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  • News Recognition from UN for Nepal’s tiger range restoration opens doors for technical and financial support, news.mongabay.com (Feb 15, 2024)
  • News Climate-resilient millet revived by Indigenous Gurung farmers in Nepal, news.mongabay.com (Jan 01, 2024)

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Climate action[edit | edit source]

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Melting Glaciers
Authors: UN Environment Programme, Nov 3, 2009
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Response to climate change in Nepal has been growing in recent years with an effort to cope with the changing situation and build resilience capacity into adaptation to climate change. In climate induced vulnerability context, Nepal has developed policy level provision such as the National Adaptation Programme of Action to climate change (NAPA). The NAPA document opened the door to act adaptation activities into country. Under the provision of national level policy, the Local Adaptation Plan of Action (LAPA) national framework was devised out by government. It only mentioned the provision of the implementation mechanism at district or village development committee level to act on climate change adaptation. However, this document is still silent on provision of implementation mechanism at community level. Although the framework does not mention adaptation implementation mechanisms at community level, some community level adaptive strategies are being implemented. These strategies are community based adaptation plans for poor and vulnerable communities with less capacity to cope with disasters and are more dependent on natural resources for their livelihoods.

Climate change in Nepal[edit | edit source]

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Globally, Nepal is ranked fourth in terms of vulnerability to climate change. Floods spread across the foothills of the Himalayas and bring landslides, leaving tens of thousands of houses and vast areas of farmland and roads destroyed. In the 2020 edition of Germanwatch's Climate Risk Index, it was judged to be the ninth hardest-hit nation by climate calamities during the period 1999 to 2018. Nepal is a least developed country, with 28.6 percent of the population living in multidimensional poverty. Analysis of trends from 1971 to 2014 by the Department of Hydrology and Meteorology (DHM) shows that the average annual maximum temperature has been increasing by 0.056 °C per year. Precipitation extremes are found to be increasing. A national-level survey on the perception-based survey on climate change reported that locals accurately perceived the shifts in temperature but their perceptions of precipitation change did not converge with the instrumental records. Data reveals that more than 80 percent of property loss due to disasters is attributable to climate hazards, particularly water-related events such as floods, landslides and glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs).

The floods of 2018 spread across the foothills of the Himalayas and brought landslides. They have left tens of thousands of houses and vast areas of farmland and roads destroyed. Nepal experienced flash floods and landslides in August, 2018 across the southern border, amounting to US$600 million in damages. There are reports of land which was once used for growing vegetables, and has become barren. Yak herders struggle to find grazing patches for their animals. Scientists have found that rising temperatures could spread malaria and dengue to new areas of the Himalayas, where mosquitoes have started to appear in the highlands.

Biodiversity[edit | edit source]

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Wildlife diversity is a notable feature of Nepal. Because of the variance in climate, from tropical to arctic, Nepal has a large variety of plants and animals. Wildlife tourism is a major source of tourism in the country. There are some animal species which are unique to Nepal, such as the spiny babbler. Nepal is also host to many rhododendron species. Nepal has numerous national parks and reserves to protect its diverse fauna. Nepal is a biodiversity hot spot with ecoregions broadly comprising the mountainous ecoregion, the savanna and grasslands ecoregion of the terai (foothills), and the Rara Lake ecoregion.

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With the 1973 passing of the National Parks and Wildlife Conservation Act 2029 BS, Nepal has established numerous national parks and reserves in order to protect its fauna. There are four different classes of protection, ranging from national parks and nature reserves to wildlife and hunting reserves. By 1992 Nepal had established seven national parks, protecting in total over 893,200 hectares (3,449 sq mi) of land. Under these classes as of 2002 there were 23 protected areas: nine national parks, three wildlife reserves, three conservation areas, one hunting reserve, three additional Ramsar sites, and four additional World Heritage Sites. The most noted world heritage sites are Sagarmatha National Park and Chitwan National Park. In addition, the World Heritage Site in the Kathmandu Valley covers zones of significant biodiversity.

Trees, woodland and forest[edit | edit source]

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The community forestry program in Nepal is a government effort to reduce forest degradation and to promote sustainable forestry practices as well as to improve the livelihood of the community. It incorporates distinct policies, institutions and practices. The two main goals of the community forestry program is to empower local communities whilst encouraging environmental conservation benefits on the Himalayan forests.

Nepal has become one of the first developing nations to adopt a community forestry management program which gives authority to the community and groups to manage forest resources. As a result, Nepal now stands as one of the leaders in community based forest management as they have made direct progress in halting environmental degradation and by regenerating forests in barren areas. Studies have proven the potential benefits that community forestry will have in combating environmental degradation as well as utilizing resources in a sufficient manner.

Nepal's forest cover is 59,624 km2 (23,021 sq mi), 40.36% of the country's total land area, with an additional 4.38% of scrubland, for a total forested area of 44.74%, an increase of 5% since the turn of the millennium. The country had a 2019 Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 7.23/10, ranking it 45th globally out of 172 countries. W

Resources[edit | edit source]

Community resources[edit | edit source]

Nepal Communitere on facebook, in Kathmandu

News and comment[edit | edit source]

2023

  • News Biodynamic agripreneurs are set to trigger an organic farming trend in Nepal, Global Voices (Feb 10, 2023)

2022

  • News The elephant whisperer of Nepal, Global Voices (May 23, 2022) — Saluting a citizen scientist who protects wild elephants

2018

Empower Generation: Women Are Leading The Energy Revolution In Nepal, Jan 29[1]

2017

Clean Energy Training & Solar Comes To Nepal UNESCO Heritage Site, Jun 10[2]

2009

Nepal: Taking On The Challenge Of Climate Change,[3] September 1. Climate change is a hot topic in Nepal now as studies show that many people in the country are facing hunger due to frequent droughts and melting glaciers are also threatening millions.

2007

Bleak Outlook for Environment in Kathmandu Valley - Concerted Effort Needed to Check Negative Impacts.[4] January 25

About Nepal[edit | edit source]

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Nepal, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is mainly situated in the Himalayas, but also includes parts of the Indo-Gangetic Plain. It borders the Tibet Autonomous Region of China to the north, and India to the south, east, and west, while it is narrowly separated from Bangladesh by the Siliguri Corridor, and from Bhutan by the Indian state of Sikkim. Nepal has a diverse geography, including fertile plains, subalpine forested hills, and eight of the world's ten tallest mountains, including Mount Everest, the highest point on Earth. Kathmandu is the nation's capital and the largest city. Nepal is a multi-ethnic, multi-lingual, multi-religious and multi-cultural state, with Nepali as the official language.

References[edit | edit source]

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Keywords countries
Authors Phil Green
License CC-BY-SA-3.0
Language English (en)
Related 0 subpages, 3 pages link here
Aliases Nepal
Impact 684 page views
Created August 12, 2014 by Phil Green
Modified January 5, 2024 by Phil Green
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