Journey To Kathmandu Concludes

By Our Correspondent

The 39th annual conference of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) that started with the theme — The Journey to Kathmandu: Sacred Gifts for a Living Planet— concluded in Kathmandu Friday.

As part of the world conversation organization’s annual conference, the conservation campaign was inaugurated by His Majesty King Birendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev at a special function. Their Majesties the King and Queen had graced the first-ever musical procession organised in Nepal. There were flags of 11 different religions with symbols of different plants and animals during the inaugural ceremony at Bhaktapur.

During the conference (13-17 November), Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala declared the extension of the Royal Bardiya National Park (RBNP) as a Gift to the Earth in support of the WWF’s Living Planet Campaign. Koirala’s announcement symbolized the official commitment to give more protection to wildlife and watershed management in the Churia hills of west Nepal.

Speaking at the inaugural ceremony of the annual conference, Koirala said the government would launch activities that include institutional and infrastructure development, research related to wildlife and monitoring, anti-poaching operations and integrated conservation and community development.

The Gift area covers 893.26 square kilometers. The area is home to eight types of ecosystems which include 124 species of trees, 24 species of mammals and more than 300 species of birds.

During the conference, His Royal Highness Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, presented the Duke of Edinburgh Youth Award to Snehesh Shrestha, a student of Shuvatara School. Shrestha is the first Nepali to receive the prestigious gold award.

Founded in 1956, the award is given to encourage young people between 14-25 to undertake a series of selected activities voluntarily during a specified period of time.

Similarly, HH Rinpoche Nawang Tenzing Jangpo and Min Bahadur Gurung were recognized by the WWF for their significant contribution to the conservation activities at the grassroots level.

Rinpoche bagged the award in recognition of ‘His Holiness’ and deep commitment and outstanding achievement for the preservation of environment and culture of Nepal.

Conservationist Rinpoche had played an important role in helping to establish the Sagarmath National Park by convincing the local people.

A farmer, social worker and village leader, Gurung was recognised for his inspiring leadership and exemplary role in promoting and enhancing the conservation and sustainable development activities in the country. His roles were instrumental in the successful community-based conservation and development of the Annapurna Conservation Area Project (ACAP).

Nepal was selected as the venue of the WWF’s annual conference for her successful conservation activities. The conference is believed to have been instrumental in promoting Nepal’s tourism potentials in the world as a large number of participants from different parts of the world had participated in the conference. Nepal received a lot of exposure by the international media.

Torture Prevention Mechanism Needed

Prof Krishna Deva Rao is a teacher at the National Law University in Hyderabad. A member of the Andhra Pradesh Civil Liberties Committee (APCLC), Krishna Deva Rao has been active in the area of human rights , conducting research on custodial deaths and fake encounters and also by taking up issues of establishing human rights leaders and teachers of law. Rao was recently in Kathmandu to take part in the South Asia seminar on the prevention of torture organised by Nepal Law Society in cooperation with Geneva-based Association for the prevention of Torture. A famous Swiss professor of the University of Bern Dr. Walter Kaelin, vice president of the Association for the Prevention of Torture (APT) was behind the hosting of the regional level seminar in Kathmandu.

Professor Rao presented the country paper on torture and actively participated in the deliberations. He talked about several aspects of human rights breaches and proposed that a broadbased network in exchanging data and information relating to human rights and case laws be established. Mukti Rijal talked with Prof Rao for the Sunday Despatch. Excerpts of Prof. Rao’s views.

What inspired you to be active in the area of human rights?

I have been active in the field of human rights for more or less 25 years now. In fact, I have been active in this field since the Emergency days in India.

Your State Andhra Pradesh is said to be a pioneer in the field of information technology. Has it had any positive impact on human rights?

No. Common people’s sufferings are rather on the increase. Human rights violations occur in different forms. The capital city described as Cyberabad turned into Floodabad recently. This also shows the poor state of development.

Coming to the theme of the seminar, you claimed that torture does take place indiscriminately when a person is remanded into police custody. Can you elaborate on it?

Yes, torture is inflicted when a person is in police custody. Many country papers presented and discussed at the seminar dwelt at length on it. Torture is the most private of human rights violations. It is a clandestine operation carried out in silence, secrecy, isolation and anonymity. The process of torture begins with the arrest of a person by the police. Generally, when a person is taken to a police station in connection with some offense or other is subjected to torture of one form or the other.

You talked about torture in prison and torture in police custody. What difference do you find in them as many people die due to torture inflicted in prison as well?

Deaths (resulting from torture) in prison are also high. But torture in prison, in whatever form, comes under judicial supervision whereas torture in police custody goes completely unsupervised. Torture occurs during the first 24 hours of arrest before a person is produced in court. There are informal detention and special interrogation centres where torture is common.

What is difficult is a person remanded to police custody is not documented.

What do you think can be effective measures in preventing torture?

Going by the experiences in India, I emphasize that the repressive culture built and entrenched in the law enforcement agencies should be democratised and humanised. The media can play a seminal role through properly investigated stories. Civil society plays an important role as it has done in India and in other countries of South Asia.

What about the ‘visit’ mechanism?

The visiting mechanism exists in the form of officials and lay persons visits. Judges and medical officers visit prisons. Similarly friends and relatives visit jails. But police stations where torture occurs to extract confessions are not generally accessible. The visiting mechanism enshrined in the Draft Optional to the Convention against Torture is very relevant. The elements of cooperation, dialogue, confidentiality and persuasion are very important. A confrontationist posture cannot always yield good results. The South Asian countries that have not ratified the UN Convention against Torture must sign the treaty. The states committing to democracy and human rights should help promote the process of adopting and ratifying the Optional Protocol.

What do you think has been the outcome of the seminar?

The seminar has been very useful. It provided an opportunity for HR activists and leaders in this region to learn from each other’s experiences. Such forums should be held from time to time so that we can establish better linkages and cooperation.

GIS - Handy Tool In Planning

By Rashila Tamrakar

Spatial planning and precision hold the key to Nepal's development.

The traditional method of data gathering which often does not provide accurate data for analysis makes planning difficult. Thus accuracy in data collection, analysis, planning and decision are essential for rapid development.

And technologies such as Geographical Information System (GIS), well appreciated and applied in the other Hindukush-Himalayan countries of China, India, Pakistan and Bhutan has proved a very efficient tool in integrating various levels of data by taking into account wider environmental consideration in the planning and developing sectors.

GIS provides a computer based tool for mappings and analysing objects and changes that take place on the earth, by combining the power of a database with visualization offered by maps.

"In a mountainous country like Nepal which is prone to landslides, debris flow and flood hazards under natural condition and as a result of human activities, GIS is very valuable for effective planning and analysis of the development process," claimed Pradeep Mool, a Remote Sensing analyst at the International Center for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD).

"GIS is a rich and interesting technology from which a lot can be learnt and can be directly implemented in the development programs," he added. "It has advantage over the traditional methods of data collection, analysis and storage in the digital format, and are easily accessible and can be readily modified".

In Nepal where landslide hazards are important considerations in the construction process, GIS provides a valuable tool in planning and development of infrastructure, said Prem Sagar Chapagain, lecturer at the Central Department of Geography, University Campus, TU.

He added that this technology is very useful for engineers, geo-scientists, foresters, agriculturists, hydrologists and is applicable in all other field involved in natural hazard mitigation and environmental management.

Realising the effectiveness of the GIS system even the governmental bodies are using them on a mass scale. The Ministry of land and reforms, Department of Road, Nepal Electricity Authority, Nepal Planning Commission have completed their database collection and they are initiating their plannings based on this. Tribhuvan University conducts Masters Level courses in Geographical Information System.

Beside this, GIS has also proved effective in solving problems related to environmental protection, pollution, health care, land use, natural resources, conservation, business efficiency, education, social inequities and the list goes on. For monitoring water pollution, GIS has been utilised in the storage and retrieval of data such as water quality parameters, population density and the consumed pollutants in water.

Recognizing the potential of GIS technology for faster pace of development in the country, Nepal celebrated GIS Day, 2000, on November 15 for the very first time. Carrying the theme of ‘Promoting Geographic Literacy through GIS’, it carried out a week-long program from November 12 to 15. The program was jointly organized by ICIMOD, the Institute of Engineering (IoE), Central Department of Geography, T.U and Nepal GIS society.

There were five working sessions dealing with various dimensions of the topic. It provided detailed analysis of GIS along with in-depth coverage of application of GIS focused on collating and disseminating GIS related information in the developing economies.

It concluded with a case study on ‘GIS’ for landslide hazard mapping in the Kakani area with two days of fieldwork for the participants.

GIS has rapidly grown in Nepal over the decade and currently, more than 50 institutions are involved in it. There are currently about half a million GIS users around the world.