27th Ambassadorship, Month 3, Report 1

Free Report: November

Title: An action to mitigate natural disaster

All human along with other creatures have been living in our natural home called earth for millions of year which is composed of interconnected and harmonically existing different types of the ecosystem. Plants and planktons are pumping oxygen to our home, fertile land and pastures are growing food we need, the regular cycle of rainfall patterns have quenching thirst and beautiful natural landscapes are giving aesthetic entertainment to us. All the creatures are living in this home constantly updating them and harmonizing with each other.

In recent few hundred years, one creature called human have became little bit smart than other and invented lots of the smart technology and innovations which made him powerful than other. They became greedy to use the innovations and inventions they have created to extract the resources at a higher rate than nature can generate, and waste more than nature can digest. It has started to shake the natural harmony with which all creatures were living for thousands of years. Such phenomenon also has been seen in our home country Nepal.

Nature has gifted this small country in Asia located between two large countries China and India with 8 out of 10 highest mountains of the world, about 2000 rivers within an area little above 147 thousand square km. Climatic diversity is spectacular with tropical to tundra zone which has made it home to about 4% of mammalian species, 9% of birds species of the world in just 0.03% of the world land area.  Other floral and faunal richness is also heavenly.

This natural richness is being vulnerable to the direct and indirect human greediness. Global warming is melting the ice cap of our mountain, enlarging glaciers, and increasing the risk of flood, landslide, and erosion downstream.  Erratic and intense rainfall patterns are increasingly observed in recent years which are aggravating the problems. Although local contribution to global greenhouse gas emission is just about 0.027 percentage, and has about 44.7 % of the land covered by forest, the various scientific literatures is saying that the impact of climate change is more in the Himalayan region.

Not only global problem is triggering disaster. Increasing unscientific resource extraction and haphazard criss-crossing of the fragile hilly belt by earthen (mostly non-functional) road network are making the situation worse.

Flashflood, landslide, and soil erosion have become a common phenomenon in the monsoon season from June to September costing hundreds of lives and billions of properties. In the past 9 years, governmental data shows flood and landslides alone costs an average of about 200 lives and 2 billion worths of personal property in a single year as per Kantipur news in Nepal. The undocumented loss could be even more.  The recent disaster in the Melamchi of Sindhupalanchowk district and Tal Village in Manang district has cost dozens of life and billions of properties.   The almost entire town of Melamchi has been made inhabitable by the flood in the Melamchi river.

Seeing such natural disasters every year strikes many questions in my mind: why Mother Nature is being cruel to our beautiful country, why it is cursing the country just moving towards development? Why do innocent humans and other creatures have to bear the punishment of the crime done by a few? Can our lone effort matters in the problem of this complexity and magnitude? Can we find sustainable way to address the problem? Can we change our way to harmonize nature with society?

 Nature has made us smart enough not to damage and destroy but for being creative and innovative to find a solution, taking action, and inspiring and persuading others to contribute to a cause. We can persuade other for collective commitment and conscious effort for slowing down, halting and restoring the environmental damage, which are the major casual factors of natural disaster. Global magnitude of the problem like global warming and climate change could not be entirely mitigated through local action but it surely contributes. Cumulative effort by all contributes to larger change. One should take the initiative to trigger it for larger collective action. 

Incorporation of the conservation and mitigation efforts in the culture of people by making them realize the environment as our collective home can bring a sustainable solution. All people should feel that enriching it makes us happy, peaceful and prosperous, and healthy, damage to it makes us poor, miserable, insecure, and create chaos. Complex and large problems don’t require complex solutions but an innovative creative and collective one.

Ideas are worthless until we act to realize them. So we formed an "Eco-club" with a motto of "Collective action for a peaceful and harmonious environment in a local level. This club has 9 member executive committee with an open door general membership policy. Each member has to do at least 1 task to contribute to enrich the environment and mitigate the disaster to get the membership. Doing additional tasks after membership adds a credit point for being an executive member and eco ambassador.  We have made the policy to replicate our effort through a general member in their respective village/town. General member persuades their family and community member to contribute for our cause. The major activities include planting trees on birthdays, organizing poem and essay writing competitions, writing radio jingle and articles and blogs for conservation, forming junior eco-club in the respective village/town of the general member, writing letters to the local government to address the issue of pollution, waste management, afforestation, erosion control, and nature-friendly development, The creative ideas of the members are welcomed to be included in the activity list. 

Till now we have planted more than 5000 trees, organized 2 essay writing competitions and 2 poem recitation competitions and so on. 11 general members have persuaded their village/town junior to form the junior eco-club. We have written letters to several local governments for environmental conservation and disaster management. Wherever our member thinks some their area to be vulnerable to landslide, flood and erosion, they immediately inform local authority and start whatever campaign is possible. We conduct planting campaign in selected place with assistance of campus authority and local government in summer vacation. Doing these things provides us positive feedback which inspires us to do more. The action oriented work have made our club vibrant and becoming platform to develop our personal as well technical capability.