Preparing For XI

IT was beginning to feel like South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) was in for an open-ended hibernation. Ever since the eleventh edition of the SAARC summit scheduled to be held in Kathmandu in late 1999 was called off following protestations from India after a military takeover in Pakistan, nobody was any wise about when the heads of state of government of this region would meet. No doubt, some diplomatic moves were on behind the scene, but for them to succeed time was a necessary element that would bring the level of antagonism a few notches down. That seems to have happened. Sri Lanka, the current chairman of the South Asian seven, confirmed on Sunday that the summit was taking place early January next year. Though it is never easy to predict what international or regional developments take place in these highly volatile times where close to the region a war is on, the summit seems set for the first week of the next year.

Nepal as a host country and the next chairman of the combine has to gear up for the summit as swiftly as possible. Less than two months remain and a lot of things need to be done to fully prepare for a successful staging of the meeting. The National Main Committee, set up last September to supervise the spadework for holding the summit, had its first meet Monday under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba. Various committees looking after separate components like foreign, finance, security, transport, road, conference, venue, publicity, coordination, implementation and supervision have been formed. At the meeting, the Prime minister gave directives to concerned government Ministries to undertake the designated tasks speedily. Logistics naturally become a chief concern for any host country. But in playing host to the other six, it also becomes to some extent Nepal’s obligation to make sure that the long-delayed summit produces results. Though endorsement of a Social Charter and establishment of South Asia Free Trade Area are two of the major issues that the leaders will deal with, it is equally important that an atmosphere is created to allow some regional consensus with regard to international issues like WTO regime. Regional peace is another area which should also be on the agenda, formal or informal. Because without peace, all the tall talks about economic and social development of the one-plus billion people of the region will come to nought. When they meet next January, some 16 years will have gone by since the birth of the regional forum in 1985. It is high time the regional grouping seriously got down to work.

Conservation Partnership

AT a steering committee meet held recently between the Ministry of Forest and Soil Conservation and the World Wildlife Fund-Nepal Programme on Supplementary Agreement that was signed earlier, strong emphasis was placed on sustaining the conservation efforts and continued partnership between the two signatories. Ever since Nepal’s population registered a rise, it has been caught in an excruciating biodiversity conservation dilemma. The yearly rise in the population has forced the people who are mostly farmers to turn marginal lands or the existing forests into farmlands to meet their daily hand-to-mouth problem. Apart from this, the intense search for farmlands has even led to the people, particularly those in the hilly and mountainous areas, to encroach upon lands and forests set aside as wildlife reserves. Needless to point out, such encroachments, despite the concerned conservation authorities’ best efforts to discourage and halt them, seem to be going on relentlessly, thereby putting the government in a bind. For, if on the one hand, good farmlands have already become a premium in the country due to its hilly and mountainous terrain, on the other the people’s penchant for clearing the existing forests or tilling the marginal lands to convert them into farms has jeopardized the nation’s fragile environment. It needs no reiteration here that the nation’s entire ecology is fragile because of the formation and composition of its very terrain. Inspite of all this, the nation, according to ecologists, is home to many unique eco-systems—hence, the urgent need to preserve them for posterity.

However, for a resource-crunched and cash-strapped nation like Nepal, this is proving to be quite a difficult proposition. But dilly-dallying on the part of the concerned conservation authorities could lead to the destruction of its unique eco-systems. Fortunately for the nation, the movement to conserve and protect its fragile yet unique eco-systems is not only gaining ground within the country itself but has also become a global campaign due to the efforts of global conservation organisations like the WWF. As such, if the nation’s unique eco-systems are to be bequeathed to posterity, the government should work closely with regional or global conservation organisations that can chip in with their resources and expertise. In other words, the key mantra to protect and preserve the nation’s unique eco-systems for posterity is for the government to go into partnership with local and foreign conservation organisations.