Soil Erosion
High Costs On Agriculture

By Sushil Thapa

SOIL erosion is a natural process of detachment transportation and deposition of soil materials by erosion agents namely water, wind, snow and gravity. The energy from the erosion agents acts upon the soil materials, detach soil particles, entrain them in means of transport , push them away and deposit them elsewhere where the energy of transportation is counteracted.

Classification

Based on the level of human influences erosion can be broadly classified into two groups. Natural or geological soil erosion and, accelerated soil erosion.

Since the natural soil erosion is away from human reach and has slower rate than the rate of soil genesis, it is not taken as the great problem where loss of 0.5 ton of soil/ha/year take place. It removes 1 cm of topsoil in one hundred years. But accelerated soil erosion is due to the effect of human activities like clearance of forest, open grazing system, constructional works, traditional farming system etc. where loss of soil materials takes place at the rate of 60 to 100 mt/ha/year. It removes 1 cm of top soil in one year. The formation of 1cm of soil by soil genesis takes 15-100 years but the same amount of soil is lost in a year. So, soil erosion is responsible for the loss of soil fertility in Nepal.

According to the role played by the major erosion agents, accelerated soil erosion is further divided into four types: Water erosion, wind erosion, glacial erosion and mass movement.

Among them wind erosion and glacial erosion do not play significant role in soil erosion in Nepal but due to its mountainous topography running water and gravitational force work together resulting in massive soil erosion. A combined occurrence of water erosion and mass movement is a typical process of erosion in Nepal.

A mountainous country Nepal has many steep slopes and sloppy terraces where farmers cultivate the land of fulfill their socio-economic needs. Aged, unskilled and ignorant people having no other option of livelihood indulge in agriculture. Similarly, deforestation, slash and burn systems, use of marginal and sloppy land and open grazing system still existing in hills, which in turn contribute to soil erosion.

As the raindrop hitting the earth surface at a velocity of 914 cm/sec can splash the soil particle 61 cm high and 152-cm away, water appears as the main agent of soil erosion. This agent together with above-mentioned causes (wind, glacial and mass movement) results in huge loss of vegetation and bio-diversity. Due to the lack of vegetation and conservation practices water running from top to the bottom of the slopes causes high degree of soil erosion resulting in heavy loss of fertile top soil. Hence, hill agriculture is suffering with low level of input and insignificant output. The majority of the mountainous districts (i.e. 41 districts) have been asserted as food deficit zone of the country. The soil practicles detached and carried away from the hills are usually deposited into the Terai region where destruction of vegetation and productive land and degradation of soil fertility take place. Flooding from hills to Terai is the major reason for deforestation and stream bank erosion. Erosion has also been contributing to the destruction of the infrastructure like road (a terrible problem of Nepal), stream bank, bridges hydroprojects and houses and causes pollution to natural water, disturbance in hydrological cycle and environmental degradation. Ultimately, it results in great harm to human life and civilisation. In short, it can be said that water erosion is one of the major constraints in agricultural development of Nepal. Due consideration needs to be paid for its conservation.

It is highly essential to work hard to tackle with this challenge in order to boost the overall food production of the country, to meet the growing need of the rising population and to make Nepal a prosperious and healthy country. It is the fact that soil is the basis of human life and civilisation the ecosystem and the environment. Soil, water, plants, humans and animals are closely interrelated and interact with each other for their existence. Human intellect tends to understand the nature of this interaction for the conservation of these valuable natural assets without causing negative impacts on the environment. Soil is, as a precious asset naturally synthesised in the course of a long period. From the past experiences it seems that we need to concentrate our teaching research, and extention works on the field of "soil conservation practices."

Although, it is not possible to bring soil loss to zero level but the objective of the soil/water conservation should be to minimise the soil loss to the possible lowest level. To meet this goal the farmers need to be provided with practical education that include mechanical methods of conservation, biological methods of conservation and bioengineering methods of conservation.

Method

Mechanical works, include the construction of terraces, hillside ditches, soil trap, check dam, spillways and good drainage system. This method prevents erosion by decreasing the velocity of running water. Biological method includes planting of vegetation like green manuring and covers crops, mulching contour cultivation, strip cropping , agro-foresty, etc. This method prevents the water erosion by filtering the turbid water, decreasing the surface runoff, binding the soil, increasing the rate of infiltration and covering the soil surface. Similarly, bioengineering method is the integration of both mechanical and biological methods as far as practicable. In addition, the education must encourage them to apply new systems of cropping like rotational cropping, mixed cropping, inter cropping, multiple cropping etc. The new technology of agriculture should be introduced to the hills as far as possible. The existing traditional/indigenous method of farming should be improved.

Study Offers Kiss Of Life To Orang Utan

By P. Parameswaran

FACED with extinction, the Orang Utan is showing unprecedented signs it can survive and breed in secondary forests outside its natural habitat of virgin jungles, initial results of a groundbreaking study by French scientists show.

The findings by primatologists of French non-governmental organisation, "Hutan" (Forest), in the thick jungles of Malaysia’s Sabah state in Borneo offer a kiss of life to the great ape-man’s closest relative.

Warning

Experts in Indonesia recently warned that the Orang Utan will be extinct within a decade due to rapid depletion of primary forests, the large red apes’ natural home.

The huge Borneo and Indonesia’s Sumatra islands are the world’s only homes of the Orang Utan, whose survival has been threatened by land development, forest fires, poaching and illegal hunting.

Malaysia and Indonesia largely control Borneo Island.

Hutan has been conducting studies on the Orang Utan in Sabah since 1998, in close collaboration with the wildlife department.

"After four years, our studies show that Orang Utans can survive and breed in secondary forests," French primatologist Marc Ancrenaz told AFP at Hutan’s research station in Sukau, some 160 kilometres (100 miles) from timber-rich Sabah’s north eastern port town of Sandakan.

So far, there has been no detailed study of Orang Utan in secondary forests.

"But it’s still far too early to say whether the Orang Utan populations could survive in this type of forests in the long term. To be sure they can survive well, we need at least 15 more years of study," Ancrenaz said.

Yet, he said, the results of the study "are rather a good surprise since other studies have shown that Orang Utan populations living in Indonesia are not able to survive outside of primary forests.

The difference of adaptability could be explained by differences between some biological features among sub-populations, said Ancrenaz, Hutan’s scientific director.

The favoured natural habitat of the Orang Utan is the so-called lowland primary dipterocarp forests, which are completely different in structure and composition from secondary forests, Ancrenaz said.

"This possible adaptation of the Orang Utan to a new type of forest (secondary or multiple-use forests) is a very complicated process to document and to understand," he pointed out.

It has been estimated that the populations of the Orang Utan have been slashed by half, during the last decade alone.

Today, scientists estimate that about 15,000 to 20,000 Orang Utans still survive in Borneo and about 10,000 more in Sumatra.

Ancrenaz said based on recent surveys carried out with the Sabah Wildlife Department, there were between 5,000 and 10,000 Orang Utans in the state, "much more than figures classically given for the state.

"However, they are scattered and fragmented, which may jeopardize breeding in the long-term, and encourage in-breeding among the isolated populations."

The Orang Utan mother usually spends years nursing the infant and may have only four to five babies in a lifetime (about 40 years) which undoubtedly adds to their diminishing numbers.

A key objective of Hutan, backed by 22 trained local research assistants, is to establish how the largest tree-dwelling mammal is adopting to its new surroundings in the Kinabatangan floodplain forests.

This area along the 560-kilometre (347-mile) Kinabatangan River, Sabah’s longest, is virtually an unstudied region where a patchwork of virgin and exploited forests harbours remarkably high concentrations of Orang Utans as well as many other rare species.

"This region constitutes an excellent model to study the relationships between Orang Utans and altered habitat," said Ancrenaz, who with his wife, Isabelle Lackman, are co-directors of the Kinabatangan Orang Utan Conservation Project (KOCP).

In primary forests, the mainly vegetarian Orang Utans eat vast quantities of fruits to survive.

But Ancrenaz said in Kinabatangan’s secondary forests, most of the estimated 300 species of plants documented to be part of the Orang Utan diet so far "occur at a very low density in primary forest."

This shows that the Orang Utan had been able to switch its diet to the natural resources available in their new habitat.

At the KOCP study site, Orang Utans mainly eat fruits but the proportion of leaves in their diet is higher than compared to primary forests.

Secondary forests are known to produce more leaves than primary forests, and the mammals "may be taking advantage of this situation.

"However, Orang Utans remain fruit-eaters, and their survival depends primarily on the presence of fruits in the forests," Ancrenaz said.

Recent research has linked the El-Nino weather effect to the fruiting cycles of the rainforest trees, whose rapid depletion is feared to have worsened global warming and caused droughts and floods.

Ancrenaz said his team had planted several thousand fruit seeds, including those taken from faeces of Orang Utans, in open spaces in the Kinabatangan wildlife sanctuary to supplement the diet of the highly intelligent primates.

The Sabah Wildlife Department is considering expanding the 27,000 hectare (67,500 acre) sanctuary "with a view to increasing the integrity of the area," said the department’s deputy director Laurentius Ambu.

The department may also develop with the local communities a project allowing visitors to view the wild Orang Utans in their natural habitat, he said. "We are actually doing an appraisal to look at all critical areas at the periphery of the sanctuary," he said

Value

Experts say this would strengthen the value of the Orang Utan as a flagship species for wildlife conservation in Malaysia.

"We want the local people to manage and be beneficiaries of their own natural resources," Ambu said of the prospective eco-tourism project.

Sabah already houses a world famous Orang Utan rehabilitation sanctuary, where once-captured and orphaned apes are taught by forest rangers to fend for themselves in the wild.

At the sanctuary near Sandakan, visitors can watch the semi-wild Orang Utan come in from the further reaches of the forests for their twice-daily ration of milk and bananas.

Building A Society For All Ages

By Jhabindra Bhandari

DHABA Lama, 74 -year–old resident of Padampokhari village of Makwanpur district, still leads an active life. He never thinks that he is getting older and weaker, or rather he is proud of his social and political contribution for the society’s development. Living in a joint family, he seems to be very happy with the decision of the village development committee to honour its senior citizens with a view to recognise their contribution and role in the community.

As the elderly people are the living history of the society, their rights to life and health need to be protected. The voices of these elder people should be listened to by the policy makers and planners while formulating development policies and programmes at macro and micro level.

For the first time in Nepal, a participatory research on elderly issues has been conducted in 15 different districts by Nepal Partici-patory Action Network (NEPAN) in partnership with Help Age International (HAI). The findings of this research have been disseminated at regional and national level for advocacy and awareness raising among stakeholders. This has come as a major landmark for national response.

The HAI is a global network of not-for-profit organisations with a mission to work with and for disadvantaged older people worldwide to achieve a lasting improvement in the quality of their lives. It is supporting national and local NGOs to raise issues of elderly people in development agenda.

Human society today is highly influenced by globalisation, urbanisation and population ageing. In this regard, population
ageing is a global phenomenon that will affect every individual, familys and communitys in the world thereby yielding major consequences and implications in human life.

According to United Nations Department of Public Information, the population of older people is growing by 2 per cent every year around the world. This is a higher growth rate than the population as a whole and is expected to grow more rapidly than other age groups for at least next 25 years. The number of persons aged 60 years or older is estimated to be 629 million. That number is projected to grow to almost 2 billion by 2050.

Over 300 million older people live in Asia Pacific region. More importantly, their experiences represent a huge and largely untapped resources. But, in reality, their knowledge, skills and experiences have largely remained marginal while developing national and international development polices and programmes.

Even though two decades have passed since first world assembly on ageing was convened in Vienna in 1982, only limited progress has been accomplished in improving the lives of the older people who face strong challenge of poverty, food security, health care and family support.

The second world assembly on ageing was held in Madrid, Spain in April 8-12 this year. Nepal for the first time participated in this assembly with a country paper comprising national situation of elderly issues and commitment to develop a national plan of action on ageing. This has helped to draw attention of the policy makers and planners on ageing issues and concerns at national, regional and local levels.

In a country like ours where majority of the population live in rural areas, population ageing in these areas will have significant implications in the livelihoods of the rural people. This is because it will largely affect agriculture production, food security, health services and labour markets.

Lack of access to health services and care is critical in older people’s lives. In many developing countries, there is little or no access to health services. Moreover, poverty, migration, rapid economic development and changes in traditional family attitudes are gradually affecting the livelihoods of the older people.

Poverty is one of the greatest obstacle to a secure old age in many developing countries. But there are still opportunities for better livelihoods of the elderly people if we seriously recognise the human rights of older people and the benefits of population ageing for human development. There are emerging needs of development programmes to guarantee adequate social protection and minimum income in old age so that elderly people can lead a better life with dignity in the society.