Conserving Earth

That WWF, the international wildlife organisation, has chosen Kathmandu as the venue for its 39th annual conference, also speaks of the recognition Nepal gets on the international arena for the good work on the conservation front. It is not without reason that Nepal gets world attention as a repository of rich flora and fauna. It has 5000 flowering plants of which 246 are endemic to Nepal. Nepal sets aside a huge chunk of its land as national parks and reserves, one of the highest in the world compared to its land size. The protected areas have demonstrated some notable achievements in the revival of fauna. One of such imported protected areas is Royal Bardiya National Park in the western part of the country. Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala Tuesday declared the extension area of the Bardiya Park as a Gift to the Earth in support of World Wildlife Fund’s Living Planet Campaign. The announcement stands for an official commitment to give more protection to wildlife and better watershed management in the fragile Churia hills in western Nepal. The Bardiya area is a significant zone that is home to rich flora and fauna. The gifted extension area of the Baridya park, for instance, is home to eight types of ecosystems that contain 124 species of trees supporting 34 species of mammals and over 300 birds. That is a lot of floral and faunal species in a size of about 900 square kilometres.

Its significance also lies in the fact that the extension area will link 11 prime wildlife habitats in Nepal and India known as the Terai Arc. Thus, it is appropriate that, in today’s dedication of sacred gifts for a living planet, the extension area of Bardiya Park will be included. The dedication will be done amidst the gathering of followers from different faiths around the world who will declare preservation and promotion of global environment in the new millennium amidst a special function in Bhaktapur Durbar Square. As so aptly put by His Royal Highness Prince Gyanendra, in his keynote address during the plenary session of the conference Tuesday, the ceremony signifies the active involvement and ocncerns of all major faiths in our campaign to build a safer and sustainable world. He stated that with billions of followers and a network of educational institutions and resourceful endowments, religious establisments possess enormous potentials to give a boost to the conservation movement. The potentials must be seized by conservationists and religious leaders, wherever they may be working, to strengthen the movement to conserve what is left of the Earth’s floral and faunal treasures.

Laudable Initiative

MISUSE of development funds is one of the reasons why development process leaves much to be desired in our country. It has been an often-voiced complaint on part of the donor agencies and also the explanation behind some donor apprehension that we witness today. Absence of involvement of civil society in monitoring of the development work being carried out both by government and non-government agencies can also be cited as one of the reasons behind the lack of accountability on part of the officials of such implementing agencies. Very often it is not only the poor quality of performance of development projects, but also the inappropriateness and inadequacy of such projects that fail to address the real needs of people and deliver the proper development objectives. The latest initiative of the District Administration Office in Dhanusha to monitor development being carried out in the district must be lauded as an innovative one. The CDO in that district has begun a programme through twenty centres where people from one hundred and one VDCs across Dhanusha can lodge complaints related to development work being carried out in their area. Such feedback coming from the people themselves who are the primary stakeholders ensures constructive involvement of the civil society in development work that is meant for the people. This door to door programme, if launched with seriousness, can certainly help the objective of preventing misuse of funds made available for rural development and sounding out people on their problems and grievances. It can prove to be an effective tool to identify the dire needs that the rural areas face. If other District Administration offices also took it upon themselves to show such action where the people are the centre of their concern and follow suit, positive results in a few months time can be anticipated. The reason why development funds has been misutilised or under-utilised is because of the weakness of internal machinery of the government—herein, the bureaucracy. Therefore, the Dhanusha district Office must also keep an efficient record of its work and be organised in its efforts to prepare a report which will prove to be useful for the government as well as the funding agencies. Or else this initiative too may just prove to be another hype that is merely a publicity stunt.