NATIONAL 1 (Spotlight Weekly)]

‘Partnership For Conservation’

By Prince Gyanendra Bir Bikarm Shah

In 1982, the King Mahendra Trust for Nature Conservation (KMTNC) was established by a legislative act and was proclaimed as a non-governmental and non profit making organizations. Its aim clearly defines it to balance human needs with the environment on a sustainable basis. To build a bridge between conservation and economical activities coupled with complementing and supplementing the efforts of His Majesty's Government in the area of natural resource management and environmental conservation. Under the patronage of His Majesty King Birendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev, the trust is lead by a governing board of trustees, both national and international and has seven international partners.

The year 2000 bridges two extraordinary periods in the history of mankind : the second millennium with its astounding discoveries and the third with its unbound possibilities. At the crossroads of two centuries, we are finally again beginning to understand the forces that will shape our future. Fundamentally, the world has become increasingly interdependent and all endeavors have become interconnected. Issues are global, whether economic, social, humanitarian or environmental. While we have identified this, the challenge lies in making them accountable and transparent. Yet, responsive to a world where information and ideas move across borders in nanoseconds.

Human activity, primarily the burning of fossil fuels and particularly deforestation in land use practices, are changing the atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases that shape our planet's climate. We aspire to live in this planet, yet continuously forget that this is the only home that we have. The amount of heat trapping fumes as carbon dioxide released each year is estimated at six billion tons from burning fossil fuels and another two billion tons from land use changes. Of the total eight billion tons emitted, the oceans are said to absorb about two billion and plant growth another two. The remaining toxic wastes are added to our atmosphere each year. Since the industrial revolution we have increased the levels of such fumes by more than 30 %. Obviously if this tide is not turned, we can expect drastic changes in the amount and patterns of precipitation. Consequently, this will lead in many areas to more floods and droughts and rise in the level of the sea by 15 to 90 centimeters. These changes may benefit some regions of the world, but they will also have adverse effect in many parts of the world with increase of insect-borne diseases to displacement by rising sea levels of millions of people from small island states and low lying delta areas. The problems of today do not come with the tag marked energy or economy or COO or demography, nor with a label indicating a country or a region. The problems are mullet-disciplinary and trains-national or global. The issues are neither primarily scientific and technological. In science we have the knowledge and in technology we have the tools. Changes in climate will also make fresh water management even more difficult. This will not only alter the overall amount, frequency and variability but will also have a direct impact on food production. Available statistics reflect that the current world water deficit (i.e. the excess of water pumping over recharge from rainfall), is 160 billion tons per year. Since it takes 1000 tons of water to produce 1 ton of grain, this deficit is equal to 160 million tons of grain, a quantity only slightly less than annual world grain exports of 200 million tons.

These facts, along with many others, point out the broader issues of environmental degradation and the multi-disciplinary approach needed to address it effectively. While the concern for general development is now all-pervasive, the issue of women's participation and gender equality are often overlooked. Development must take into cognizance this portion of the population. If civilization is to advance in the future, it must be hand in hand with women.

As an NGO ourselves, we have naturally watched with keen interest the expansion and somewhat uncontrolled proliferation of this so-called third sector in diverse field's of Nepal's development endeavor. We have observed their active involvement in a wide variety of areas ranging from democracy to development, corruption to conservation, good governance to girl-child and transparency to trade unionism. While the contribution of this sector cannot be overlooked, we are not oblivious to the doubts and questions raised in many quarters about the activities of such organizations. People have been found to express skepticism not only of their ability to deliver but also their motives. Mistrust and suspicion that shrouds this sector still loom large in the corridors of government, development agencies as well as in the living rooms of a cross section of Nepalese elite. This is perhaps due to the lack of adequate communication and regular interaction between the agencies concerned rather than a race for control of material resources that many think it to be. Our experience in conservation has shown that the government, the private sector and civil society have yet to carve a niche in Nepal's development scene in such a way that they will be able to work connectedly in an atmosphere of trust, unity and harmony.

There is no better place to begin an examination of deteriorating mountain environments than Nepal. In probably no other mountain country are the forces of ecological degradation so rapidly and visibly noticeable. The Kingdom is minuscule by Asian Standards, but it forms the nucleus of one of the world's strategic ecological nerve-centers. The Himalayan arc, forms an ecological bastion whose fate influences the well-being of hundred of millions. From the Himalayas flow major rivers, with fortune annually bringing life, with misfortune often death. Nepal itself does justice to irrepressible superlatives. She is endowed with the world's highest mountain, and her features, amongst the most varied that any other country, range from the glaciers of Everest to warm tropical forests on its southern fringe. Regrettably, in this land of unexcelled natural beauty live some of the world's poor. The average hectare of arable land in Nepal's hills must support at least nine people. If Nepal is to avoid an acute food crisis, then agricultural modernization - better seeds and innovative techniques, land reform, extension and marketing services - must quickly replace the extensive spread of farming to new lands. The scale of impending destruction is now hard to ignore, but translating awareness into meaningful programs on the ground is no mean task. While it is generally easy to recommend technological answers to ecological problems, political and cultural factors are invariably bottle-necks holding up progress. Developmental funds and talents spent in the mountains are resources denied the cities and the plains. In the end the greatest challenge of all may be convincing the people of the cities and the plains that the future of mountains cannot be isolated from their own.

Against these background, KMTNC seeks to achieve four specific outcomes for a successful and pragmatic environmental conservation and natural resources management program. We are convinced these are prerequisites for achieving sustainable development : 1)Conservation education, 2) eco-tourism that provides economic incentives to the community, 3)promoting local guardianship of endangered species and habitat extension, and 4) research development and demonstration. Without for a moment presuming that our efforts alone will suffice, we ask that you join hands with us to further strengthen existing mechanisms, increase cross border consultations and broaden a vision to view environmental problems of entire eco-systems on a regional perspective. In doing so, we must develop approaches to link habitats of endangered species coupled with community participation for enhanced program excellence.

One would be remiss without raising the issue of population growth while considering environmental problems. In a mechanized world, numbers certainly are a liability. Yet, to live with, and fulfill the needs of these masses, without destroying the environment, is the incentive to discharge this exacting responsibility. It is true that one machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men, but no machine can do the work of one extra-ordinary man. While there are specialized agencies dealing with population control, KMTNC has learnt to stop counting people but has always counted on people. Empowering them, expanding their capabilities and enhancing their quality of life, ensuring for generations to come that they can indeed be a great asset. However, in a low income country like Nepal, achieving these outcomes is an onerous task compounded further by every sector warranting priority. The answer to this is to perceive an alliance with people and institutions thereby unnecessary duplication and dilution of our resources and efforts. This will not only require our understanding, the harnessing of our combined energies and a zeal to transcend our ideas to all concerned through a campaign backed by deeds.

In the pursuit of environmental betterment there is no alternative to collaborative cooperation. Yet, without peace and security, environmental stress is both a cause and effect of political tension and conflict. Nations have often fought to assert or resist control over raw materials, energy supplies, land, river basins, sea passages and other Key environment resources. Such conflicts are likely to expand as these resources become scarcer and competition for them increases . Poverty, environmental degradation and hostility interact in complex and potent ways. Security in its full sense must be universal; it can not be political or military. It must be as well ecological and social . Therefore , the environment must also be an approach to development . The barriers to achieving sustainable development are great , as might be expected in a major historical transformation , but they are far from insurmountable. As I have mentioned earlier, we have arrived at the new millennium in which global interdependence is a central reality, but where still absolute poverty and environmental degradation cloud our vision of a common future. It is high time that nations face the common challenges of providing for sustainable development and act in concert to remove the growing environmental sources of dissension.

KMTNC as founded with a vision of hope and foresight, of regeneration and recovery, not loss and hopelessness. Essentially playing the role of a facilitator, we have continued to strive and given high priority to conservation awareness and education programs as also to training local people on specific areas related to income generating activities. Local communities are already managing much of the projects undertaken and successfully implemented. We are in consultation with His Majesty's Government and local communities in the preparation of a plan to hand-over the Annapurna Conservation Area Project to local bodies as we have done in the case of Baghamara and Kumrose in the Chitwan area. This entire exercise is to enhance the capability of local l guardianship in the management of their resources. KMNTC's project in the Kathmandu Valley, the central Zoo, strives at converting and improving the existing confines into a centre of conservation and improving the existing confines into a centre of conservation education and wildlife research. Towards this goal a Master Plan has been completed which visualize a novel concept. KMNTC's successive have grown out of our generation of the need to focus on community based and owned management systems coupled with applied science. People oriented policies and programs during the past one and a half decade; have own KMNTC precious goodwill among the national and international community of conservationists. With your active support and guidance we will stay this course in this fresh and infant century.

In conclusion, let us not forget that we are all but parts of one stupendous entity, whose body nature is, and god the soul. Besides, there are moments in our lives when we accord a kind of love and touching respect to nature in plants, minerals, the countryside, as well as to human nature in children. Not because it is beneficial for our senses, and not because it satisfies our understanding or taste either, but simply because it is nature. In this entity, man is only a reed, the feeblest thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed.

Excerpts of opening remarks by Prince Gyanendra, Chairman of KMTNC to the Partnership For Conservation Program