ICIMOD: The Hindu Kush Himalayan (HKH) region is blessed with a diversity of honeybee species; five species – Apis cerana, Apis dorsata, Apis florea, Apis laboriosa, and Apis andreniformis – are indigenous, while Apis mellifera is introduced. Of these species, only Apis cerana and Apis mellifera can be kept in hives and managed for honey [...]

weADAPT: This work is part of a Policy Brief on Climate Change in Nepal produced by Practical Action in 2008 and provides a summary of climate change as currently experienced in Nepal, and projections of future changes. Climate change in Nepal Some level of uncertainty is inevitable in measuring and anticipating climate change. Attributing individual [...]

IRIN News: The needs of millions of indigenous mountain people across Nepal are overlooked, imperilling their food security and hindering their economic progress, activists and experts say. “People in the mountains of Nepal are worse off in terms of total poverty – food and non-food poverty,” said Jean-Yves Gerlitz, co-author of a recent study on [...]

New Internationalist: At the frontline of climate change, the people of Bangladesh are using every ounce of their creativity to adapt. Hazel Healy assesses whether it will be enough. It is hard to believe the village was built from scratch. It looks as if it has always been here. Tidy kitchen gardens sit next to thatched [...]

Hill Post: Ignorance is not always bliss; not when the climate and pristine ecology is at stake. A change in the climate that has served millions of life forms from the beginning of time does not just affect our surroundings. It ropes in our future generations too. 2 years ago, I crossed the Rohtang Pass [...]

The News Pakistan: A Bangladeshi disaster management expert, Khurshid Alam, on Friday emphasised the need for training the local community in playing an effective role in recovering from natural calamities and minimising the adverse effects of an emergency. Local knowledge should be incorporated in designing a disaster management plan. It is very important to learn [...]

Dr. Sudhirendar Sharma: I’m indeed grateful to all the members who made written submissions to the discussions on ‘rewriting mountain perspective‘. At bilateral level, many others have contributed their unwritten thoughts and reflections. While many have gone public with their inputs, others have restricted themselves to drawing-room conversations such that they remain ‘unidentified’ in the [...]

Sudan Division: Rio+20 offers the world a unique chance to advance the sustainable development agenda. The conference has three main objectives: to secure renewed political commitment to sustainable development, to assess progress and gaps in implementation of agreed commitments, and to address new and emerging challenges. The two themes of the Conference are a green [...]

Alertnet: At present, close to one billion people suffer from hunger. Experts agree that there is a high risk of climate change affecting food security at the global level, with the most negative impacts in the poorest and most vulnerable countries. The additional risk of climate change could put several hundred million at risk of [...]

Forestry Nepal: Climate change is contemporary global threat to the animal world. Green house gases are resulting global warming which is creating different impacts in the world. Because of human activities green house gases are increasing. Nepal’s temperature is increasing at an alarming rate. Increasing temperature is creating different impacts on biodiversity, health the environment [...]

IHDP (GEC): Shades of Green Global Perspectives on the Green Economy The capitalist system has since its emergence as a dominant economic model faced scrutiny and scepticism, which has in many parts of the world reached a zenith in the wake of a global economic crisis and after decades of environmental degradation. Some would consider [...]

Livelihoods.EU: Christian de Perthuis is professor of economics at Dauphine University in Paris, and Director of the Climate Economics Chair, a think-tank focusing on shaping economics to fight agains climate change. He is also a member of the Livelihoods Advisory Board. The short text that follows is the English translation of a lecture he made [...]

100 days to go to a conference and a summit that UN Secretary-General Ban ki-Moon has described as a “once in a life time opportunity”. Whether this event, coming 20 years after the historic Rio Earth Summit of 1992, delivers transformational change will depend on governments, but it also depends on you. If the UN [...]

Mr. Cyril R Raphael: In this article Mr. Raphael writes the agony of mountains in general by taking an example of overall development in one of the Indian mountain states called Uttarakhand. His discourse covers the social and economic development, governance, leadership, availability of basic amenities, health, education, livelihood, effectiveness of information and communication, role [...]

Developing countries can only build a green economy by adopting “profound policy reforms” to transform small-scale agriculture, argue Peter Messerli, from the Centre for Development and Environment in Switzerland, and colleagues. The green economy — one where growth comes with environmental and economic benefits — is dominating policy debates, including those linked to the UN [...]

The climate change is no more a myth as scientific evidences as well as occurrence of frequent floods, cyclones and droughts around the world have proved beyond doubt that it is real. The fluctuations that occur from year to year, and the statistics of extreme conditions such as severe storms or unusually hot seasons, are [...]

RTCC: The Sagarmatha National Park is an exceptional area with dramatic mountains, glaciers and deep valleys where Mount Everest (or Sagarmatha in Nepali), the highest peak in the world (8,848 m), is located. Several rare species, such as the snow leopard and the lesser panda, are found in the park. The air temperatures in this [...]

National Geographic: We have the knowledge that can contribute to finding solutions to the crisis of climate change. But if you’re not prepared to listen, how can we communicate this to you? — Marcos Terena, Xané leader, Brazil. The precipitous rise in the world’s human population and humankind’s ever-increasing dependence on fossil fuel-based ways of living [...]

On January 2, 2012, local communities in the Thulokhola watershed in Nuwakot gave the SLPS project research team a heartfelt traditional welcome with garlands and red powder, as well as flowers, fruits, coconuts and water jars adorned with flowers as they proceeded up the hill. The team was first greeted by the local communities at [...]

The Nation: Climate change is one thing and the lack of cooperation between affected countries quite another. Pakistan points the finger of blame at India, while others in the region are also suffering on account of no clear-cut policy on how Himalayan waters are to be shared and conserved. Accords and treaties may have been [...]

Durban Post by Dr.C. S. Silori*: This note is on the major happening during COP 17 at Durban in South Africa during UN Climate Change Conference on December 4-5, and how the ‘equity’ issues has emerged as major challenge for the world leaders in context to future development and climate change.  December 4, Sunday, was [...]

Reuters: Sammad Sheikh of Tangchekh village in north Kashmir cannot understand why the rice fields that his family cultivated for generations are drying up. “It is a mystery as to why water is getting scarcer in summers,” he says. “This has been happening for the past few years though there have been one or two [...]

Daily Times: Since 2006, the food insecure population in Pakistan has increased by 12 million while the number of the severely food insecure population (consuming less than 1,700 kcal per day) has risen by 9.6 million to 45.3 million people – 28 percent of the population. Two thirds of these new severely food insecure people [...]

From the Atkins to the Dukan, protein-based diets are big news in the celebrity world. But what effect is our love affair with meat, fish and cheese having on the environment? Barely a week goes by without news of another ‘wonder diet’ hitting the headlines. Along with the bedroom antics of the Premier League’s finest [...]

MyRepublica: Experts from different countries including Nepal have expressed concerns over decreasing pollinator populations, as it results in low pollination rate posting threat to food security. About 25 experts and pollination management project managers from seven countries, who recently participated at international workshops in Chitwan and Kathmandu, stressed the need to formulate country strategies to [...]

Noreen Haider: Writes from her visit to the beautiful Naran valley of Khyber Pakhtunkwa province in Pakistan, where she observes various dimensions of social and environment development. Noreen came across various developmental projects and activities in the region and finds that poor education and poorly planned social and environmental projects lead to acute poverty natural [...]

The Bhutan Climate Summit for A Living Himalayas was successfully convened in Thimphu on 19 Nov 2011. Presided over by the Honourable Prime Minister of Bhutan, Lyonchhoen Jigmi Y Thinley; Environment Ministers from the four countries of Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Nepal adopted a declaration on behalf of their Governments wherein a regional ‘framework of [...]

Amrit Banstola: It is surprising to see that after 61 years of initiation of improved cook stove (ICS) by Government of Nepal (such initiative dates as far back as 1950 with the introduction of Indian models of Hyderabad and Magan stoves) traditional and primitive chulas (stoves) are still in extensive use in Chidipani rural community. [...]

Eurasia Review: Time has come to become serious about the future of the river. There is a growing perception that the Ganga might completely dry in next fifty years if no effective action is taken to purify the river, keep the flow of its water intact and control the global warming. There cannot be a [...]

Kuenselonline: While world over livestock population is experiencing an alarming increase to cater to as alarming an increase in demand for meat and diary products, Bhutan is headed the other way. That is quite befitting of the country’s emphasis and priority for environmental protection that draws its essence from its guiding philosophy of Gross National [...]

This is in continuation to our previous posting (Link: http://chimalaya.org/2011/11/05/working-group-on-indian-mountain-ecosystem-meets-suggestions-invited/ ) on requesting suggestions as sought by the ‘Working Group on Mountain Ecosystems and Challenges faced by the Mountain People’ which met on 28th October 2011. This Group has officially asked suggestions from the state governments of all 12 Indian Mountain state, while we are [...]

Global Commission Charts Pathway For Achieving Food Security in Face of Climate Change. Scientific experts outline concrete steps toward a sustainable global food system. In the lead up to UN global climate talks in Durban, South Africa later this month, an independent global commission of eminent scientists today released a set of concrete recommendations to policy [...]

University of Minnesota: Over the past 50 years, 60 percent of all ecosystem services have declined as a direct result of the conversion of land to the production of foods, fuels and fibers. This should come as no surprise, say seven of the world’s leading environmental scientists, who met to collectively study the pitfalls of [...]

Commodity Online: The implementation of climate smart agricultural practices will go a long in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The theme has now become the main agenda of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) scheduled to start later in November at Durban, according to carbon-investments.co.uk. The importance of the reduction of greenhouse gas [...]

Daily Star: 17th Saarc Summit ends in Maldives with 20-point Addu Declaration; South Asian leaders also agree to forge effective cooperation for full implementation of Safta, better connectivity and steps towards Saarc Market for Electricity. The 17th Saarc summit ended at Addu in the Maldives yesterday with the adoption of a 20-point Addu Declaration to [...]

Practical Action: This briefing focuses on the impact of climate change on Nepal’s rural poor. A great deal has been written  on the challenges of providing clean energy and the risks to urban populations but, as this paper outlines, climate change also has many other consequences. Rural communities, whose livelihoods are intimately tied to the [...]

WWF: On the 19th of November the Royal Government of Bhutan will host the Climate Summit for a Living Himalayas Bhutan 2011. The event will bring together leaders from the governments of Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Nepal to agree upon and commit to a plan for adaptation to climate change. Included in the plan are [...]

Publication: Globalization is the process through which rich becomes richer and poor becomes poorer, irrespective of where they live. The degree of this effect varies with the strengths in the areas of technology, logistics, infrastructures, and finally on the quality of governance. This process is amplified further by economic reforms in India. The process of [...]

Down to Earth: His field-based scientific thrust and the fearlessness with which he put forth uncomfortable truths made him stand out. These are sad times for Nepal’s nature conservationists: five years ago, on  September 23, 2006, the country lost its crème de la crème in a tragic helicopter accident in the Kanchenjunga Conservation Area. While [...]

WWF-Nepal: A five-year program to reduce the adverse impacts of climate change and threats to biodiversity in Nepal, was officially launched at a ceremony in Kathmandu on 8 Nov 2011. The Hariyo Ban program is a new investment in biodiversity conservation in Nepal, funded by the US Agency for International Development​ (USAID). The program will [...]

Earth Times: Flecks of soot from a smoky open stove in India blacken more than just the roofs of the hut it is smoldering in. Fine particles of such smoke lodge deep in the lungs of women preparing meals, gifting them a dark scourge of ill-health and premature death. That same black soot floats higher [...]

CSDi is presenting a compilation of Community Based Adaptation Field Activities—complete with links to source materials and technical information. The content of field activities is given broadly in following heads: 1. Agriculture a. Soil and water conservation for agriculture. b. Developing water for agriculture. c. Agriculture in flood-prone or waterlogged areas. d. CBA techniques for agriculture. [...]

The minutes of First meeting of the Working Group on “Mountain Eco-systems and Challenges Faced by the People living in the Hilly Areas” for formulation of the 12th Five year Plan” is given below, that was held on 28 October 2011 at Yojana Bhavan in New Delhi. It was chaired by Shri B.K. Chaturvedi, Member, [...]

Hindustan Times: India will engage 100,000 educated youths to execute an ambitious Green India Mission (GIM) which seeks to increase the country’s forest cover to 33% from 20% within 10 years. According to top forest official, PJ Dilip Kumar, director general of India’s forest department, in order to copewith climate change threats, the central and [...]

Himalayan Times: Nepal’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Gyan Chandra Acharya has stressed on the strong need for providing continued support for strengthened and effective voice and participation of Least Developed Countries (LDCs) in decision- and rule-making and standard- and norm-setting areas in all relevant international forums. Delivering a speech on behalf of LDCs [...]

IUCN: Businesses around the world are adjusting to a rapidly-shifting economic landscape but should we expect them to lead the way to a green global economy? Olivia Pasini asks the question for our latest World Conservation Debate. The concept of a green economy has been around for a while now. For many years there have [...]

Dr. R. S. Tolia: Writes this article as his ‘Third Inning’,  days those have been happily spent on reflecting over and about mountains and mountain people. This has taken him to various mountainous parts of India, neighbouring Nepal and recently to the beautiful city and canton of Switzerland, Luzern, in the northern Alps.  Besides learning [...]

Opinion Inquirer: There’s a horror story to scare us out of our wits today. No, it’s not any movie that’s currently showing in our movie houses. And no, it’s not the ongoing bloodletting in the South if you want a horror story from real life, even if the faces of the Muslim women that appeared [...]

Mountain Partnership: The Mountain Products Programme — implemented by FAO in the context of the Mountain Partnership — aims to improve the income and livelihoods of mountain communities through improved production and marketing of local, quality products. There is increasing demand around the world for quality, high-value products. In particular, for foods and beverages such [...]

Times of India: Janez Potocnik is the European Union’s commissioner for the environment. Visiting India in the run-up to Rio+20, Potocnik spoke with Srijana Mitra Das about ways to develop a green economy and the importance of the world uniting to preserve its shared resource – the environment: What are our biggest environmental challenges today? [...]

DAWN: A safe environment is prerequisite for healthy life. Major environmental issues currently confronting Pakistan include water, energy, pollution and waste management, salinity and water logging, irrigated agriculture, biodiversity and climate change. Pakistan being one of the most urbanized countries of the region is facing overall deterioration in all these areas. Environmental hazards have become [...]

Reuters: Traditional agriculture methods could help protect food supplies and make agriculture more resilient to the effects of climate change, a report by the UK-based International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) said on Monday. Traditional knowledge, rather than modern methods, has helped indigenous people in countries like China, Kenya and Bolivia to cope with [...]

The Adaptation Fund has been established by the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to finance concrete adaptation projects and programmes in developing countries that are Parties to the Kyoto Protocol. The Fund is financed with 2% of the Certified Emission Reduction (CERs) issued for projects of [...]

CCAF has just published under CCAFS a paper in the journal Environmental Science and Policy which outlines the entry points for adaptation and mitigation in agriculture.  The paper essentially presents the CCAFS research for development framework, consisting of adaptation to short- and long- term climate variability and mitigation opportunities for smallholders.  Some of the key [...]

Sudhirendar Sharma: Writes about the potential of mountain states in India in terms of their natural wealth and kind of benchmark for the services provided by them. By taking examples from developed countries his doubts are about insignificant valuation of tangible ecosystem services, therefore the unlikely transaction of such payments in near future. His discourse [...]

Following is a letter from one of the members of the ‘Working Group constituted by Planning Commission of India’ for the Mountains of India’s 12th Five Year Plan (2012-2017). It contains the brief about the working group and its terms of references. The  first meeting the working group is scheduled on 28th October 2011, so [...]

HIMAL South Asia: The loss of their nomadic lifestyles is pushing the Van Gujjars, traditional herders of the Himalaya, into poverty and cultural alienation. For centuries the Van Gujjar community has been practising ‘transhumance’, moving between two distinct ecozones of the Himalaya. Every summer, the Van Gujjars move from the forests of the Shivalik range [...]

Ground Report: Production of tea in Assam – one of the world’s largest tea producing regions – is on a slow decline, thanks to changing climate in the Brahmaputra river basin. This has been revealed by Prof Chandan Mahanta, a leading scientist from Assam who has been studying climate change effect in the river basin [...]

There seems little possibility that next month’s climate summit in Durban will produce an emissions reduction agreement — meaning the world will soon lack any binding CO2 targets. Europe may soon find itself alone in the fight against global warming. A climate catastrophe descended on the German Foreign Ministry in Berlin early last week. Politicians [...]

Shalini Dhyani: Writes about the increasing pressure on the Himalayan ecosystem in Indian Himalayan region due to tourist influx, immigrants from neighboring country, environmental degradation and increasing population pressure. She suggests Payment for Environmental Services- PES a way forward through appropriate planning.   “The most striking feature of earth is the existence of life, and the [...]