Dickinson Nepal Mosaic

In the book, Bones of the Tiger: Protecting the Man-eaters of Nepal Hemanta Mishra provides detailed accounts of his life work, studying and conserving tigers in Nepal.  Throughout Mishra’s stories of tiger conservation, I have learned about the history of environmental policy in Nepal, the ecosystem of Chitwan National Park, as well as receive insight on some Nepali culture and spirt.

Early in this book, Mishra provides insight from Dr. S Dillon Ripley.  Ripley worked in the to create the Smithsonian Nepal Tiger Ecology Project (STEP).  An advocate for banning the hunting of tigers in the India subcontinent Ripley found four main reasons as to why tigers are declining because “the failure to curb habitat destruction by agricultural encroachments”, “poaching, mostly stemming for laxity in law enforcement”, “the decision of the provisional government to promote tiger hunting as a source of revenue”, and “most important, the lack of baseline data and a scientific approach to tiger conservation in India.”  These four reasons for tiger population loss exemplify the broader environmental problems in Nepal.  A lack of strong laws against harmful practices such as habitat destruction and deforestation are a main reason Nepal exists in such a fragile environment.  The extent to which the Nepali government has disregarded the wellbeing of tiger populations in their country is quite shocking.  Nepali Rana prime minister Juddah Shamsheer from 1933-1940 shot and killed 433 tigers (p. 117).

I believe that the history of environmental policy provided in this book will be very helpful when I am working in Nepal this semester.  In 1971 the government of Nepal requested aid from the Food and Agricultural Organization “to help Nepal create a network of national parks and wildlife reserves” (p. 20).  However, when the committee was appointed there was a distaste from local Nepali people as it contained solely British and American scientists who had never been to Nepal.  Even the Nepali people who saw the benefit in national parks gained “poor opinion of “starry-eyed” American academics running loose with their own agendas in developing countries” (p. 20).  When I am in Nepal I will this this in mind and make sure that I do not push my biases onto the people that we are working with.

Throughout the book Mishra spent a lot of time in the Chitwan National Park.  Although the primary focus while at the National Park was on tigers he also explained some of the local ecology.  For example, I learned that there is a prevalent population of one horned rhinoceros, and over 500 species of bird. This information can be helpful as it will be good to kno what animals are native to the forest of Nepal.

While in the Chitwan National Park Mishra also explained some acts of Nepali worship.  Before entering the forest, the ritual of Puja, “an act of worship to make a spiritual connection with the jungle deity” was performed (p.35).  This is an old Chitwan tradition that appeals to Ban Davi, the god of the forests.  The ritual consists of three sacrifices, a black goat, a red roster, and two white pigeons. After the sacrifices are completed the people participating were then dressed with red ribbons around their necks and had a mixture of rice, yogurt, and vermilion marked on their foreheads. Although this is only a small taste of the spiritually of Nepal, the description of this sacrifice prepared me to embrace the radiating spirituality the country has to offer.

Another aspect of Nepal that was highlighted in “Bones of the Tiger” was the Nepali culture.  A common greeting heard around Southeast Asia is Nameste Sahib. Nameste translates to “I bow to the god within you” and Sahib means “sir” (p. 32).  This greeting is used quite commonly throughout the book so I am glad that I have already been introduced to it.  Another aspect of Nepali culture that is highlighted is the usage of elephants.  When the group is trying to capture and tranquilize a tiger, elephants play a big role.  First, they act as the mode of transport throughout the forest.  They also help the conservationist carry a lot more than they would personally be able to.  I hope that I will be able to experience some form of elephant transport during my time in Nepal.

Mishra’s book introduced me to many aspects of Nepali life that were foreign to me.  I am now excited to learn more about the cultural, the spirituality, the history, and the environment.

Bibliography:

Mishra, Hemanta, and Jim Ottaway. Bones of the Tiger: Protecting the Man-eaters of Nepal. Guilford, Conn: Lyons, 2010. Print.

Over the Summer I read Arresting God in Kathmandu by Samrat Upadhyay, it is a collection of stories about various individuals and their families living life in Kathmandu.  The stories are incredibly varied, representing people of different genders, age and social class.  The stories all center around family life, many discuss the process of arranged marriage and issues of infidelity.  The author provides the reader with a complex view of life in the city by illustrating how people of such varied identities come together in the same geographical location.  I will discuss a few of the stories; “The Good Shopkeeper”, “The Limping Bride” and “During the Festival” to exemplify the breadth of life the author displays in the book.

“The Good Shopkeeper” tells the story of a man, Pramod, who loses his accounting job.  The story reveals how a personal backset becomes incredibly public and a matter of concern for the man’s entire family.  After months of failing to find a job because of lack of connections Pramod has an affair and is a disappointment to his wife.  Finally he has a colorful outburst at a family gathering during which he points out the failures or corruption of many of the family members, depicting how it was the family who helped them out in their time of need.  This story illustrates the communal nature of a family.  Moreover the story also deals with class issues as Pramod eventually acknowledges he would make a good shopkeeper, a task that he would have thought below his class or shameful in his previous life.  It is a multifaceted story that exemplifies how a man of his class deals with a fall from grace.

“The Limping Bride” is the story of a widower who arranges the marriage of his drunkard son with a beautiful, yet disabled woman.  Through this story the reader learns about the process by which an arranged marriage takes place in Kathmandu.  After the widower, Hiralal, hears that this girl’s family is seeking a marriage he obtains a picture.  Once his son approves the picture Hiralal arranges for a viewing.  At the viewing both families are present and it is at the viewing that his son agrees to marry this girl.  A large theme of this story is disability.  The limping bride is a beautiful woman, the only child of her family.  Yet despite her virtues she is forced to marry a drunkard, Moti.  Moti only learns of her disability after the wedding and is incredibly ashamed of it.  He refuses to speak to his new wife for months and she is forced to endure isolation.  She is seen as nothing other than her disability.  It takes a very long time for Moti to warm to his bride and even then she is still facing horrible treatment.

“During the Festival” is a story of a man who is jealous of his wife and suspects her of having an affair.  After three years of marriage he cannot escape the thoughts of his own mind as he suspects she is not being faithful.  This is perhaps due to the disparity in his physical appearance compared to hers.  It is also because he is a rumored bastard, the son of his mother’s lover.  This is a shameful piece of information that he carries throughout his life and haunts him during his interactions with his wife.  Infidelity is a large theme of this book and present in all of the stories, although it was not explicitly mentioned in the previous paragraphs.  It is perhaps due to the nature of arranged marriages that infidelity seems to play such a large role in the lives of the individuals featured in the stories.  It is also self doubt, thoughts of inadequacy, disappointing one’s family or loneliness that drive respective characters to be unfaithful.

Arresting God in Kathmandu provides a complex perspective of life in the city.  If anything is to be taken away it is how different people are.  For each individual, factors such as religion, wealth, status and insecurity etc. played different roles in each of their lives.  People are inherently complex beings that cannot be categorized or simply understood.

Hemanta Mishra’s Bones of the Tiger: Protecting the Man Eaters of Nepal is a reflection on the author’s work on tiger conservation. Mishra describes the many obstacles he has faced and the obstacles he still faces and shares many stories and experiences that illuminate his journey. His stories describe obstacles shared by activists across disciplines, like political gridlock, issues that face many endangered species, and issues specific to that of the tiger, like the animosity between humans and the tigers that live near them. Finally, it illuminated several of the aspects of Nepalese culture that sometimes seem counterproductive but could be huge catalysts of environmental change.

Throughout his book, Mishra discusses many situations that require quick decision making and are instead met with bureaucracy that he must creatively circumvent or fail. In his initial effort to begin researching and protecting tigers in Nepal he must appease both the Americans and the Nepalese government as well as several different non-profit groups. He describes a stressful balancing act that had little to do with the tigers that he wanted to protect. Whenever a situation arises that requires immediate action Mishra becomes worried because the bureaucracy in Kathmandu works too slowly to allow him to do his job effectively.

As the title of his book indicates, Mishra’s book focuses on the contentious relationship between humans and tigers. An incident Mishra describes between a tiger and a man that resulted in the man’s death occurred when the man was walking through fog to a river to pray and the tiger attacked him. The man died and the villagers nearby were furious and demanded the tiger be killed in retribution. Initially I was annoyed by this story. What was the man doing alone in the jungle in the middle of a dense fog? To me, it felt like it was partially his fault. However, as I reflected more on the story I realized several things. First, the local people around tiger conservation areas are essential to the goal of conservation. Without their cooperation, nothing can be achieved. It also made me realize that these villagers view tigers very differently than I do. I have only ever observed or learned about them from a position of power and reverence – a zoo, books, and pictures. They are obviously powerful, dangerous animals, but I have never been in a position where a tiger was directly threatening. The prospect of tigers in the world has never needed to be frightening to me. However, to people who live near them, tigers aren’t beautiful, amazing animals; they are a daily threat. This lead me to a comparison between tiger conservation and wolf conservation. Wolves were driven out of the Yellowstone area by ranchers who saw wolves as a threat to their livelihoods. This caused the park to change drastically and when wolves were reintroduced it revitalized the ecosystem. This shows the necessity of major predators in the health of an ecosystem and shows that eliminating a “threat” can have drastic and unexpected consequences. This felt especially important because they villagers to whom tigers are a threat are also people who depend on their ecosystem for necessities like food and water and if the ecosystem were to change it could potentially be disastrous for them. This story also held an important lesson for Mishra and the other researchers that resonated with me. The tiger that had killed the man just happened to be a tiger that the researchers saved from certain death after being attacked by another tiger. Intervention on the part of the researchers meant that the tiger lived, but he became lame. Tigers usually avoid people and contact between the two is rare. This tiger was driven to confrontation because of his inability to hunt his natural prey. Mishra realized that the entire incident would probably have been avoided if they had initially let nature take its course and not rescued this wounded tiger. Even the smallest of actions can have an unexpected chain reaction.

Mishra also has a lot of hope for the relationship between humans and tigers, which is shown through the history he tells of the tiger in Asia. They are depicted as the kings of the jungle, with the markings on their face are the derivatives of the Chinese symbol for king. They used to be worshipped, but Mishra thinks that this might also have been their downfall. Tiger bones were thought to have healing properties and skins are seen as trophies. Nepalese royalty used to hunt tigers and ended up killing thousands. While the relationship between humans and tigers has degraded over the years, Mishra thinks that the ancient respect of tigers in Nepalese culture can be harnessed to help save them. His book highlighted the importance of perception between humans and endangered predators and how much distance changes perspective. It also made me think more critically about conservation. Mishra found that instead of trying to save every animal, conservationists must be much more utilitarian. Playing God in the life of one tiger might have unintended consequences. However, how can you always judge when it is appropriate to intervene? Surely if there were only a few tigers left you would intervene if it meant the difference between life and death. Mishra’s book challenged me on a position that I previously thought was pretty much black and white. He helped me to see that every situation has many sides and the only way to find a solution is to understand all the sides and try to balance their needs.

From UNFCCC TT: CLEAR

Globalization levels the playing field for innovation in climate adaptation and mitigation. But barriers to the transfer of innovative ideas from universities to entrepreneurs to communities remain high in much of the developing world. The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change facilitates these connections with its Technology Mechanism, made up of the Technology Executive Committee (TEC) and the Climate Technology Centre and Network (CTCN). These systems meet a similarly equitable purpose to climate finance or capacity building. With guidance from the Conference of the Parties, the TEC supports policy initiatives that improve technology transfer. The CTCN extends technical assistance and strengthens the knowledge economies of developing countries with information services. The governments of least developed countries can request technical assistance support through nationally designated entities (NDE) – specific government offices that act as liaisons. A network of experts and development organizations comes together to support projects. The CTCN is uniquely positioned in the UNFCCC to provide governments with a model of support which is typically extended to private companies. Governments may request tailored technical assistance or technical incubator services. These requests can come to the NDA from cross-sector stakeholders. LDC may also submit requests for a Technology Needs Assessment (TNA). These surveys signal target sectors for domestic development and international attention. The TNA delivers a Technical Action Plan as a finished product. The CTCN model encourages technical assistance to fit within national commitments from the Paris Accord. The Poznan Strategic Program on Technology Transfer facilitates the two main elements of the Technology Mechanism with funding from the Global Environment Facility. This enables TNA and projects that come from the findings of TNA.

From Securing Water for Food

In an internship at the Securing Water for Food Technical Assistance Facility, I experienced the importance of technology transfer firsthand. But I hesitated when I applied because I was unsure that technology alone was adequate to meet the political and social needs of natural resource conservation. In my opinion, technology was the cause of the world’s climate crisis, not the solution – that would come by changing markets and politics to produce and consume sustainably. Then, I helped the facility support technology transfer between innovative start-ups and communities. I saw how technology intersects with my original images of change. Expanded incomes from technology adapted to a new climate can secure social standing, market access, and encourage participatory governance for individuals or nations. The benefits of technology transfer extend far beyond the technical. Coming at the project with a policy background, I led a report on regulatory barriers to climate-smart agricultural innovation in South Africa and India. Issues in the transfer of technology – be it risk-averse organizational culture, lack of investment, or universities isolated from field knowledge – could seriously stem the flow of otherwise impactful projects. Investment in climate adaptation and mitigation can be made more efficient if barriers to technology transfer come down, politically and technically. To help with this, I provided a series of recommendations to the USAID Missions in the two countries. But the Missions had little leverage to change national policy. The NDA system in the CTCN places states as the points of contact. The TEC forms a bridge between technical assistance and the policy-focus of other UNFCCC initiatives. With this holistic approach to technology transfer, the UNFCCC may meet both the political and technical needs of developing countries. In my experience, these must be met together. The innovators I worked with needed legal support as much as they needed technology. Some struggled to register their products or even navigate unfamiliar bureaucracies. Technology transfer in the UNFCCC could push innovative technology past the barriers to adoption or scale and into the hands of the people who need it to mitigate or adapt to climate change.

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate change (UNFCCC) is a collaboration of countries which seek to reign in anthropogenic climate change as much as possible, and respond effectively to its potential threats. A key part of the UNFCCC agreement involves “capacity-building”: efforts to improve nations’ abilities to meet the UNFCCC’s mitigation and adaptation goals (“Understanding Capacity-Building”). The UNFCCC promotes capacity-building measures to reach those with the fewest resources, and those which face the greatest dangers. These programs help to level the playing field so that vulnerable populations have a fair opportunity to improve their own situation, and have the ability to help improve the global situation.

 One capacity building project strated in 2014 involved the setup of climate change research tools in some of Brazil’s public schools. Retrieved from United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

The UNFCCC has laid out “frameworks,” or basic strategies, of capacity-building for two specific groups of countries: developing countries and those with economies in transition (“Understanding Capacity- Building”). Whereas those in the first category are in the process of raising their standard of living, those in the second are shifting from government controlled economies to having independently operating companies (Cambridge Dictionary). Countries in both framework categories are undergoing major shifts in economic, political, and other social systems, which may make it difficult for them to focus on climate change issues. Developing countries also lack the monetary and technological resources which industrially developed countries can use to deal with climate change. However, the period of change provides opportunities to redesign social systems to better promote climate-friendly behaviors and resilience to climate related threats. Therefore, a focus on capacity building in these countries makes sense because it is especially necessary and can also be especially transformative.

Programs such as the European Capacity Building Initiative, run by the International Institute for Environmental Development, put UNFCCC frameworks into action by providing educational workshops and other forms of training (“Workshops”). To provide easy access to information on initiatives around the world, the UNFCCC has developed a Capacity-Building Portal which organizes programs by country and provides links to more information. Hundreds of programs are complete or currently active, and take on the form of workshops, efforts to influence government policy, and other initiatives according to countries’ various needs.

“Participants of the 2014 ecbi pre-COP training workshop for LDC negotiators, Lima.” Retireved from International Institute for Environment and Development.

The UNFCCC also aims to provide tools specifically to women, who often face the greatest climate change-related risks because of social systems that prevent them from protecting themselves. Much of their vulnerability stems from poverty. The UN guidebook Gender, Climate Change and Community-Based Adaptation explains that “poor women’s limited access to resources, restricted rights, limited mobility and voice in community and household decision-making” are all factors which put them disproportionately at risk (ii). These factors may also prevent women from benefiting as much as men do from capacity building programs. The guide calls for programs to actively compensate for gender inequalities. Programs that follow this advice would not only benefit individual women, but could also provide them with the tools to better serve their families and communities.

If they work as planned, capacity building efforts should lessen the strain of dealing with climate change on vulnerable individuals and nations, and overall. By providing tools to combat climate change to those who otherwise would not have access, they distribute the burden over a larger group of people, and they lessen the overall burden by helping people to solve problems in the most efficient way possible. Furthermore, capacity building provides agency to disadvantaged populations. Once they have the capacity to effectively mitigate and adapt to climate change, they can make their own informed decisions on how to do so rather than having the decisions of other groups imposed upon them.

References

Gender, Climate Change and Community-Based Adaptation. New York: United Nations
Development Programme, 2006.
<http://www.undp.org/content/dam/aplaws/publication/en/publications/environment-energy/www-ee-library/climate-change/gender-climate-change-and-community-based-adaptation-guidebook-/Gender%20Climate%20Change%20and%20Community%20Based%20Adaptation%20(2).pdf>

“Transition Economy.” Cambridge Dictionary, Cambridge University Press 2017. <http://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/transition-economy>.
“Understanding Capacity-Building, Education and Outreach.” United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change. http://bigpicture.unfccc.int/

“Workshops That Build Climate Negotiators’ Capacity: European Capacity Building Initiative Training and Support Programme.” International Institute for Environment and Development. <https://www.iied.org/workshops-build-climate-negotiators-capacity- european-capacity-building-initiative-training-support>

The UNFCCC is one of the most important governing bodies that facilitate the discussion of climate change on an international level. With its goal of stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations to a level that would not bring catastrophic changes to the Earth’s ecosystems, the UNFCCC takes a multilateral approach, establishing institutions, intergovernmental processes and assigning nations with specific responsibilities of reducing their impacts upon the environment (UNFCCC).

In order to help nations with designing strategies and developing mechanisms to adapt and mitigate the effects of climate change, the UNFCCC has established a financing mechanism with multiple operating entities, mainly the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and more recently, the Green Climate Fund (GCF). The Global Environment Facility was established in 1991, as a response to a growing need of a governing financial entity, and provides funds to developing countries and countries with economies in transition to meet the requirements of international environmental conventions and agreements. Not only does the GEF serve as an operating financial entity for the UNFCCC, but also other conventions such as Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the Stockholm Convention on POPs and the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (CCD). The GEF fund is replenished every 4 years, with current contributions from 39 countries, totaling $4.43 billion (GEF, 2017).

The second operating financial entity for the UNFCCC, the Green Climate Fund (GCF), was established in 2011 under the 15th COP in Copenhagen. The GCF focuses specifically on funding developing countries, especially highly vulnerable communities, in order to help them develop enough infrastructure to limit greenhouse gas production, mitigate and adapt to the effects of climate change. The goal of the GCF is to raise $100 billion annually by 2025, in order to have the adequate resources to fund developing countries (UNFCCC). As of now, however, the number of resources mobilized has only reached $10.3 billion (Figure 1). Nonetheless, the GCF has already invested in many programs that help increase the climate resiliency of vulnerable communities. For example, the state of Odisha, India, suffers from extreme food and water insecurity due to irregular floods and monsoons. The GCF has funded a project to install 10,000 groundwater recharge shafts for the vulnerable communities, effectively increasing the livelihoods of 5.2 million beneficiaries. In Vietnam, where coastal communities are vulnerable to tropical storms, the GCF has invested in infrastructural development, rebuilding houses and rehabilitating coastal mangrove forests to create storm buffers, increasing the livelihoods of 30 million beneficiaries (Green Climate Fund, 2017). In Nepal, the GCF funded the government $2.7 million dollars to develop a National Adaptation Plan in order to identify medium and long-term adaptation needs and strategies to address these needs (Green Climate Fund, 2016).

Figure 1. Contributors to the Green Climate Fund.

As nations continue to cooperate and develop long-term strategies to mitigate and adapt to the impacts of climate change, it is important that these operating financial mechanisms remain in place and receives continued contributions. Without the resources provided from the GCF, developing countries, especially highly vulnerable countries, will not have the resources to make the transition to a clean economy within a limited timeframe, or develop a strong support infrastructure to communities that will be affected by the impacts of climate change.

Sources Cited:

Global Environment Facility, 2017. “Funding.” Retrieved from https://www.thegef.org/about/funding#

Green Climate Fund, 2017. “Improving the resilience of vulnerable coastal communities to climate change related impacts in Viet Nam.” Retrieved from http://www.greenclimate.fund/-/improving-the-resilience-of-vulnerable-coastal-communities-to-climate-change-related-impacts-in-viet-nam

Green Climate Fund, 2017. “Ground water recharge and solar micro irrigation to ensure food security and enhance resilience in vulnerable tribal areas of Odisha.” Retrieved from http://www.greenclimate.fund/-/ground-water-recharge-and-solar-micro-irrigation-to-ensure-food-security-and-enhance-resilience-in-vulnerable-tribal-areas-of-odisha

Green Climate Fund, 2016. “GCF approves first grants for National Adaptation Planning in Liberia and Nepal.” Retrieved from http://www.greenclimate.fund/-/gcf-approves-first-grants-for-national-adaptation-planning-in-liberia-and-nepal

Green Climate Fund, 2017. “Status of pledges and contributions made to the green climate fund”. Retrieved from https://www.greenclimate.fund/documents/20182/24868/Status_of_Pledges.pdf/eef538d3-2987-4659-8c7c-5566ed6afd19

UNFCCC. “What Is Climate Finance?” UNFCCC EHandbook – Startpage. Retrieved from https://bigpicture.unfccc.int