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The run-up to the Panchayat referendum of 1980 witnessed a massive decimation of Tarai forests. There was a spurt in encroachment and poaching after 1990. The war years, ironically, protected the forests because it scared off timber smugglers and poachers. But it was after April 2006 that there was accelerated clearing of Tarai forests.
Three months after elections, the party that won the most seats in the assembly hasn't yet been able to form the government. The current anarchy is caused by the prolonged political deadlock in Kathmandu. This state of statelessness is having a devastating impact on our national parks and the plunder of forests that communities have invested decades to protect.
One of the things we in Nepal can be justifiably proud of is the success of our community forests. Nurtured by local communities, they have not just protected the environment but also lifted many hundreds of villages in the midhills from poverty. In the Tarai, community forestry was less successful mainly because the hardwood forests of the plains have always been seen as an unlimited resource and are the first to be cut when there is lax security and loose governance during periods of political instability as we have now. Encroachment and poaching of wildlife in national parks has sharply reduced the numbers of rhinos and tigers.
Less well-known is the tragic loss of our northern montane forests, which are being hauled across into China in the yakloads by impoverished villagers to barter for rice. These high altitude coniferous trees take much longer to grow back, and make the mountains more fragile.
Nepal's nature is being destroyed by poor villagers and politically-backed timber poachers who are smuggling logs to India and China. This is not what was meant by Nepal's trade benefiting from its location between the two Asian giants.
Besides hotspots in the western plains, Sindhuli and Udaypur in the eastern inner Tarai are losing sal stands at an alarming rate. These trees hold together the fragile hills of the Chure, and with the forests gone the plains downstream are prone to siltation and flashfloods.
By ensuring a peaceful political transition in the past two years, Nepal has been a model for the rest of the world. That achievement should not be tarnished by the short-sighted bickering we have witnessed in Kathmandu these past three months. Similarly, let's not allow governance failure to wreck our community-based forest conservation success story.
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