https://archive.ph/7poRb
"KANKALI COMMUNITY FOREST, Nepal — The old man moved gingerly, hill after hill,
cutting dry shrubs until he was surrounded by trees that had grown from
seedlings he had planted two decades ago. He pointed to a row of low peaks
above the Kathmandu valley that were covered with dense foliage.
“You see that? They were barren mounds of red mud 15 years ago,” said the man,
Khadga Bahadur Karki, 70, tears of pride fogging up his glasses. “These trees
are more than my children.”
This transformation is visible across Nepal, thanks to a radical policy adopted
by the government more than 40 years ago. Large swaths of national forest land
were handed to local communities, and millions of volunteers like Mr. Karki
were recruited to protect and renew their local forests, an effort that has
earned praise from environmentalists around the world. But the success has been
accompanied by new challenges — among them addressing the increase in
potentially dangerous confrontations between people and wildlife.
Community-managed forests now account for more than a third of Nepal’s forest
cover, which has grown by about 22 percent since 1988, according to government
data. Independent studies also confirm that greenery in Nepal has sprung back,
with forests now covering 45 percent of the country’s land."
Via
Future Crunch issue 192:
https://futurecrunch.com/
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics