This volunteering
project has been designed to aware the community people,
children and youths about environmental crisis and make
them well equipped with adequate knowledge, resources and
skills to manage the environment for sustainable development
of the societies.
Nepal is facing
a wide range of environmental problems due to unsustainable
mode of developmental activities. This has caused degradation
of the environmental resources leading to environmental
disasters. Nepal falls on the 31st country in the world
in terms of natural disasters. The livelihood of the majority
of the rural Nepal is based on natural resources. With the
degradation of natural resources, the livelihood of the
people are also becoming at risk. Nepal is already troubled
by environmental disasters, additionally; Nepal seems to
be affected by the global climate change. Importantly, Nepal
has no share in global green house emissions. Nepal Thus,
the time has come to aware and alert the people on possible
environmental crisis including climate crisis so that the
people will themselves take an initiative to save their
own lives from disasters and improve their livelihood by
conserving and utilizing the natural resources on a sustainable
manner.
The
volunteers can join the following eco-projects
1)
Environmental education at school, college and community
on
a)
Global warming (Climate change)
Global warming
has now been a burning problem globally. This has made each
and every corner of the world to suffer from harsh consequences.
Nepal, despite having negligible share on green house emissions,
seems to be more affected. Nepal is one of the poor and
developing countries in the world so Nepal does not have
economic strength to combat climate crisis and save the
vulnerable people from climate disasters. Therefore, it
is the urgent need to aware the people about this global
problem so that the people will become much more conscious
on environmental conservation and management.
Global warming
has caused rapid melting of mountain glaciers, the renewable
storehouse of river water, leading to the formation of glacial
lakes. There are 24 most potentially dangerous glacial lakes
in Nepal. All those lakes are on the verge of bursting.
No effective preventive measures are carried out to avoid
such huge lakes from bursting by the government and international
communities. If such lakes outburst, innumerable communities
downstream will be washed away. In the past, the glacial
lakes outburst floods has caused huge casualties in Nepal.
As a result, Nepal is more likely to face “Mountain
Tsunamis” in the future.
Likewise,
the glaciers are shrinking due to increasing temperature.
If the trend of glaciers shrinkage continues with rising
temperature, there will be less size of glaciers. That means,
there will be less flow of water in the river in the future.
If there is less water in the rivers (which now feeds two
third world’s population), the water war is obvious.
In addition to, we will also have problems in hydropower
generation, irrigation etc.
Due to climate
change, the agricultural crops are also being damaged in
Nepal. This has begun adversely impacting the agricultural
production and livelihood of the rural people who depend
on agriculture through rain water and climate. In Nepal,
more than 80% rural people make their living through agriculture
depending on climate and rain water.
Climate change
has affected each and every area (having direct linkage
with livelihood of Nepali people) like agriculture, biodiversity,
human health, tourism, water resources, mountain ecology
etc.
b) Air pollution
Air pollution especially in urban areas has been the most
burning problem. Urban areas of Nepal is facing air pollution
problems due to population growth, rural migration towards
city areas, urbanization, vehicles emissions, construction
works. The air pollution is not only increasing the emissions
of green house gases in the atmosphere contributing global
warming. This also has brought out adverse impacts on health,
agriculture, cultural heritages of worldwide importance,
tourism and sustainable development of the country. According
to the recent findings, more than 400 people in Kathmandu
(The capital of Nepal) alone die of air pollution related
health disorders. According to UNEP (2006), Kathmandu has
been placed as the most polluted city in Asia.
c)
Water and sanitation
Most of the rural areas do not have access to drinking water.
Let aside the service of having clean drinking water to
be enjoyed by the rural people. In rural areas, women have
to handle all the household chores like cooking, managing
water, collecting fire woods from the forest. They have
to manage the drinking water walking a distance of at least
an hour. This has made the women to engage less in income
generating activities and more on household activities.
It is the need to develop the infrastructure for drinking
water in the community and run an education program to drink
only the boiled or filtered water to prevent people from
water borne diseases.
Likewise, most of the rural areas do not have even a single
toilet. They defecate in the open air. This has invited
several health and environmental problems in the community.
d) Forest conservation
Once Nepal was regarded as the densely forested country,
therefore, there was a saying “Green Forest is the
wealth of Nepal”. Now the forest coverage in Nepal
has decreased from 45% to less than 29%.Due to rampant forest
destruction in the country (especially in Terai region),
the natural disasters are taking the lives of thousands
of life, displacing millions of people along with more casualties.
e) Wildlife conservation
Nepal is home
to many rare animal species like one horned rhinoceros,
royal Bengal tiger, snow leopard. But the wild animals which
are not only the main agent of maintaining ecosystem but
also the main source of national income through tourism.
These animals are on the verge of extinction due to poaching,
habitat fragmentation etc. It is the urgent need to run
an awareness program and effective campaign to save such
endangered animals.
f) Solid waste management
In Nepal,
there is no scientific and technical infrastructure in place
to manage the solid waste generated from several sources.
This has led further air pollution and other problems. If
we educate and train the community to manage the biodegradable
waste to make compost, we can minimize the waste from the
sources. We can also encourage the community to avoid using
non biodegradable things like plastic.
g)
Organic farming
Most of the farmers use chemical fertilizers for agricultural
productions. The farmers are unaware about the environmental
and health problems and possibility of low productivity
in the future due to agricultural practices using fertilizers.
The farmers need to be well aware of it and should be encouraged
and trained to adopt organic farming.
h) Urban river conservation
In city areas,
the rivers are highly polluted. The river pollution has
not only adversely affected life of aquatic animals but
also the health of city dwellers and clean structure of
the city areas. We can run a campaign to minimize river
pollution with the involvement of community people, school
and college students.(Picture of Bagmati river)
i) Cultural Heritages Conservation
Due to environmental
pollution and negligence of concerned governmental agencies,
the cultural heritages even enlisted in World Heritage Sites
are on the verge of deterioration. The cultural heritages
are not only the history of Nepal but also the identity,
proud and asset of Nepal. Therefore, cultural heritages
or infrastructures of local, national, regional and global
importance need to be conserved by educating, inspiring
and involving community stakeholders.
j) Animal Welfare education
In Nepal,
the concept of animal rights protection has still not developed.
So, the animals are not loved, taken cared and well treated
by the humans. The animals are being victimized by the people
.We need to develop a sense of love for the animals by educating
the community people and students at schools and colleges.
2)
Eco-tourism development Prograam
The volunteers
can work to develop a rural community as an eco-community
so that the community will be able to develop the village
by conserving the local natural resources on a sustainable
way.
In this program, the volunteers will do following things
in the community:
- educate
and train the community stakeholders (community people,
school students) on solid waste management to make a compost
for farming. This will encourage the rural people to follow
organic farming which will prevent land and water pollution.
- Community
clean up
- Infrastructure
building like toilet and drinking water
- Most of
the rural communities do not have even a single toilet.
The people defecate in the open air. This has led the
people to suffer from water borne diseases and environmental
deterioration.
- Tree plantation
There is widespread
destruction of forest in rural areas. This has led to disasters
like landslide. To prevent from such disasters and preserve
the forest, tree plantation campaign will be launched in
coordination with all the stakeholders of the community.
- Community
Education on environmental health like need to drink boiled
water, need to wash hands before meal and after toilet,
need to make house environment neat and clean etc.
- Train the
community to produce an eco-product from the village
Each and every village of Nepal has potential of developing
a product like hand made papers, eco-friendly bag from
plants. This could generate employment opportunities in
the village.
- Consultation with community
people to develop eco-tourism based source of income for
the village
- Aware the people on possible
natural disasters like landslide and run a pre-disaster
reduction program in coordination with community stakeholders
- Encourage the community
to declare and maintain the eco-community status of the
community to promote internal and external tourism.
3)
Eco-course for volunteers
With an objective
to inform about the environmental issues and problems of
Nepal, VSN Nepal offers eco-course for the international
people. This is a one week course and will be conducted
by a highly experienced environmentalist of Nepal. The course
details will be available upon request. Upon completion
of the course, the candidates will get opportunity to work
on environmental issues with the young environmentalists
of Nepal.
