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Law of the jungle
- DATELINE KATHMANDU
JUN 29 -
From the shadow of Mt. Everest, the government of Nepal recently vowed to redouble its efforts to conserve the country’s pristine environment and fragile ecosystems. But all the grandiose plans and pledges remain confined to paper. Recent estimates show a rather shocking picture of the state of the country’s forests: More than 100,000 hectares of forest have been encroached upon in the past two years.
Despite the government’s promises to check the trend, disturbing accounts of illegal logging, trans-boundary timber smuggling and an unholy nexus between local politicians, government officials, community members and traders have continued to pour in from the east to the west, from the hills to the plains. Doesn’t the government have a responsibility to live up to its promises? Can communities, NGOs and other stakeholders remain mute spectators?
For it’s not just the lush green forest cover of the hills and the plains — that garlands the Himalaya protecting the larger ecosystem in the process — that’s at risk. Equally, if not more, at risk is the biodiversity flourishing in that greenery. More specifically, several one-horned Asiatic rhinos have been killed by poachers in the southern parks in recent times. Ironically, the endangered pre-historic animals are protected by national and international laws. If poachers are mowing down protected rhinos with such ease — and getting away with it — the plight of less-cared-for species such as deer and wild boar is anybody’s guess.
Disturbing accounts of brutal attacks on the country’s natural treasure the green forests (hariyo ban Nepalko dhan) have come out in the open just six months after the government held a cabinet meeting at the foot of the world’s highest mountain and attempted to show that it really cares about the environment. Here’s how. On Dec. 4, days before the Copenhagen climate change conference, the cabinet travelled to the Mt. Everest region and vowed to redouble its efforts to protect the environment, while seeking international attention and support to fight the adverse impacts of climate change on the Himalaya.
After a meeting at Kalapatthar, a spectacular setting at 5,542 m against a backdrop of Mt. Everest, the Madhav Kumar Nepal-led cabinet resolved that, inter alia, it would do everything to fight climate change and protect the Himalayan environment, convert Nepal into a carbon neutral economy, increase the forest cover to 40 percent from the current 30 percent and increase the area of the protected area system to 25 percent from the current 18 percent.
Post-Copenhagen, the government has progressed on one front for sure: It has succeeded in forging an alliance with the world’s mountainous countries. United, they can work wonders. For one, they can get the industrialised countries, the polluters, to pay for the losses caused to mountain ecosystems and start conservation efforts anew.
Tall talk again. At Nepal’s ground zero, nothing looks nice. Along with loggers and timber smugglers, wildlife poachers appear to have upped their ante in recent months, taking advantage of the transitional law and order mess in the country. At least seven rhinos have been killed in the heavily-guarded southern Chitwan park in the last three months.
Why is this happening? “Because the government is weak, illegal loggers and poachers are having a free run these days,” said veteran journalist Bhairab Risal who’s active at the Nepal Forum for Environment Journalists (NEFEJ). Without naming anybody, he thinks that the person at the helm of the Ministry of Forest and Soil Conservation doesn’t have a very good track record.
“Money is the main reason,” he said. “If the current trend is not checked, much of our endangered wildlife will be gone, and we’ll have less than 20 percent forest cover left at the end of the next decade.” Right now, Nepal is said to have 29 percent forest cover and 10 percent bush cover, according to a 10-year-old Finnish-funded study. Meantime, a fresh study is in progress, the outcome of which is expected next year.
There’s rumble in the jungle for sure. Incidents of poaching endangered species of fauna — not just the rhino, but also tiger, sloth bear, snow leopard and the common leopard — are on the rise. Yet, most of the protected national parks and wildlife reserves remain a fertile breeding ground for the endangered species. The populations of royal Bengal tigers and rhinos went up significantly after the Chitwan and Bardia national parks were set up some 30 years ago.
Botanist Dr. Tirtha Bahadur Shrestha thinks the current wave of deforestation around the country is strikingly reminiscent of the 1960s and 1970s. Then, after malaria was eliminated, migrants from the hills swarmed into the Tarai belt from the east to the west, and the then governments cleared huge swathes of forests to make room for their “vote banks”.
“The current wave of deforestation seems to be as bad,” he said. “Everybody is running after money. And our Tarai forests fetch a lot of money in the local market as well as in neighbouring India. I don’t think we will be able to protect our forests.”
His prognosis may look bleak. But has the government done anything? At the prodding of the constitutional anti-corruption body, the Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA), the Ministry of Forest has initiated investigations in 15 districts which have recorded massive illegal logging in recent times. Two district forest officers (DFOs) have been sacked so far.
“Yes, there are problems, and we are investigating them,” a ministry official said. “The government alone can’t do anything. Everybody needs to join hands if we are to stop this trend.”
Tail tale: Given the transitional state of affairs, the government may or may not wake up to the crisis, and the communities may or may not wake up and check illegal logging and deforestation. But we at our individual level can at least do something. The monsoon is here. Let’s begin forestation campaigns nationwide, from the hills to the plains. If we can’t do that, we can at least plant a tree, to begin with.
(The author is a BBC correspondent)
Surendra Phuyal
nepal.surendra@gmail.com
Posted on: 2010-06-30 08:30
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