By MADHAV KARKI, PH.D.; Distinguished Fellow, CGED-Nepal

Nepal’s Chure hills are part of South Asia’s most fragile landscapes from biological, geomorphological and socio-political perspectives. It is also part of Himalayan Mountain ranges – lowermost range of Siwalik Hills. Lying in tropical and subtropical zone, it is facing the disproportionate impact of climate change and socioeconomic changes due to heavy population and climatic pressure and stress. Some of the effects that are already pronounced are: drying up of fresh water springs, rivers and wetlands; increasing frequency and ferocity of wild fires, flash floods, landslides and heat/cold waves. These are causing rapid loss of forest cover, biodiversity and soil fertility and leading to ecosystem fragmentation and degradation – some agro-ecosystems have reached the stage of ecosystem collapse. Combating climate change will require simultaneous interventions in water resources development, livelihood improvement, agriculture and food system resiliency and socioeconomic development. Considering the critical role of water in rejuvenating biodiversity, ecosystems and food systems and supporting role of energy in the entire socio-economic system, a food-water-energy-biodiversity nexus approach of interventions is proposed in this proposal.

Activities can be initiated simultaneously in water, food, biodiversity and energy. Surface, ground and rain water harvesting can be done that in turn will help improve water supply for drinking and irrigation with cascading positive impact on reforestation, forest regeneration, improvement in human, animal and ecosystem health (ONE health), halt of biodiversity loss, building of food system resiliency and socioeconomic development. These will be possible after a good community mobilization, training, capacity building and joint planning and implementation of activities. Participatory monitoring and evaluation of activities can be done to gain learning and outreaching to influence mainstreaming and up-scaling policies. In summary, this work aims to restore, rejuvenate and recreate lost biodiversity especially, agro-ecosystems and enhance environment quality by investing in all components of socio-ecological production systems in Chure landscape of Nepal. The work can focus on increasing forest cover, water supply, agriculture production, solar energy, and biodiversity. Interventions in water resources can go hand-in-hand with rejuvenation of biodiversity that can directly result in reduction in biodiversity loss and improvement in ecosystem health especially forest and agriculture ecosystems thus contributing to local peoples’ livelihoods including reduction of drudgery of women.

Chure Landscape of Nepal is rich in biodiversity and water resources. Of the five physiography regions, Inner Tarai and Chure Bhawar regions are very rich biodiversity zones of Nepal. But forest cover and biodiversity are declining in Chure physiographic region as published by the government in 2015 in its report “State of Nepal’s Forests”. The people of downstream areas of Chure bhawar and Tarai region are suffering from declining forest products and water scarcity as described in the Master Plan for the Tarai, Chure, Madhesh Conservation and Development in 2018. Some other strategy Tarai Arc landscape (TAL) strategy, Forestry Sector Strategy have also highlighted the issues and gaps of conservation efforts and water availability in the Chure and Tarai regions. Nepal finalized the National Biodiversity Strategy in 2002 and National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan (NBSAP) in 2014. Biodiversity conservation is Nepal’s top priority. Nepal’s Protected Areas (PA) network covers 23.39% of its land surface. Nepal’s NBSAP (2024-2020) focused on both terrestrial and freshwater biodiversity in and outside protected areas From the management perspective, Nepal’s NBSAP has grouped the floral and faunal biodiversity into six broad biodiversity strategies namely protected area biodiversity, forest biodiversity outside the protected area, wetland biodiversity, rangeland biodiversity, agro-biodiversity, and mountain biodiversity (MoFE, 2021). Chure landscape requires a synergistic and transformative strategy to rehabilitate as some of ecosystem types are at the risk of collapse. It is facing multi-dimensional vulnerability due to climate change, socioeconomic change, political economic related drivers and factors on top of its inherent geological fragility. The Government has declared Chure landscape as a protected landscape under IUCN category V and committed to maintain its ecological integrity. Moreover, the Fifteen Plan (2019/20-2023/24) of the Government of Nepal has prioritized conservation of biodiversity and water resource management in this landscape.

Nepal’s second Nationally Determined Contribution (e-NDC) was submitted to the UNFCCC in Dec 2020. It communicates Nepal’s vision of achieving socio-economic prosperity by building climate-resilient society. Nepal also has prepared and submitted its longterm low GHG emission development strategy to achieve net-zero GHG emission by 2045. Currently there exist, high trade-offs between higher agriculture and land-based development activities and GHG emission. Enabling policy and legal framework for integrated management of agriculture, forestry, water, and energy by mainstreaming climate change risk already exist at the federal and provincial levels. Effective implementation of these policies can help not only biodiversity but also food system, land management, and equitable sharing of benefits equitably. As stressed by the recently released IPBES Global Assessment and IPCC AR6 report on biodiversity and climate change, both crises must be addressed in an integrated manner in a complementary and synergistic manner. Nepal has ambitious climate change mitigation targets and is also committed to implement the post 2020 biodiversity targets for which international support is critical to build capacity, and customize international technologies. The second NDC sets a target of net zero emissions by 2050 which coincides with the Biodiversity vision target of achieving harmony between human and nature. Despite Nepal having rich biodiversity and natural resources, there are multiple barriers and challenges to conserve its biodiversity and water resources due to anthropogenic and climatic drivers. Nepal’s poor capacity and technology access also prevents it in optimally develop and use its water resources for supporting biodiversity conservation, irrigation and drinking water and sanitation – all suffering from heavy climate change impacts. Protected landscapes such as Chure have experienced a gradual degradation due to several natural and inherent factors including fragile geology, extremities in topography, and high seismic activities. Anthropogenic factors include population pressure, unsustainable water harvesting, and improper land use and farming practices. All have contributed to soil erosion, landslides, flooding, sedimentation, and desertification which has led to a decline in biological productivity, springs and other water sources drying up, and a decrease in land productivity (Thapa & Joshi, 2018 cited in MoFE, 2021).Two approaches are suggested: a) sustainable land management, and community based water, forest, pasture and agriculture extension management. The integration of existing rich indigenous and local knowledge with scientific knowledge is necessary to ensure sustainable biodiversity conservation in Chure Landscape.