18-01-07 Mountain Forum, meeting in Kathmandu

KATHMANDU, NEPAL -- Today, January 18, the mountain community was given the precious chance to meet and share views and experiences in the welcoming venue of ICIMOD headquarters, in Kathmandu, where the Mountain Forum and the Asia Pacific Mountain Network (the Asia-Pacific node of Mountain Forum) co-organised a Open House that gathered about 40 participants, including dr. Marcello Basani, Ev-K²-CNR Field Officier.

   

The event, aimed at Mountain Forum members as well as at all those interested in this network, fully managed to achieve one of its main objectives, i.e. facilitate networking (and capacity building) among those involved with mountain communities.

Not only. Besides giving an opportunity to share experiences, the Open House featured guest speakers on topical mountain-related themes. In particular, the main topic of the meeting was biodiversity conservation and its new global challenges, such as climate change, uncontrolled use of natural resources, transboundary air pollution, population growth, irreversible loss of species in mountain environments.

A first presentation was held by Dr. Nakul Chettri (ICIMOD) on “Biodiversity conservation beyond boundaries: A landscape approach through partnership�. The presentation, as well as the following discussion, focused on the landscape approach, i.e. on the necessity of conserving biodiversity in a more inclusive way, involving different actors at different levels (local, regional, national, international and global), in an integrated way that would take into account not only the ecological dynamics, but also the social and the economical ones.

The case of Mt Kangchenjunga, the third highest of the world, was presented. Its landscapes, that cover tropical to alpine vegetation and a wide spectrum of ecological zones, spread over eastern Nepal, Darjeeling and Sikkim Himalaya (India) and western Bhutan.

Considering the importance of the landscape, biodiversity conservation has been made as top priority in the national agendas for the three countries, and transboundary cooperation through partnership allowed to start a process to meet their conservation goals as well as obligations under international agreements. 

The second presentation was held by Dr. Siddhartha Bajra Bajracharya (National Trust for Nature Conservation) on “Community-based Biodiversity Conservation in Annapurna Conservation Area�. This interesting presentation completed the previous one, stressing the potential of innovative more-inclusive approaches to biodiversity in the case of the Annapurna Conservation Area, the largest protected area in Nepal, where a successful participatory model is already being applied.

According to speaker, as well as to the participants, there should be a greater recognition of the necessity to involve closely local communities in the management and decision making processes of Protected Areas. In the case of the Annapurna Conservation Area, this involvement goes from education campaign to the use of alternative energies, from economic incentives for a sustainable use of natural resources to the direct involvement in poaching control.

 This step represents an important shift from some consolidated practises for which Protected Areas were established displacing people, restricting the access to traditionally used resources, disrupting local cultures and economies without consideration of communities livelihoods. The assumption underlying this idea is that if local communities derive some benefits from conservation, they will be more likely to contribute to conservation of biodiversity.

Besides providing interesting elements for fruitful discussions, both the presentations touched some themes that have recently been highlighted in the implementation of the DSS-partnership project, where Ev-K2-CNR is currently engaged as executing agency.

"Also in this case - said Marcello Basani- the involvement of local stakeholders has been identified as a key factor for the success of the project, and a number of activities have been planned to create a sense of ownership and to identify new tools to manage local resources in Protected Areas in a sustainable way. Not only. The project has also been trying to create synergies at different level, i.e. local, regional, national, international and global.

"In conclusion, the gathering overall provided several reasons to be optimistic for the future. The challenges do not lack, though. Not only is there the need to have complementary policies approved at all levels supporting biodiversity conservation, but also there is the need to acknowledge the crucial direct contribution of the community that live in this extraordinary environments in more protected areas and buffer zones",  concluded dr.Basani.