Rara, Shey-Phoksundo, Langtang, Shivapuri-Nagarjun, Sagarmatha, and Makalu Barun) and a hunting reserve (Dhorpatan). In addition, large areas of mountain ecosystems outside the protected areas are under direct management of division forest offices and community forest groups. Nepal’s community forest management system, in particular, has been lauded globally as a unique model of grassroots-based conservation.Special focus is now provided to species conservation in mountains where external influences have impacted wildlife, their habitats, and communities. Species such as red panda in mid-mountain and snow leopards in high mountains are flagship animals, and indicator species of the local ecosystems. <figure><img width="1000" height="688" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109191116/636bee8a4b0ad905ca02ef50jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> Photo: STUART CHAPMAN/WWF</figcaption></figure>Their persistence in nature has been used as an emblem for conservation success. In the past, the Nepal government and the conservation fraternity have taken initiatives such as nationwide surveys, awareness and sensitisation programs, strengthening anti-poaching efforts, and forests and corridor restoration measures, while expanding livelihood initiatives in the mountains. Habitat restoration programs such as afforestation and networking of community managed forests have also enhanced the species conservation and maintenance of critical ecosystems in the mountains. Recent paper on red panda distribution in Nepal <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0243450">published</a> in PLOSONE highlights the first baseline on red panda occupancy in the country. Approximately 40% of the potential habitat (nearly 22,453 km2) is currently being occupied by the red panda. Bamboo forests are highlighted as an important factor for red panda distribution in the mountain ecosystem. This is symbolic of the successes so far, and also point to the need to provide similar protection to the habitat of other species. Conservation of holistic mountain conservation guided by National Biodiversity Strategies, National Forests Strategies, landscape strategies, management plans, and species action plan including the community forest operation plan can weave together various strands of conservation work for the benefit of mountain, wildlife, and local communities.  <img width="81" height="109" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109191116/636bee8c4b0ad905ca02ef51jpeg.jpg" alt="">Ananta Ram Bhandari heads the Mountain and Forest Programs at WWF Nepal. <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/peak-ambition/">Peak ambition</a>, Lisa Honan and Nimsdai Purja

<figure><img width="1340" height="894" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110915114/636bb3d89c7e80680e07bb69jpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>A rhino that was found dead in Chitwan National Park this week is believed to have been killed with a gunshot, the first rhino to be lost to poachers in Nepal in four years. Photo: Kunda Dixit</figcaption></figure>In its latest <a href="https://livingplanet.panda.org/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://livingplanet.panda.org/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1599783612686000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFlHsj1TfW6MvwUT-ZVe60WRC_2-g">Living Planet Report 2020</a> released on Thursday, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) has revealed that there has been a two-thirds decline in the global populations of mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles and fish in the past 50 years. WWF warns in its annual report that this environmental destruction is responsible for the emergence of zoonotic diseases such as Covid-19 and future vulnerability to pandemics.Shocking as the news is, Nepal has been praised internationally as a model for nature conservation and its ability to manage people and parks relatively well despite problems of poverty, population growth and pressure on land.“We have a lot to be optimistic about in Nepal because of our past achievements, but we cannot be complacent,” says <a href="http://www.wwfnepal.org/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.wwfnepal.org/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1599783612686000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFOQXBGcvJHOGDhDXgZJCMepyyDjQ">WWF Nepal</a> director <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepal-tigers-now-number-235/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepal-tigers-now-number-235/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1599783612686000&amp;usg=AFQjCNF2ynzsafaxhR6nTIP-ubM9sRYXGQ">Ghana Gurung</a>. “Because of our smaller area, things can go wrong very quickly. We have to keep being vigilant.”The warning comes amidst reports of an upsurge in poaching since the Covid-19 lockdowns began nearly six months ago. Six <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/7-musk-deer-killed-by-poachers-during-lockdown/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/7-musk-deer-killed-by-poachers-during-lockdown/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1599783612686000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFng15G6ML2SrcJynPG5NtbIaM-xQ">musk deer were found killed</a> in traps in Sagarmatha National Park in April. There was a seizure of tiger and leopard pelts as well as bones this week in western Nepal from <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/lax-laws-make-nepal-haven-for-tiger-poachers/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/lax-laws-make-nepal-haven-for-tiger-poachers/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1599783612686000&amp;usg=AFQjCNERCYDD8qYsAaSZp6Z_MAxqKBhJ-Q">poachers who were taking them to China</a>. And on Tuesday, officials at the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/chitwan-is-venue-for-world-ranger-congress/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/chitwan-is-venue-for-world-ranger-congress/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1599783612686000&amp;usg=AFQjCNG-gl01ZeVaWMV_hJiRxUqmGb8KaQ">Chitwan National Park</a> confirmed that a dead rhino found there had a bullet hole in its head. They said the rhino was probably shot and wounded by poachers and jumped into the river before they could remove its horn. Nepal had marked its <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/how-many-rhinos-is-enough-rhinos/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/how-many-rhinos-is-enough-rhinos/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1599783612686000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGdT7WIYITya_IxrYozc_X9DDBp0Q">fourth year with zero rhino poaching</a> recently.“The Living Planet Report shows how even a vast continent like South America can be threatened with serious biodiversity loss. Nepal has a rich genetic pool in a much smaller area, so we have to invest even more in its protection, especially in the post-pandemic era,” Gurung added.Nepal’s biodiversity faces a threat from land cover changes, <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepals-environment-impact-non-assessments/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepals-environment-impact-non-assessments/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1599783612686000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGJym6ydltzB2MjXT-0KBt1g5ac8A">destruction of natural habitats from infrastructure</a> and settlements which have been exacerbated by the impact of the climate crisis. On top of that, the post Covid-19 economic crisis means budgets for nature protection are tighter at a time when it is needed even more.Forest loss in Nepal’s Tarai has also impacted on increasing the danger of flooding, and reducing the ground water recharge. Felling trees for new infrastructure projects in the future will be a challenge to nature conservation. <figure><img width="640" height="596" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110915114/636bb3db9c7e80680e07bb6ajpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption></figcaption></figure><figure><img width="640" height="743" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110915114/636bb3de9c7e80680e07bb6bjpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption></figcaption></figure>The new WWF report also contains the Living Planet Index (LPI) developed by the <a href="http://www.zsl.org/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.zsl.org/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1599783612686000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEZ0P24O_LVmzrf77b4DkPaMdOZRw">Zoological Society London (ZSL)</a> which lists factors that increase the risk of pandemics -- including land-use change and the use and trade of wildlife. These were some of the reasons why there has been a 68% decline in global vertebrate species populations between 1970 and 2016. “The Living Planet Report 2020 underlines how humanity’s increasing destruction of nature is having catastrophic impacts not only on wildlife populations but also on human health and all aspects of our lives,” said Marco Lambertini, Director General of WWF International. “These serious declines in wildlife species populations are an indicator that nature is unravelling.”The Living Planet Report 2020 presents an overview of the state of our natural world through the LPI, which tracks trends in global wildlife abundance. It shows that the main cause of the dramatic decline in species populations on land observed in the LPI is habitat loss and degradation, including deforestation, driven by how we as humanity produce food. Endangered species captured in the LPI include the eastern lowland gorilla, whose numbers in the Kahuzi-Biega National Park, Democratic Republic of Congo have seen an estimated 87%  decline between 1994-2015 mostly due to illegal hunting. The population of the African grey parrot in southwest Ghana fell by 99% in the past 300 years due to trapping for the wild bird trade and habitat loss.The LPI, which tracked almost 21,000 populations of more than 4,000 vertebrate species between 1970 and 2016, also shows that wildlife populations found in freshwater habitats have suffered a decline of 84%. The sturgeon on China’s Yangtze river which declined by 97% in the past 25 years due to dams on the waterway.The LPR 2020 shows that without further efforts to counteract habitat loss and degradation, global biodiversity will continue to decline. The report makes clear that stabilising and reversing the loss of nature caused by humans’ destruction of natural habitats will only be possible if bolder, more ambitious conservation efforts are embraced and transformational changes made to the way we produce and consume food. The Living Planet Report 2020 is being launched a week before the 75th session of the United Nations General Assembly, where leaders are expected to virtually review the progress made on the Sustainable Development Goals, the Paris Climate Agreement and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). Using data from 4,392 species and 20,811 populations, the 2020 global Living Planet Index shows an average 68% decline in monitored populations. The report is the 13th edition of WWF's biennial flagship publication. <img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022110915114/636bb3e09c7e80680e07bb6cjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="744" height="1026">

World lost 2/3 of its animals in 50 years: WWF report

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109141140/636bae029c7e80680e077fcbjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"/><figcaption>Wild elephants crossing the East-West Highway in Bardia National Park recently. Photo: WWF</figcaption></figure>Cutting through the dense jungles of the Tarai national parks, the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/east-west-city/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/east-west-city/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1595388886696000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFgSeRApwHpAcpPoNGJ915JnQcfmA">East-West Highway</a> is turning into a death trap for Nepal’s endangered and protected wildlife. Now, Nepal is building more underpasses so animals do not have to risk crossing highways.Of the 1,028km East-West Highway, nearly 400km slice through national parks in Parsa, Chitwan, Bardia, Banke. Another 122km stretch of roads cross wildlife corridors connecting protected areas, as well as linking Tarai forests with the mountains to facilitate wildlife migration.Nepal’s <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/in-conservation-nepal-is-not-out-of-the-woods-yet/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/in-conservation-nepal-is-not-out-of-the-woods-yet/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1595388886696000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFlRYbCC1nUHWVECaOS1ke8ZPO3Ew">conservation success story</a> means that there is now more wildlife movement between national parks, while <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/planned-new-east-west-railroad-and-expressway-threaten-the-Chitwan-National-Park,1079" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/planned-new-east-west-railroad-and-expressway-threaten-the-Chitwan-National-Park,1079&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1595388886696000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGBnliUz0r8ybsppzBDmTdqdA9KRQ">upgraded highways</a> have increased the number of vehicles and their speed. In the past three years alone there have been 400 road kills involving wild animals.The 30km Narayanghat-Mugling Highway was recently improved to meet Asian highway standards, and this meant not only did it have to ensure adequate road safety features but also address conservation needs.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109141140/636bae059c7e80680e077fccjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1604" height="634"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>The highway features the first two of Nepal’s four new wildlife underpasses in the Aptarai and Ramnagar in the section where the road passes through an important animal migration corridor.The underpasses were also equipped with 14 camera traps by the <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=6857#.XxVBdCgzbb0" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id%3D6857%23.XxVBdCgzbb0&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1595388886696000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFAZV_0bfdKqcXz1WdY2x2-fsKdGw">World Wildlife Fund (WWF)</a> and its ‘Hariyo Ban Program’ to better understand wildlife migration in the Barandabhar Forest Corridor and to monitor whether the underpasses are effective.The WWF has now released its findings from the study, and concludes: ‘Wildlife crossing structures are essential for all linear infrastructure projects traversing critical forests, incorporating designs based on international practice and available guidelines in all planned projects seem imperative in the future.’Read also:<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/in-conservation-nepal-is-not-out-of-the-woods-yet/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/in-conservation-nepal-is-not-out-of-the-woods-yet/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1595388886696000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFlRYbCC1nUHWVECaOS1ke8ZPO3Ew">In conversation, Nepal is not out of the woods yet</a>, Sonia Awale<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nature-without-borders/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nature-without-borders/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1595388886696000&amp;usg=AFQjCNF8a70J8PS6fLJWmTWLFNkTNrIqNw">Nature without Borders</a>, Sewa Bhattarai<a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/planned-new-east-west-railroad-and-expressway-threaten-the-Chitwan-National-Park,1079" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/planned-new-east-west-railroad-and-expressway-threaten-the-Chitwan-National-Park,1079&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1595388886696000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGBnliUz0r8ybsppzBDmTdqdA9KRQ">Trespassing into Nature</a>, Bhrikuti Rai, and Sunir Pandey<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109141140/636bae089c7e80680e077fcdjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="912"><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109141140/636bae0b9c7e80680e077fcejpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="394"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109141140/636bae0e9c7e80680e077fcfjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="394"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>According to the Department of National Parks and Wildlife conservation, the road kill problem is getting worse. There were 119 animals run over by vehicles in national parks in 2018/19, down from 124 in 2017/18 and 133 in 2016/17. In some years this was up to a third of the total number of recorded wildlife deaths in national parks. However, conservationists say the number could be much higher if highways through unprotected forests are also counted.“With such massive new investment in large infrastructure project, the impact on biodiversity and wildlife will be heavy, and we need mitigation measures such as underpasses and overpasses not only to save wildlife but also for human safety,” says WWF Nepal Representative Ghana Gurung.The WWF monitoring of the underpasses after the Narayanghat-Mugling Highway was upgraded from August 2017 till June 2018 shows that more than half of the animal movement occurred in winter when wildlife moved to sources of water.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109141140/636bae119c7e80680e077fd0jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="645" height="693"><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109141140/636bae139c7e80680e077fd1jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1518" height="1140"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>The WWF’s Pramod Neupane says the use of underpasses will increase as animals get more familiar with the structures. He adds: “Our research proves that underpasses are effective in facilitating safer wildlife movement, and we need to replicate this in other critical jungle corridors in the Tarai.”Only a quarter of the movement was during the monsoon months, while the pre-monsoon dry season saw the least movement. Most of the wildlife using underpasses were deer, wild boar and other medium-sized animals, and only 10% of the animals were large mammals like tigers, leopards and rhinos.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109141140/636bae179c7e80680e077fd2jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="796"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>“It seems the underpasses are not being used to their full extent because they are too small for large animals like wild elephants, and also because of the litter from the highway some of the underpasses have become constricted so bigger wildlife cannot easily pass through,” explains Padma Raj Nepal of the Division Forest Office in Chitwan.Manoj Aryal at the Department of Roads says the Chitwan study has shown that underpasses are effective in reducing wildlife deaths. After studies showed 30 spots along the 160km stretch of the East-West Highway between Narayanghat and Butwal that wild animals frequent, the Department is constructing four more underpasses and one overpass.Other wildlife underpasses are planned on the highway from Patalaiya of Bara to Dhalkebar of Dhanusha on the East-West Highway, which passes through the Charkose Jhadi and Parsa National Park.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109141140/636bae199c7e80680e077fd3jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1100" height="659"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>In Bardia, various line ministries in Province 5 in coordination with the Division Forest Office in Bardia have prepared a detailed project report for a 45m overhead wildlife bridge in an important migration corridor where wildlife movement is very high.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109141140/636bae1c9c7e80680e077fd4jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1530" height="782"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>The overpass will allow tigers, rhinos and wild elephants migrating through <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nature-without-borders/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nature-without-borders/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1595388886696000&amp;usg=AFQjCNF8a70J8PS6fLJWmTWLFNkTNrIqNw">jungle corridors connect Bardia National Park with Katarniaghat Wildlife Sanctuary in India</a>. The overpass will cost Rs81 million and construction will begin once the Environment Impact Assessment is done.Adds Aryal: “In the past, the cost of building such passes were considered unnecessary. But the success of the Chitwan experiment has shown that safe passage for wildlife is vital in reducing wildlife death along our highways.”

Underpasses to reduce roadkill in Nepal

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109141136/636bad219c7e80680e077f73jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1050" height="657"/><figcaption>A pod of dolphins at the confluence of the Mohana and Karnali Rivers recently. The endangered mammals swim upstream from India to breed in Nepal every monsoon.</figcaption></figure>It is the annual monsoon season, and despite the rains this would be the time of year when tourists flocked to the tributaries of the Karnali River in Nepal for dolphin watching.When the rivers are in spate is when the endangered Gangetic Freshwater Dolphin swim upstream from India to the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/the-wellbeing-of-the-wilderness/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/the-wellbeing-of-the-wilderness/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1594719340334000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFo-eHDdDw7OVO_jXw4F1O8UprQZw">mighty Karnali</a>, Nepal’s longest river, to find mates on the still backwaters of the oxbow lakes.But this year, due to the COVID-19 lockdown there is no one here to watch the nearly-blind aquatic mammals as they surface to exhale noisily through the blowholes on top of their heads.Swimming upstream in the strong current is hard enough, but navigating through memory and echo-location could be even more difficult for the only cetacean species found in Nepal. But they follow mind maps that they have inherited from ancestors to travel to the same spot every year to breed and rear calves.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109141136/636bad239c7e80680e077f74jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="760" height="475"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>“When water levels begin to rise, they can be easily spotted,” says Bhoj Raj Dhungana of the Dolphin Aquatic and Biodiversity Conservation Nepal. “They swim all the way from the Ganges to breed and rear their young in safer, more shallow waters in Nepal.”Dhungana says that although only a mother dolphin and her calf had been sighted till mid-June, in the past month five juveniles and 10 adults have been seen in the waters.Locally referred to as ‘Susu’ after the sound they make while surfacing to breathe, these playful mammals are mostly found along the Karnali’s confluence with rivulets like the Mohana, Pathariya, and Kada in Kailali. As the monsoon tapers off, they swim back downstream into India.After being red-listed as an endangered species by both the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Gangetic Freshwater Dolphins are now actively protected in Nepal and India. Local conservation organisations in Tikapur and Bhajani municipalities whose communities benefit from dolphin tourism are also involved.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109141136/636bad259c7e80680e077f75jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2300" height="1462">River dolphins are known to be accurate indicators of a river’s health. If their numbers decline, as they have been for decades, it means the rivers are polluted, there is overfishing, they are entangled in fishing nets, or new dams are preventing their migration for breeding.Over the years, the total number of Gangetic dolphins have decreased from 5,000 to less than 2,500. They used to be present in all of Nepal’s big rivers like the Kosi, Gandaki and Karnali. But except for the Karnali the other two are both dammed at the Indian border for irrigation and flood control, and the numbers in Nepal have dramatically declined.“Although Gangetic dolphins visit our rivers annually in the monsoon, increased pollution of the rivers and the poaching for food has seriously depleted their numbers,” says dolphin conservationist Vijay Raj Shrestha, who noticed that the dolphins appeared earlier than usual this year possibly because of heavy pre-monsoon rains and the lack of disturbance due to the COVID-19 lockdown.The government is now trying to declare the confluence of the Mohana and Pathriya as a Dolphin Conservation Area, ban the use of fishing nets and prevent plastic garbage  dumping and use of fishing nets in the rivers.Wildlife enthusiasts from all over the world used to flock to Kailali to watch dolphins, contributing to the local economy and spreading awareness among local people about the importance of conserving the rare mammals. However, visitors had to rough it because of the lack of standard hotels and difficult access through dirt tracks.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109141136/636bad289c7e80680e077f76jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="760" height="351"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Freshwater dolphins are found in South America and Asia, and regarded as some of the oldest creatures on earth. They have lost their sense of sight because they live in such murky waters, instead they use ultrasonic clicks to navigate and find prey. They travel in pods with their calves.The <a href="https://www.worldwildlife.org/species/ganges-river-dolphin" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.worldwildlife.org/species/ganges-river-dolphin&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1594719340335000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFWRRQSPaFs2kRkP5PiAOdRan75iQ">World Wildlife Fund (WWF)</a> is helping Nepal and India to upgrade conservation efforts and to spread awareness about river pollution. In Nepal, WWF has supported a dolphin census and monitored their population, while also adivising the national and local governments about their conservation.

Freshwater dolphins make comeback in Nepal

One smoggy winter morning in February 2019, Ekta regretted coming to her sculpture class. It was the first day of her period, and the 19-year-old wished she was home, curled up in bed with a hot water bag to soothe her cramps.
Her class was at Kalapremi Ceramic Studio, a dark room on the ground floor of a house in Maharajganj, and Ekta’s teacher was the artist Gopal Das Shrestha ‘Kalapremi’, a noted sculptor.
Two other students were already there, using all their muscle strength to knead the sculpting clay. Ekta, now 24, recalls how Kalapremi asked her if she was feeling all right. She avoided him, as she did not want everyone to know she was menstruating.
Kalapremi repeatedly asked Ekta what was wrong. She finally muttered that she was having her period, after which he grabbed her hand and led her to a partitioned corner of the studio and sat her on a chair. Before she could stop him, he slid his hand under her dress, and started massaging her abdomen.
“I was horrified,” Ekta recalls. “I told him to stop, but he didn’t listen, asking me not to be shy, saying he knew how to relieve my pain. He stopped only after I protested furiously.”&nbsp;
The art tutor then said, “You’re like my daughter. I’m doing it out of love to make you feel better, but you’re so stubborn.”&nbsp;
“Instead of saying sorry he acted like I was the one having crazy thoughts,” remembers Ekta, adding that from April 2016 to August 2020 beginning the time she was 16, the artist sexually abused and harassed her on several occasions. &nbsp;
Now, Ekta and the artist’s other former students are finally sharing their experiences and some are pressing legal charges against him, hoping that others do not have to endure what they did.&nbsp;
Award-winning artist and teacher Gopal Das Shrestha ‘Kalapremi’ (the name means ‘Art Lover’) is known for his ceramic art, sculpture, and contemporary pottery. He was <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/review/the-house-of-kalapremi">profiled in Nepali Times after a collaborative exhibition</a>, ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ at the Siddhartha Art Gallery three years ago.&nbsp;
His pieces, titled Gaalis, featured sculpted female figures with the heads of dogs, sheep, and donkeys (pictured) to depict derogatory terms for women. Some critics said the collection was a satire on feminists.
Kalapremi started his artistic and teaching career in 1983 and over the years taught at Bhanubhakta School, Kathmandu University School of Arts, Lalitkala Campus and at his private Kalapremi Ceramic Studio. He has also lectured at Jeonju University in South Korea and recently at Tabor Academy in the United States.
Seven of Kalapremi’s former students were interviewed for this story. Five female students said he touched them inappropriately in his studio or at Kathmandu University. Two male students said they witnessed him abuse and harass the women. In all cases, the students struggled to recognise the abuse when it occurred, and the lack of reporting systems left them to cope on their own for years.&nbsp;
Earlier this year, students shared a social media post hinting at Kalapremi’s history of abusive behaviour following which more students of the artist reached out sharing similar experiences. Some students spoke of abuse that happened as long as 20 years ago.
Kalapremi, 60, has denied the allegations. He told Nepali Times: “Some years ago, there was a movement encouraging people to hug and kiss. I used to do it purely out of friendship and love. But after seeing posts on social media last year calling out my behaviour, I realised my actions may have hurt some people. I understand now that I should have been more mindful.”
He added: “I am also an auxiliary health worker, so I know the exact points to massage to relieve menstrual pain. It’s not just menstruation, I take anyone who is ill to the hospital.”
Sexual abuse is much more rampant than reported given how difficult it is to prove it in court. The law defines sexual abuse as occuring when someone touches another’s private parts, coerces them into touching theirs, uses vulgar language, shows degrading images, or behaves indecently towards them without consent.&nbsp;
Ekta and her fellow students are consulting lawyer Suneeta Regmi Pokhrel, who says they know that even if the court decides in their favour, it is difficult to survive after speaking up, and influential men defend themselves saying they are being framed.&nbsp;
“They are in a lot of pain and weep when recalling how he abused them,” Regmi Pokhrel told us. “They are angry and have filed a case against him, but they are also terrified. They know he is a powerful man and they have seen how our society treats women who speak up against abusers. Unless people speak up, perpetrators will be emboldened.”
Art and academia in Nepal simply reflect the power imbalances in society where people with intersecting identities experience worse forms of abuse. Theatre actors Raj Kumar Pudasaini, Rajan Khatiwada, and Sunil Pokhrel were called out during the #MeToo movement in the Nepali theatre scene in 2019. Even after the allegations Pokhrel went on to receive national awards, while others continued to work without repercussions.
“If you speak up against abusers, you gradually get sidelined from projects,” explained a theatre artist who wished anonymity fearing professional setbacks. “The theatre scene in Nepal is quite small, you just have to make peace with the perpetrators and work with them if you want to sustain yourself.”&nbsp;
In academia there is a history of faculty members sexually harassing students and getting away with it. After Tribhuvan University (TU) lecturer Krishna Bhattachan was accused of harassing women students, the university said it would follow Nepal’s sexual harassment law and set up a reporting mechanism. But nothing happened to the professor, who had already retired. Instead, he counter-accused the students of 'attacking the indigenous people’s movement with baseless allegations' as <a href="https://kathmandupost.com/letters/2019/01/29/bhattachan-responds">he told the Kathmandu Post in 2019</a>. He continues to be featured as a prominent speaker including at TU.
Other faculty members previously accused of sexual harassment include Jagadish Murti Koirala from TU, Bishnu Prasad Acharya from Ratna Rajya Campus, and Bodha Raj Tripathee from Lalitpur Madhyamik Vidhyalaya. A woman staff member from TU also filed a sexual abuse complaint against Dambar Chemjong from TU.
Prominent figures like <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/the-rise-and-fall-of-nims-purja">mountaineer Nims Purja</a> have been <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/31/sports/mountaineering-sexual-harassment-abuse-nims-purja.html">accused of sexual assault</a>, and cricketer Sandeep Lamichhane, actor <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/celebrity-rape-case-spotlights-nepal-laws">Paul Shah</a>, and former speaker of Parliament <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/mahara-arrested">Krishna Bahadur Mahara</a> have been accused of rape, but society-at-large has let off the alleged perpetrators amdist a larger debate about justice for survivors and punishment of perpetrators.&nbsp;
‘Gaushala-26’ is the court name given to the 18-year-old who accused Sandeep Lamichhane, former captain of Nepal’s national cricket team and skipper of Biratnagar Kings in the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/here-comes-the-nepal-premier-league">ongoing Nepal Premier League</a>, of rape. She left the country citing society questioning her character affecting her mental health while Lamichhane got an outpouring of support. In May, the Patan High Court overturned a prior verdict that found Lamichhane guilty of rape and had sentenced him to eight years in prison. During the 23-month legal battle to pursue justice, Gaushala-26 faced threats of gang rape and acid attacks.&nbsp;
Exhausted by the struggle, Gaushala-26 sought to “move to a new world” where she could live free without hiding her identity.
Actress Samragyee Rajya Laxmi Shah in an Instagram video now deleted detailed the harassment she faced from a filmmaker during a movie shoot. She did not name any name but veteran actor Bhuwan KC filed a defamation case against Rana, but the court ruled that the charge lacked sufficient evidence.&nbsp;
Former Kathmandu mayor <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/theytoo">Keshav Sthapit also mocked the #MeToo movement</a>, calling accusations against him by journalists Rashmila Prajapati and Ujjwala Maharjan “a rape of men’s rights”.
Serial Abuse
Back at the Kalapremi Ceramics studio, another former student, 24-year-old Rajiv, says he felt the need to speak out after seeing his female classmates being abused.&nbsp;
“He frequently kissed them on their cheeks,” he told Nepali Times. “Whenever they walked into the studio he flailed his arms like a child asking for a hug. They awkwardly hugged him from the side, but he pulled them closer, held their chin, and kissed their cheeks.”&nbsp;
Rajiv says he also saw Kalapremi pull the women’s bra straps, touch their breasts, and slap their buttocks. The young students would freeze, not knowing how to react, and if they protested, he would say it was “normal in art”. Rajiv, 19 at the time like his classmates, remembers thinking perhaps the well-respected artist was right after all.
Another student, Luna, who took lessons at Kalapremi’s studio from 2020 to 2022 did try to confront the tutor after he made an obscene proposal to her. She recalls: “One day when the other students had left the studio and it was just the two of us, he told me that God had given him special artistic talent and he could transfer those powers to me. But to do that both of us will have to be naked, inside a dark room, and have sex.”
Luna, who was 18 then, was livid and told him she did not want any of his powers, but she says he laughed at her as if he was joking. She did not tell her family about the incident because she thought no one would believe her.&nbsp;
“They were all in awe of this famous artist and felt I should be grateful that to be learning sculpting from him,” she says. “I was scared to be alone with him in case he talked about sex again. My coping mechanism was to be rude so he wouldn’t try to come close to me.”
Seeing how some classmates were standing up to Kalapremi, Ekta too tried to push back against his advances, but she said he found ways to coerce her. Since Ekta, Rajiv, and Luna could not afford Kalapremi’s Rs30,000 monthly fee for lessons, he had offered them all a stipend to assist him in the studio.
“He had spondylosis and took me to his therapy sessions to learn massage techniques, then he often made me and other students massage him,” says Ekta. Whenever she refused, he would feign pain to make her feel sorry for him. “He would insist that I put my hands under his shirt so that I could massage him better,” she adds.
The art tutor often tried to “seduce sympathy” from Ekta by sharing how he had never been loved as a child and was “sexually frustrated” as an adult.&nbsp;
“At 7PM, he would pour himself Signature whiskey and immediately go off again about how he was sex-starved. I didn’t know how to respond. It took me time to realise alcohol was just an excuse to talk about sex,” Ekta says.
If convicted, Kalapremi could face financial penalty and/or a prison sentence of up to three years according to Section 224 of National Penal (Code) Act 2017.&nbsp;
Data suggests that victims of child sexual abuse on average take nearly 24 years to tell someone about their trauma, and some may never disclose it at all.&nbsp;
“In our culture, children are rarely taught about boundaries. They often react, show anger when adults pinch their cheeks. But adults insist they did it out of love, and force the children to accept it,” says Sita Lama, a psychotherapist at Manka Kura. “And even when someone touches them inappropriately they struggle to identify and verbalise it.”
When perpetrators claim to be “acting out of love”, Lama says survivors are likely to perceive it as something safe, rather than recognising it as abuse.&nbsp;
“It may take years for them to realise they were abused,” she explains. "And even when they become aware, the power imbalance with the abuser and the associated shame often prevents survivors from speaking up."
Other former students from the School of Art at Kathmandu University have also come forward years later, saying Kalapremi sexually abused them. As young adults, they felt his behaviour was off but were uncertain if it was inappropriate, illegal, or they did not know how to respond. After having understood that it was indeed abuse, they say they are speaking out now to protect others.&nbsp;
Amina Singh, a visiting faculty member at Kathmandu University, says there is no clause against sexual abuse in contracts of teachers, and there is no formal grievance handling mechanism for the students.&nbsp;
“So the only way students can to deal with sexual abuse is approach someone they trust,” she says.
Eight other former art students of Lalit Kala Campus and Srijana College of Fine Arts of Tribhuvan University and other private art studios in Kathmandu say they were also sexually abused by their art teachers. Three faculty members interviewed from these institutions said they saw the abuse, but felt it was futile to report it given how powerful the teachers were.
In the absence of a formal system, some longtime women artists warned each other about “problematic” artists. They shared &nbsp;a “heads-up” to be more cautious when collaborating with them, and avoided responding to their calls and texts after work hours.
To ensure art institutions are safe for all, galleries, museums, artist studios, and smaller art spaces need to develop policies on sexual harassment. This would include a code of conduct or studio policies that hold the leadership accountable and outline the principles of professional ethics.&nbsp;
Students and employees should inquire about accountability mechanisms for raising concerns, both formally and informally, advocates say.
Three years after Ekta left the ceramics studio, she learnt that Kalapremi had harassed many other women. Still trying to get a footing in the art industry, she attended a workshop in Kathmandu where women artists discussed ways to stay safe in the art sector.&nbsp;
Since it was a close-knit group Ekta opened up about how she felt violated and realised she was not alone, he had been abusing underprivileged students for years, and this was common knowledge among artists in Nepal.
Ekta says that even after she quit, Kalapremi continued sending her text messages like ‘I am thinking of you’, ‘Why have you stopped speaking with me’, or ‘I am waiting for your call’.&nbsp;
But what really forced her to act was when Ekta found out that he was sending similar texts to her younger sister.&nbsp;
“I’ve had enough,” she told us. “He abused me all these years but I won’t let him abuse my sister.” &nbsp;
Ekta, Rajiv and Luna are not the real names of the students.&nbsp;

‘Art Lover’ accused of sexual abuse

It was 8:15 in the evening of 25 March 1968 when everyone in the village of Batulechaur near Pokhara heard a deafening sound like thunder as a bright flashing object hurtled down to land in a field.&nbsp; That field belonged to Kul Timilsina, and the next morning he retrieved a sheet of metal about 2m by 1m and carried it home with the help of a few others, thinking it would be useful for his buffalo shed.&nbsp; Before he died at age 83 three years ago, Timilsina had told photo archivist Sunil Ulak that the black metal sheet was not rectangular and had rounded corners. There are a few witnesses still alive who have a clear recollection of the object that fell from the sky that night.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024120707128_75cc85aac56b9cc4a77366471f058d7b3eb6868776811b0923845c2d0a61f014.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="2024120707128_75cc85aac56b9cc4a77366471f058d7b3eb6868776811b0923845c2d0a61f014" data-rendition-name="original" width="1170" height="601" loading="lazy" alt="UFO over Pokhara"> <figcaption>The field in Batulechaur belonging to Kul Timilsina where fragments of a flying object fell from the sky in 1968.</figcaption> </figure>  One of them is Timilsina’s wife Gyanu, who was 22 at the time. She had been at home, and remembers hearing the big bang and the sky becoming very bright. “We saw the thing in the field in the morning,” she told us. “It looked like a lid, a covering of some sort. The way it was stuck in the ground, it must have fallen from the sky. We thought we could use it to dry clothes on, and took it home.”&nbsp; Another witness is Kul Narayan Paudel. “I was only eight then. We ran to the field to see what had fallen. It was a four-sided metal sheet. The elders took it away, and I don't know what happened to it.” &nbsp; Ram Bahadur Baniya, a teacher at the local school, says he had heard the sheet had been brought to the school, and later handed over to the Zonal Commissioner at the time, Nanda Prasad Malla. “But that is all hearsay,” he says.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024120707128_0bf207a12063fb8155b3c8d9a00a94887b126380c9e0627527c84cf5e1101f54.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="2024120707128_0bf207a12063fb8155b3c8d9a00a94887b126380c9e0627527c84cf5e1101f54" data-rendition-name="original" width="1170" height="610" loading="lazy" alt="UFO over Pokhara"> <figcaption>Gyanu Timilsina, wife of Kul Timilsina.</figcaption> </figure>  There are two versions of what happened to Kul Timilsina’s metal sheet. One is that an American Peace Corp Volunteer teaching at the nearby Bindyabasini School took it, and another is that it was handed over to the government. Recently declassified Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and US State Department documents from the time say that the US Embassy in Kathmandu tracked down the object two years later and had it shipped back to the US. A telegram from the Department of State and Department of Defense tagged as ‘MOON DUST / Space Fragments’ dated 1 March 1972 stated: ‘1. Restored space fragment will be on board Embassy support flight 115 arriving Kathmandu on or about March 10. Fragment is packed in shipping crate (cargo no. 72-33365) marked in care of DAO.&nbsp; 2. State and Defense representatives examined fragments prior to shipment finding restoration acceptable.’  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241207071212_929d903ee06d41baa4f6040e981cd7c7d7bd75cc9c37c9b617d307fc8538d2df.png" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20241207071212_929d903ee06d41baa4f6040e981cd7c7d7bd75cc9c37c9b617d307fc8538d2df" data-rendition-name="original" width="856" height="568" loading="lazy" alt="UFO over Pokhara"> <figcaption>Declassified CIA documents about the investigation into the object sighted in Pokhara. </figcaption> </figure>  The documents show that the US government, military and intelligence agencies investigated this incident thoroughly when it occurred, and have continued to revisit it ever since, as recently as five years ago. What is even more intriguing is that the object that fell in Pokhara was not the only unidentified space object that fell to earth that year. There were similar sightings of objects falling from the sky in Ladakh, Sikkim and Bhutan between 19 February and 25 March 1968.&nbsp; These mysteries were the subject of a CIA investigation in 1968 titled ‘<a href="https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP81R00560R000100070007-8.pdf">Sighting of Unidentified Flying Objects in Ladakh, Nepal, Sikkim and Bhutan</a>’, and the report is part of the recent online declassification of 800,000 top-secret documents from the period.&nbsp; &nbsp;Although unidentified flying objects (UFOs) have a connotation now of being alien craft, it could be pieces of satellite, missile, rocket or even aircraft. The CIA report documents six sightings in 1968 and quotes local sources as describing all of them having similar characteristics: bright blue or red streaks in the sky accompanied by loud sounds like lightning and thunder and objects falling to the ground. Aside from the metallic object that was found in Batlechaur, there were other items also found nearby in Tallakot, Tureypasal, Armalakot and Maidan. Whatever the object was, it seems to have disintegrated even before it hit the ground.&nbsp; The CIA report records the first sighting on 19 February 1968 in various parts of Sikkim and Olangchung Gola and Ghunsa in eastern Nepal. The light was said to be ‘long and thin’ and giving out ‘green and red light’. &nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241207071212_c3c825027d966a2aedc846970390eebe063957503c7eacc8e01e0517843f9bbb.png" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="20241207071212_c3c825027d966a2aedc846970390eebe063957503c7eacc8e01e0517843f9bbb" data-rendition-name="original" width="892" height="596" loading="lazy" alt="UFO over Pokhara "> </figure>  Two days later on 21 February, a soundless blue object was seen traveling fast across the sky above Thimphu in Bhutan. Then on 4 March there were multiple daytime sightings or white streaks in the sky at Chang La Pass, Fukche and Koyul in Ladakh. There were more sightings in Ladakh on the very day fragments fell near Pokhara on 25 March 1968.&nbsp; After the sightings in Pokhara, rumours started flying in Kathmandu that these were aliens trying to land on Earth, it could be Russian or Chinese spy planes or satellites, and some even say it as a sign from heaven that the end of the world was near. This was at the height of the Cold War. The Russians and Americans were testing their thermonuclear devices as well as intercontinental ballistic missile delivery systems. The Washington-Beijing rapprochement had not yet happened, and China was making quick progress testing atomic bombs. Within two years after its first atomic test, in 1966 China exploded its first hydrogen bomb at the Lop Nur site in Xinjiang, 3,000km to the north from Nepal. After neary six decades, what is still intriguing is that all the sightings within a few months of each other in 1968 were along the Himalayan arc bordering Tibet: from Bhutan, Sikkim Nepal, to Ladakh. The US military intelligence seems to have concluded that this was not a coincidence and there were frequent research trips to the site in Pokhara by American officials in the months after the incident. With the help of the Royal Nepal Army, the region north of Pokhara was thoroughly searched.&nbsp; A confidential memo dated 25 June 1968 by Jerry C Trippy to a ‘Mr Farley’ mentions that the US Air Force’s Foreign Technology Division had decided that the debris could be important because it may be related to a Chinese missile test or a Soviet ‘Vehicle Venik’ rocket.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241207071216_feb5425692dc36b20187de4e4fcc2ce9fd12b6d9e1b8724398e50bcdbf9032fe.jpg" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="20241207071216_feb5425692dc36b20187de4e4fcc2ce9fd12b6d9e1b8724398e50bcdbf9032fe" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="UFO over Pokhara"> </figure>  On 28 August 1968 the US Embassy in Kathmandu sent a letter to Washington DC saying that the object could be of Soviet origin, possibly from when the rocket carrying the ‘Kosmos 208’ satellite re-entered the atmosphere. But why were the fragments falling to earth several weeks apart, and in the same region? No one knows where the metal sheet that Kul Timilsina recovered is now. It was definitely packed in a crate and taken to the US, and although it is rumoured that it was returned that is not very likely. Archivist Sunil Ulak heard from the Timilsina family that CIA officials had returned to the site five years ago. &nbsp; Interest in UFOs peaked in the US in the 1950s, with the Cold War space race and tests of atomic weapons and delivery rockets. CIA and scientists were being sent to investigate sightings, both publicly and privately. Could the Pokhara fragments as well as the sightings in Ladakh and Bhutan actually be alien craft falling to earth? The renewal in interest in space travel in large part due to Elon Musk’s SpaceX, UFOs and sightings are again subjects of public interest.&nbsp; Even 57 years later, even if there was definitive proof about whether the Batlechaur fragment was from a Chinese missile or a soviet rocket, it has not been made public in documents declassified so far. We may never know.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241207071216_b6938795f40731e7657fd6dcbb3cf460a326186a15eb11d4f832f602201ff598.jpg" data-media-id="editor_6" data-image-id="20241207071216_b6938795f40731e7657fd6dcbb3cf460a326186a15eb11d4f832f602201ff598" data-rendition-name="original" width="642" height="320" loading="lazy" alt="UFO over Pokhara"> </figure>  Sunil Ulak speculates if the debris actually came from an American aircraft, perhaps on an intel mission upon China. “Which could explain why they were so thorough in collecting the fragments in Pokhara,” he says. But that still does not explain the multiple sightings weeks apart in 1968.&nbsp; Indeed, US military aircraft were at that time flying frequent night-time missions from air force bases in India to supply weapons to Khampa guerrilla camps in Nepal located north of Pokhara in Mustang. It could very well be that the Chinese shot down one such aircraft. The other sightings could have been contrails of US spy planes, or Chinese anti-aircraft missiles.&nbsp; There were quite a few developments regarding UFOs in 2024. In a US congressional hearing in July, former intelligence officer David Grusch claimed that the government had long been involved in a program to investigate and retrieve non-human craft crashes, and then try to reverse engineer them. However Grusch did not show any evidence.&nbsp; The UAP Disclosure Act of 2024 was signed into law by Joe Biden in December 2023. It plans to oversee the public disclosure of UFO information. However, there is a clause in it that prevents disclosure if it would cause threats to military defense, intelligence operations or foreign relations.&nbsp; It is unlikely that the declassified documents about sightings in the Himalayan will cause any real surprise about definite evidence of alien life even if it was found. It seems humanity will continue, at least for now, to wonder about curious lights in the sky and whether there is anybody out there.&nbsp;

UFO over Pokhara

When Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) president Rabi Lamichhane was arrested in October on charges of defrauding depositors of cooperatives, the party’s vice president Swarnim Wagle gifted him Fareed Zakaria’s book, Age of Revolutions.
Since then, Lamichhane has been shunted around from Kathmandu to Pokhara to Chitwan and back to Pokhara to attend police investigations and court proceedings. He was being flown to Birganj via Kathmandu on Buddha Air on Monday. There is another pending case in Janakpur.
Human rights groups and civil society have criticised the government for hounding Lamichhane with inhumane treatment that borders on physical torture. The two parties in the coalition, Nepali Congress (NC) and the UML, see Lamichhane’s RSP as a potentially formidable challenge to their power.
Even if the fraud charges against Lamichhane are true, the Nepali public is increasingly looking at the government’s actions through the police and courts as political vendetta.
Despite all the travelling, sometimes by plane and often by road at night, Lamichhane appears to be in high spirits, waving to supporters who often gather if they know he is going to be driven around. A social media video shows him giving high fives to fellow passengers on a recent flight to Pokhara.&nbsp;
In the past weeks, streets in Pokhara have erupted with parallel protests by Lamichhane’s supporters as well as depositors of cooperatives who lost their savings to the scam.&nbsp;
Although family visits are allowed, prison officials in Pokhara told Nepali Times that not many people visit Lamichhane these days. He added, “When he does get visitors, he asks them to bring him books.”
Lamichhane is currently Nepal’s most high-profile public figure in custody, and highlights the stark difference between how influential prisoners are treated compared to ordinary inmates.
There are six prison cells at Kaski District Police Office’s two-story detention centre, three on each floor. And while authorities pack prisoners into already overcrowded cells, Lamichhane has an entire room on the second floor to himself.&nbsp;
He has also been allowed to call his family every few days. Other prisoners are not permitted phone calls except for emergencies.
Meanwhile, Lamichhane’s former business partner Chhabilal Joshi, an ex-Deputy Inspector General of Police with whom he established his Gorkha Media Network, is in custody under the same charges in the prison cell next to him.
Lamichhane is accused of siphoning off depositors' money to the tv network in which he was part-owner and anchor. &nbsp;
Both Lamichhane and Joshi are able to buy food from the police canteen instead of being served the regular meal like other prisoners. Joshi has also given his statement to authorities in Rupandehi and Kathmandu for his alleged role in the scam. Lamichhane is yet to be presented in Kathmandu for questioning.
While he was in custody at the Kathmandu District Police Complex, Joshi expressed his desire to sleep in a police officer’s office, reportedly assuring authorities that he would not run away and he was entitled to certain facilities as a former officer of the law.
“He seemed to be under the impression that he is still a police officer,” says a source at the Kathmandu District Police. “We made it clear to him that as someone accused of a crime, he was not entitled to special treatment.”
Former ministers Balkrishna Khand and Top Bahadur Rayamajhi, and ex-home secretary Tek Narayan Pandey, who were arrested in connection with the fake refugee scam last year, were similarly housed in the offices of law enforcement officials instead of prison cells. Khand has since been released after six months in jail.
While there is no legal provision to keep high-ranking officials in separate detention centres when they are arrested, authorities granting them special facilities is not uncommon. Law enforcement officials say VIP detainees expect preferential treatment while in police custody.
Among those is former Kosi Province minister Lila Ballav Adhikari, who was arrested from Biratnagar on 10 November over his alleged involvement in human trafficking and brought to Kathmandu. Adhikari had flown to Japan without government approval with three individuals on 29 October to attend a cultural conference, but had been sent back to Nepal from Narita.&nbsp;
His three companions were arrested at Kathmandu airport upon their arrival, but Adhikari was able to exit unscathed from the VIP lounge. Adhikari had resigned as the Kosi Province Minister for Internal Affairs and Law when it became public that his companions had been taken into custody, and was himself arrested shortly after. He has since been cleared by the courts.
Throughout his detention, Adhikari was kept separately from other inmates. Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Basant Rajouri, head of the Bhadrakali complex, says that while there is no separate detention area for VIPs, some detainees are kept separately depending on the nature of their crime.
However, sources say that arrangements were made for retired judges and others to visit Adhikari frequently worked at the office of a Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) during his time in custody.&nbsp;
“He used to constantly pester the authorities to let him sit outside in the sun, and to be able to use the police officer’s shower area,” added an officer.
Adhikari was released on 25 November after the government prosecutor’s office decided not to charge him in a move that was seen to expose the government’s double standards.
Over at Kathmandu’s Dilli Bazar Prison, former Kist Bank CEO Kamal Gyawali emerges from his prison cell into the courtyard of the prison’s ‘Ka (क)’ block every morning with a thick book in his hands, ready to give his daily sermon.
With his long beard, Gyawali, who is serving a prison sentence for banking fraud, looks the part of a religious guru as he implores his rapt listeners to “walk the right path, abandon bad thoughts and turn to scripture and spirituality”.&nbsp;
Afterward, the attendees gather to discuss politics and current affairs. Inmates at his daily sermons at the prison include other high-profile detainees, including former MP Ichchha Raj Tamang, who is in jail for money laundering and cooperatives fraud, former joint secretary Chudamani Sharma, who was convicted of corruption, as well as NC leader Chandra Bahadur Lama and Krishna Bahadur Upreti of the UML both of whom are on trial for embezzling billions of rupees.
Victims of the cooperatives scam that former lawmaker Tamang was involved in have made trips to the prison and requested visits, but he has refused to meet with any of them.
“Tamang often complains that the state has prevented him from returning the money to the victims by locking him up,” says a police officer at the Dili Bazar jail.
“All you hear every day from the VIP prisoners is that they have been framed,” adds the officer. “No one admits that they were involved in misdeeds.”
But while most high-profile prisoners complain about prison conditions, one exception is former provincial lawmaker Deepak Manange, who is serving a sentence at Dilli Bazar Jail for attempted murder.
“He is the happiest prisoner here,” says a warden. “Unlike the others, he doesn’t claim to have been framed, in fact he doesn’t seem to care that he is in prison.”
Manange is detained in the ‘Kha (ख)’ block of the prison complex, which he renovated at his own expense. The block previously housed female prisoners, but Manange used his influence to transfer them elsewhere. He faces no shortage of visitors, who range from political leaders to people from the underworld.
Along with Manange, other well-known prisoners in this block include Nepal Telecom Managing Director Sunil Poudel, and former executive director of the Surakshan Printing Centre Bikal Poudel, who are serving time for corruption.
Former prisoners at Dilli Bazar prison include ex-ministers Khum Bahadur Khadka and Shyam Sundar Gupta, NC leader Ganesh Lama, Maoist MP Balkrishna Dhungel, Nagarik Unmukti Party leader Resham Chaudhary, as well as former IGs Ramesh Chand Thakuri, Om Bikram Rana, and Hem Bahadur Gurung.
Section 54 of Nepal’s Prison Act assigns each prison’s internal administration the
responsibility of governing its prisoners, which means the more favourable the jail management is, the more comfortable it is for prisoners.
Dilli Bazar prison has been the prison of choice for many high-ranking prisoners, especially those convicted of white collar crimes, due to its more accommodating administrators. The prison, which has the capacity to house 700 inmates, is also less crowded than other jails.
Anuj Bhattarai, spokesperson of the Department of Prison Management, says that there is no legal classification in Nepal for felons to be assigned prisons based on the nature of their crimes.
“That Dilli Bazar Jail has a higher number of prisoners convicted of crimes like corruption is most likely a coincidence,” says Bhattarai. “There is no provision for influential people to be able to choose where they will be incarcerated.”&nbsp;
Translated by Shristi Karki from the Nepali original published in himalkhabar.com

What Nepal’s VIP prisoners do in jail

If you were raised in Nepal, you must have picked up its unique set of vocabulary: आन्दोलन, चक्का जाम, बन्द, राँके जुलुस, आफ्नो मान्छे, हाम्रो दल, कर्फु and many more words connoting political protest.
We became familiar with the acrid smell of burning tyres, and eyes smarting from tear gas. And yet, everyone speaks of another revolution in the making. Not by desire, but by suffocation.
We heard speeches about नयाँ नेपाल, but the New Nepal never arrived. The governance system changed, but it did not reflect on people’s lives — except for those close to centres of power. The state is still unreachable and is not bothered about <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/matter-of-life-and-debt">victims of loan sharks</a>, cooperative scams and other injustices.
Politicians continue to speak in sound bites, but fail to deliver. They have mastered the game of pointing fingers towards an external enemy and convincing people that they are never at fault. The political narrative is so disconnected from the actual analysis of the problem that suffocation doesn’t go away after every revolution.
No genuine effort has been made to deliver at all, which is why there is a palpable sense of disillusionment in the air forcing us to seek another revolution, even if Nepal may not be able to afford it.
How has the current system successfully held power, even if the public is deeply frustrated? How is it that for three decades we continue to be led by the same faces, who have time and again, proved to us that they may be great politicians but not national leaders?
<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/improving-internet-governance-in-nepal">My experience at the epicentre of politics</a> has led me to identify three cultures that have enabled political parties to keep a tight hold on power: acceptance, silence and dependency.
We accept things the way they are. We use fatalistic phrases like “नेपालमा यस्तै हो” or “नेपालको कानुन दैब जानुन”. While this resilience enables us to rise back up from devastating calamities, it is also a reason for our compliance with the status quo.
Despite so many ‘revolutions’ that have led to significant reforms, these phrases keep getting reinforced, to the point that the upcoming generations have made it their lingo.&nbsp;
This acceptance is not a symbol of law-abiding citizens, but citizens living in fear of those in power, unable to ask the whys and why-nots.
Innovation suffocates in this culture of acceptance of the status quo. This is manifested in remarks like “but we don’t have any laws for this,” or “we don’t have the capacity to implement this”. An innovator or entrepreneur therefore has to spend that energy to become a political lobbyist, often educating and convincing the bureaucracy.&nbsp;
Remember when locally assembled <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/designed-and-made-in-nepal">Yatri motorbikes</a>, despite having willing customers, had to suffer to secure license numbers because of a lack of regulations? Instead of creating new laws, the government kept chanting the “We will promote Nepal-made goods” mantra, leaving entrepreneurs in a labyrinth of bureaucracy. The weight of acceptance of the law lies heavily on innovators. Fatalism is a tactic used by those in power to generate mass fear in society.
When we accept, we become silent. This is a pervasive phenomenon. We are trained to keep quiet, lest we ruffle feathers, burn bridges, or not get the help we need in future. We know, yet we don’t speak.
Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/bureaucratic-hurdles-in-researching-nepals-bureaucracy">Bureaucratic hurdles in researching Nepal's bureaucracy</a>, Daniel W Edwards
Here is one example: the 2021 census shows that the number of baby boys born for every 100 baby girls is 112. This is a clear indication of female foeticide because of boy preference in society.
Despite such horrifying realities, there is finger-pointing within the government between the Ministry of Health and Population with the Ministry of Home Affairs. At the citizen level, we know those who are involved in killing girls. Yet, we don’t speak up. The Nepal Medical Council reports state that despite this gender imbalance at birth, there is no indication of any action.
But why would anyone speak against one's own fraternity, no matter how vile the act is?
When we accept and keep quiet, we become dependent on those who yield power. From getting our government procedure completed on time to getting transfers, to accessing any of our legally protected rights as well, we are forced to depend on our networks of चिनेको मान्छे people we know by blood, village, relations, political affiliation.
The culture of dependency has been the established way in Nepal. If you drive a two-wheeler or four-wheeler, and you get into a small accident, you will be asked to sort it yourself, dialing up the most powerful person you know. It becomes a competition of who knows who.
Recently I was told that there were calls from the Ministry of Health and Population and another from the Prime Minister's Office for just one medical position in a private hospital. Each was pushing its own candidate. Guess which candidate got the position.&nbsp;
The dependency of people is not on the laws or the state, it is with people in power, a reliance on the network of somebody who knows somebody, including those not officially in power.
These cultures are deeply ingrained in our heads, and in society. Collectively they form a vicious circle that helps those in power to retain power. This is not the society we want to live in.
Then, what do we do as a collective to break away from this? How do we break away from the cultures of acceptance and silence that have created this dependency? What can we do to ensure that our children do not have to learn the jargon of आन्दोलन before they learn about the state?
These are the cultures political parties need to shed rather than use them to perpetuate their power. This is what <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/comment/an-alternative-to-alternative-politics-in-nepal">alternative politics</a> needs to be about.
Sumana Shrestha is a member of Parliament’s Education, Health and Information Technology parliamentary committee and represents the Rastriya Swatantara Party.

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