National 9 (Spotlight Weekly)

Mountain Ecology under Threat

Director Mainali depicts the depletion of forest covers in the Himalayan region

By A CORRESSPONDENT

Ignored and neglected, Nepal's northern belt does not get much needed attention of the policy makers. The development of infrastructures in northern Himalayan region, which share the border with Tibetan Autonomous Region of China, have always received low priority.

A lady with her children : Untold miseries

As there is virtually no transportation link and other alternatives arrangements, the people of northern Nepal are isolated and ignored by the country's central planning system. This is what the seven village development committees situated at the Bhot Khola of Gorkha districts are facing.

Thanks to the lack of alternatives, the people living in the Manasalu Conservation Areas are compelled to rely on the century old traditional forest products. Directed by Journalist Mohan Mainali, a 30 minutes long documentary shows how people are surviving in the villages by taking the forest product across the border and bartering them with the foodstuffs.

As the forest is one of the main resources of the region and sole source of energy for the domestic consumption, people are also cutting the century old traditional forest products to make money in order to buy the foodstuffs from across the Himalayas.

Edited by Rabindra Pandey and filmed by Basudev Banskota, the film shows the desperate situation of mountain people - ignored by the country's planner. As they don't have any other means of survival except to sell the forest product, the pressure on the invaluable and difficult-to-replenish on the forest in inevitable. Produced for the Forum for Environmental Journalists, director Mainali has made every effort to highlight the plight of the people living in the region and depletion of the forest products there.

Whether it is the 7 VDCs of Bhotkhola or Jumla, Dolpa, Mustang, Kalikot and Humla, Nepal is yet to build the road linking them to the country's mainstream. The plights of Bhotkhola residents, too, are similar as it takes a week to reach the district headquarters on foot. Although it is just 10 minutes flight from Kathmandu, the Bhotkhola residents find it easier to go to Tibet than come to Kathmandu.

Although the high mountains of Manasalu region have many possibility to produce high quality of apple and other herbal products, lack of transportation facilities are hindering their efforts. As shown by Mainali, Bhotkhola's residents produce herbal products and apple but they cannot find market to sell them.

As long as the government cannot offer alternatives to their livelihood, the deforestation cannot stop. For environmentalists, the priority is to protect the forest but local people prefer their short-term survival.