Shradha Khadka on Exploring Nepal’s Natural Resource Governance Conflicts

[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to PODS by PEI, a policy discussion series brought to you by Policy Entrepreneurs Inc. I am Bibi Tiba-ta. In today's episode, PEI Khalid Kushi is in conversation with researcher Shradha Khadka on Exploring Nepals Natural Resource Governance Conflicts.

[00:00:27] Shradha is the research coordinator at the Center for Social Change, focusing on Nepals Natural Resources, Climate Governance and Environmental Peace Building. Recently, she co-authored an article titled, Understanding the Interrelations Between Natural Resources and Development Governance in Federal Nepal.

[00:00:44] She has a Master's inhumans and Natural Resources from Kathmandu University. Pushi and Shradha discuss historical and contemporary conflicts concerning natural resource governance in Nepal. The focus on significant shifts brought by Nepal's transition to a federal structure, the challenges of a centralized mindset,

[00:01:01] and the lack of clarity in rural, common federal, provincial and local levels. Shradha also explains the key governance conflicts, environmental and human wildlife security impact and her research on their resource cars tree. We hope you enjoy the conversation. Namaste, I'm Kushi Han. Namaste, I'm Shradha Khadka.

[00:01:22] Welcome to the show Shradha, how are you doing today? Thank you so much. I'm okay, I'm doing good. Thank you Kushi for having that. We're here to talk about a very interesting topic which is the Natural Resource Governance Conflict in Nepal.

[00:01:35] We've been working on this episode for a while now and it's been quite tricky to get a hold of you, Shradha. And for good reasons because you've been on the field working on this particular topic researching for the past three months or even longer.

[00:01:47] So to get started maybe you can share what you've been up to and also introduce yourself and your research. Thank you, Kushi for that question.

[00:01:57] I have been in the field for quite a while and I know this episode has been months in the making. I'm finally glad it's happening. So what I do is I'm currently working as the Research Coordinator at Center for Social Change.

[00:02:09] CEC, CEC has its own flagship research initiative, called Governance Monitoring Center GMC Nepal. Of that initiative, I'm taking the lead role right now and one of the components is Natural Resource Governance.

[00:02:23] Natural Resource is not the only area we look at. There is political governance, there is Epochal-Shuril areas, there's development governance that we look at.

[00:02:33] So for that, there is the secondary data, a bit part of it and then the primary data we collected from the fields itself. There are four project areas that we work at.

[00:02:43] I wouldn't say it's an intensive research but it's an amalgamation of you know collecting information and just understanding the perception of what people really are feeling at the fields when it comes to governance.

[00:02:56] I like how you simplify it as what people are feeling, right? But why natural resource then? So from our observations and from our brainstormings, from the previous projects as well.

[00:03:08] Many of our project areas are located in the Thari built of Nepal and natural resources conflict is something that keeps popping up in terms of flood in terms of smuggling of natural resources, or forest products of human and wildlife conflict or to see.

[00:03:25] This has kept popping up when we didn't even have the intention of looking into natural resources. I own academic interests and myself, interestingly, got to the point where I had to dig deeper into it. Now it's a part of the whole initiative as well.

[00:03:39] So that's how it's been included in the project actually. Like you said, I think one of the quintessential identifiers of Nepal as a country is its abundant natural assets.

[00:03:50] We talk about having one of the highest numbers of rivers, lush forests and so on. It's really entangled with our identity.

[00:03:58] So before we get into the messy bits of the conflicts around in natural resources, what has been the historical relationship between the Nepali people and their natural resources and how has this relationship evolved over time as a state itself went through changes?

[00:04:15] So when we talk about natural resources in the context of Nepal, people have had a very ancient relationship with it. Of course, the river that flows through their towns or villages, the forests that depend on for the sustenance and livelihoods, for their cultural aspects, for their spirituality, a sense of belonging of the identity as well.

[00:04:38] When we speak of natural resources, which is the first thing that comes in mind for me at least is something wild, something untamable, something uncontrolled. Natural resources when you think of it, that's been there for millions of years.

[00:04:55] If we go a little bit further, there's a commodity aspect to it. People depend on it for their basic sustenance, basically livelihoods, basic needs collect.

[00:05:05] And then if you go a little bit further, there is a larger economic part for the local growth, for the national development, for the strategies for the plans and everything.

[00:05:14] So there's that economic part of it. And then if you go a step further, there is the profit part of natural resources that is unaccounted for so much happening there.

[00:05:26] The huge amount of profit, huge amount of money that's untraceable. This is where the illegal activities happen, the corruption, the conflicts, the violence and everything, this muggling and all of that, unfortunately. This is also an aspect of natural resources that we should not forget.

[00:05:43] If we take the example of forests, before people, the indigenous and the local communities had their own sets of rules, had their own sets of how to get the byproducts of the forests and how to use them and how to protect them.

[00:05:59] They had their own set of rules and everything. But, as an until the feudal or a little bit of elitist areas of the runa regimes that came, that this power was limited to the local people.

[00:06:13] Most of the revenue and profit that was generated from selling these forest products were completely controlled by the runas. After they're downfall, there were such phase where the runa families still privately owned some of their security clients that belonged to them.

[00:06:30] But then came the nationalization of forests, the government owned these forests, wouldn't let the privatization of forests at all. And then came very, very important forest acts that led to the ownership of this forest by the government of Nepal.

[00:06:48] There was a forestry sector that was the Forest Act 1961 Forest Protection Act 1967 and there was the Water Resource Act National Water Plan, mineral reserve. So this was all early 90s or late 80s that these policies came into existence.

[00:07:06] So then come the development, big roads and highways in infrastructure, in huge numbers and huge proportions, deforestation's occurred. And then again we saw that environmental degradation, the erosion, the floods, I think it was during King Beringer's regime that this degradation was observed.

[00:07:28] And then came the policies to conserve them, okay we have to go back, we have to take a step back. Let's work into conservation of the forest and all, which worked very well for us till date actually.

[00:07:40] During this time, very important guidelines for committee forest programs also evolved that something very different from what we had been practicing before.

[00:07:49] Like total control on the forest one of them. This was something that the locals could get involved in first hand, it was their resources and they had control over it. So this period was very important for those policies to evolve actually.

[00:08:05] So till date if we talk about the very present context natural resources are more and more they are viewed as commodities, something to make money off of.

[00:08:18] Now gives a very fine line between you using those natural resources and then you exploiting them in a for how much money, for how much profit, for how much development. So there's just fine line that is creating a lot of challenges and conflicts at the moment.

[00:08:35] I think you've introduced some really fundamental perspectives that are sort of leading these conflicts but before we reach there let's still flesh out some of the institutional. And then we have a lot of emotional and technical bits of this issue.

[00:08:50] To conceptualize something like a natural resource governance conflict are there types of it? And what types of natural resource conflict can we see in Nepal? Maybe you can also share some examples that you've seen.

[00:09:04] So I'm going to stick to the research that we have connected of course, and then there are so many lenses to see this. One of them that we have categorized them into that is the micromicro context, the micromicro context and then the micromicro context.

[00:09:22] Because with federalism they came a hope that the local governments would be more powerful. The people would be more closer to their leaders. They would be able to share their grievances and you know have that to a communication channel to them.

[00:09:38] That was the whole point of federalism really coming to existence in Nepal. Also with this federal framework adoption, one of them in Nepal, we see a lot of restructure happening. We see a lot of policy reforms and re-institutionalization and so much is happening. It's been nine years.

[00:10:01] And we're still in that phase in that experiment with phase. It's still happening. So before we look into the natural resource governance, we have to look at the governance as a whole.

[00:10:11] And there are intergovernmental relationships between the three tiers of government and also between what different bodies in the same tiers.

[00:10:19] So the conflicts that are happening are at different levels. One thing I would really like to focus on is the centralized way of doing things for hundreds of years.

[00:10:30] We still haven't let go of that. Meaning the central government holds most of the power, which is fine. But if we have entered federalism already, then the power should be developed. You know there's so many mechanisms that allows you to do that.

[00:10:45] But there is reluctance in giving up that power. And also the local governments think they are the tigers of the jungle now, they have more power. The mayors are more powerful than ever.

[00:10:59] I know of the local units. So the local units also have that reluctance in taking orders or following the policies and the province.

[00:11:10] So we have to focus on the role of the role of provinces and how to incorporate their actual legitimacy and rationalize their being as well. And so many questions on that.

[00:11:22] So if we enter a natural resource conflicts, there's so much happening at all three tiers among those three tiers and among the same tiers as well. For example, NNRFC National Natural Resource Fiscal Commission.

[00:11:45] Constitution created that body as an independent body who is entirely responsible for revenue distribution, tax collection and all of that. And to divide those resources equally among the 753 local units, seven provinces and the central government.

[00:12:06] But there are so many problems in implementation or working ethics of the NNRFC that the actual laws and policies that were supposed to be the guidelines.

[00:12:19] The National Resource and Fiscal Commission act 2017 in the governor of the school of arranger and act 2017. They have not been able to perform as they were supposed to.

[00:12:32] So if we look at the horizontal aspect of it, for example, bagmati province and lumini province, if you just look at the provinces. They have obviously a lot of urban centers industries and a lot of ways for revenue generation.

[00:12:51] So they bring in more money. But if you compare that to carnally or Sudur-Postium, they barely contribute like 1% or 0.2% of money. There is that difference. But if you look at the expenses they're supposed to do, then there's that equal share.

[00:13:10] So it's not fair in terms of revenue collection as well. And in terms of resource allocation, like if you're sending out as a fiscal commission, if I'm sending out money to all of these local units, then that equitable resource distribution is not happening at the moment.

[00:13:31] Also, if we look from a skill level, from a capacity level, it's basically in a hot basis from other ministries, from forest department, from water ministries, from agriculture ministries, ministries. But these people perhaps they do a good job at their own positions in their own ministries.

[00:13:52] But they're brought here with a whole lot of confusion on what to do next. So NMRFC has a huge responsibility from a central level, but it's just not happening. It's just not performing at the moment.

[00:14:11] At the local levels, there was this one finding that we had extracted that after the demarcation process, post-redrelism. So one reason, one point that belonged to one municipality before now belongs to somebody else. Their whole identities associated with that point.

[00:14:32] Their whole livelihood and the plans are associated with that point. Now it belongs to somebody else. So there is that feeling of resentment. Also, post-demarcation, there were some provinces and some municipalities that just complained. We don't have enough natural resources if we compare it to them.

[00:14:53] We just don't have those kind of forests. We just don't have the kind of water resources. Where are we supposed to generate revenue from? So at the local levels, these kinds of conflicts.

[00:15:04] I think you've covered a lot of grounds in that answer, but to add further, what are some of the other significant policy changes, assured by the recent restructuring of the state?

[00:15:16] I'm thinking maybe we can talk about the new systems for royalty collection and how that has unfurled different impacts on how the state is motivated or isn't motivated. I think that really depends on how the state is viewing this natural resources at the moment.

[00:15:34] And how much of priority that it's keeping the natural resources in its set of priorities, significant portion of revenue collection goes to upkeeping off the governance itself, government institutions, the ministries, the local words and everything.

[00:15:52] And then to the development projects, then to the people, the public service delivery, the needs of the people. It goes like that. Most of these collection goes to infrastructure development. You see that's happening at the local levels. You see that happening at the province level.

[00:16:09] There's so much of infrastructure projects and development going on. Very little is on human capital development, but strengthening of state and the people. And there's somewhat of that is going into that area as well.

[00:16:25] Now the constitution itself, if we dissect it, there's schedule 5 to 9, that declares whose area is what? Whose jurisdiction is what? For example, the forests of Nepal are declared under the jurisdiction of central government, the federal government.

[00:16:44] But there's also another schedule that says the revenue collection from the forests, falls under central, provincial and local government as well. The jurisdiction clearly states that it's in the federal powers, but the use of it is shared by all three.

[00:17:04] This is the exact confusion that everybody keeps talking about, and this is the exact flaw that we see in the implementation of these, because federalism in concept for Nepal, like a cooperation model. And the constitution, I think it envisions a utopian of where the three tiers exist harmoniously

[00:17:29] and they are very cooperative, which each other, they communicate fluently with each other. But the reality is not that it's so difficult for the three tiers of government to coordinate to cooperate with each other. So when a constitution clearly says one thing, also says the other,

[00:17:51] how the guidelines to, okay, this is how you go about it. It's a complete lack. And the people in authority if you ask, they also won't be able to give you a specific answer. It's so confusing for the people and for the policies as well.

[00:18:07] So I would say the main problem lies in how the constitution has envisioned federalism and how the implementation is going on right now. So whose responsibilities, what, what are the, if we talk about what are sources?

[00:18:22] Each local level have their own guidelines of how much sand and stones you can extract. The provincial government also have their own set of rules under federal government too. Do they differ? They are different. Oh well, yeah.

[00:18:37] And at least in my knowing I don't know of any sort of that meeting or that kind of understanding to hate. Let's come up with a common guideline, at least in my knowledge there hasn't been any.

[00:18:49] And really at the heart of these shortcomings are environmental and human wildlife security, right? So how do these impacts unfold? So one of the research methodologies that we used to map these conflicts are medium monitoring.

[00:19:07] So if we look at the daily newspaper every day, they tell you what these conflicts are and we have a specific code book that we understand. Okay, this is what you call a conflict and this is what you don't call a conflict. Like a matrix.

[00:19:21] Something of it, it's a database that we use and everything is defined. What nature of conflict is it? Who are the actors and what? Where did it occur? What kind of intensity was it? Among the 1500, 84 or so cases that we analyzed in the governance conflict cases.

[00:19:38] Human and wildlife conflict is one of the most recurring events. Sometimes it's elephant, sometimes it's leopard, sometimes it's tiger, but it's happening. It's occurring. The interesting thing is it's widely reported that people have been injured, people have been killed, people have been displaced.

[00:19:57] But if you go at the local levels, you see the other side of the story too. Where there's revenge killing? Because the leopard attacked their daughter or the son or the threatened community, they go hunt that leopard and kill it. They go hunt that tiger and kill it.

[00:20:14] These stories are not reported widely. There are illegal poaching and hunting. So there are big dumps, the pot holes that are dug where rhinos fall in, elephants fall in.

[00:20:28] And then it's so much easier for the hunters and the poachers to gather them, you know, once they're in that complex position. These events, there are both sides of human and wildlife conflict, both sides suffer equally.

[00:20:42] But we see that media reporting mostly highlight the human aspect of it. Humans are, you know, bearing the most part of it. But if you go at the fields and you talk to the people, they're both aspects of it.

[00:20:56] But what media highlights that we have observed is just a human injury part of it. This is where this may look like it's a human nature conflict. It's been there forever.

[00:21:08] But this is actually a governance failure. If there are wild animal attacks happening in an area, then whose responsibility is it to shift those local communities from there. You know, bar those areas for wild animals to stay in cases of severe injuries or death compensations.

[00:21:27] There are guidelines of national parks. There are guidelines of wildlife reserves that so and so injuries will be paid this is much.

[00:21:36] And then again, there has to be a new way than a letter that has to be written recommendations of so many people and with that letter you go and get that kind of money. That's also delayed in that process also.

[00:21:48] But when we talk about natural resource governance conflict, we cannot leave human and wildlife conflict behind this Norway. It's a very important aspect of it.

[00:22:00] I think you almost answered my next question, which was what role could a good response play in the way conflicts occur and exist in the Baili societies.

[00:22:10] But I still want to ask it because I feel like this question is important in the sense that it allows us to look into how as a society as the state we look into conflict.

[00:22:21] So maybe you can start by elaborating further on what the response is like, what seeking compensation is like or how on the flip side, how the government responds to wildlife related incidents.

[00:22:36] So in cases of human and wildlife conflict, we had this chat with wildlife ranger in Koshita Puwala Reserve. And he said that their position has kind of been between because there's a national strategy as well.

[00:22:51] And then there are the local needs as well. And him being in the middle, they can observe that they are just not matching each other. The strategy is someplace and the local needs are someplace, they are just not on the same page.

[00:23:04] And I got to know that from him that there are certain guidelines that the local people have access to in case of injuries, in case of death, in case of displacement. And what you're compensated with, they have their own guidelines.

[00:23:16] For example, the national parks have their own and the wildlife reserves have their own. And the problem is there is untimely response. So I get an injury with a monkey attack today.

[00:23:30] Like I said, I have to go and get the letter from the ward from witnesses from some sort of references from so many people that letter has to be approved or the rise.

[00:23:42] And then you take it to the wildlife reserve and they investigate the case everything is okay. Then you'll be getting the compensation. But there are so many people who have not yet been granted those kind of compensations.

[00:23:58] If it's smaller amount of money, yeah, okay, but larger amounts of money. It's not there. In case of flood victims also, one of, well, many of the incidents that we have observed in the National Research Complex as is actually,

[00:24:11] these people protesting for the untimely response of the government. I'll tell you this incident from one of the mentioned about here, I think I've included in the research as well.

[00:24:21] People were so far up of tiger attacks in their area. So far up and they had been to their local municipality multiple times.

[00:24:32] And then they were so far up of the local government, not listening to them that they came on the road and held strikes. They burned tires. A woman was even killed during this clash. They closed a portion of highway for two days or something.

[00:24:48] They were so frustrated like this is what we are asking of you and you're not listening to us. There's no point in having a local leader so close to you when they're supposed to know your area. I mean, come on, it's their own area as well.

[00:25:04] So this level of frustration you can see in people where they are not getting timely compensation. There was this case also of the Schuclafat Wildlife Reserve that the people who were displaced during the establishment of that wildlife reserve think this was almost 30 years ago.

[00:25:23] And this still haven't received the compensation for their land, for their homes. They were just placed from that area saying that you'll be compensated for it. But now they're raising this kind of protest and issues that where is our compensation. So it's taking decades.

[00:25:37] Why isn't it in the local leaders' stakes that these life-threatening events are looked after? The unfortunate thing is there are not much livelihood opportunities if you go into these areas, okay? And natural resources for free.

[00:25:54] Especially if there's nobody monitoring them. There are no strict laws in place. Nobody's watching you. You can exploit it as much as you want.

[00:26:02] The hunters, the poachers that come from all over the world, they give you certain kind of money to give me the place of where the rhino comes at night, where they drink water. How can I trap them?

[00:26:14] And these people for the sake of money, WWF also had this program where they create alternate livelihood opportunities so that these kind of activities would lessen. The leaders, they have that kind of power to grant those permissions, especially when working with private construction companies.

[00:26:31] There's only so much tons of sand and stone that you can take out from the river. But most of the corruption cases that we have seen are related to this river extraction cases, there is no limit to it. Like you can extract as much as you want.

[00:26:51] Also, what I personally believe and have observed is that just the mere existence of natural forest being there is not the problem. Mountains being there, water being there is not the problem.

[00:27:06] But the monetary aspect that is the chitching you see when you see, oh, tree, sal forests, the river basins you see. Oh my god so much of sand and stones and bubbles.

[00:27:21] There's money to the local leaders. I'm not saying all of them are corrupted, but unfortunately the ones that we have observed are so corrupt to the core. I think this takes us perfectly to my next question which is about the resource curse theory.

[00:27:39] Now, this is something that I had only come across previously in international relations where we talk about larger powers vying for territories with useful resources like petroleum.

[00:27:51] However in your research you've developed this narrative that even in domestic realms, we can see resource being the trigger for several conflicts. And you further add the idea of resource dependency and what that does to a government.

[00:28:06] Can you elaborate on this? I think this is the perfect segue from the conversation we've been having so far. How we have embedded this resource curse theory is that either be a balloon, like especially when you're talking about surplus natural resources, when you're abundant resources.

[00:28:22] It can either be a balloon or a curse for the country. There is going to be fight over access over ownership of the natural resources even more so when it's limited.

[00:28:35] But now we observe that even if there's abundance of it, there is still going to be conflict over it. So that's how we've embedded this theory into this research.

[00:28:46] Just viewing it as pure commodity, as pure money making vessel, bigs the other aspects of it, the socio economic aspect, the cultural aspect, the spiritual aspect, the identity aspect. It takes away all of that and purely it stays as a commodity, something to make money off of.

[00:29:07] Unfortunately, that's where we are heading. A trend that we have developed is we are becoming more and more rent dependent, rent of natural resources dependent on revenue. But what that does is it takes away the skill aspect of it.

[00:29:22] You're developing skills of the people of human capital of developing those kind of resources. When you're completely focused on natural resources, that comes as a second priority. That's what people observe in the cases of other countries.

[00:29:36] And in the Nepali context as well, if you see that, then the same trend is happening. Another thing I would like to add is what is happening is that in Nepal we are not lacking behind resources. And if it took at that local or provincial or central.

[00:29:51] The constitution, the pressure that it has put on the same resources. The local levels are also using it for their consumption, province and federal as well. So this is kind of creating that competition between the three governments. Especially this is dangerous when they're creating guidelines.

[00:30:11] Central is supposed to take more or province is supposed to take more order. Let's just give a little bit to the local area. They don't need much. They don't have large institutions like us. They don't need to pay for the employees like us.

[00:30:23] So this much is enough for them. This is dangerous in those decision making areas. I think so far in our conversation, we've talked about how the problem at its core is perceptive in the sense that we think of natural resources in a certain way.

[00:30:40] That is extractive and exploitative. And I think I'm about to ask you the impossible question, but how do we make that shift? How do we make it so that for the immediate stakeholders?

[00:30:52] It is important for them to regard natural resources as something that is beyond coins and touching. Like you said, this is such a difficult question. She looks at what's happening out there. It's so disappointing.

[00:31:13] And we have got this question many times that there's so much negativity in your research. You're only talking about the problems. Why are you only talking about the negative aspects? The government could have done something positive also. Why aren't you talking about that?

[00:31:26] The problem is so huge that there's no space for, you know, oh, okay, yeah, this you have done well. Okay, there are some individual heroes, the champions at the local units that you see or government personnel at a very personal level that they have set a good example.

[00:31:45] There's this Amaha community forest in Sunsari. I was amazed by this person's enthusiasm that's been almost 10 years that he has been jail person of the community forest. For years, he has worked. He has a set group of people that he works with.

[00:32:02] And he has a beautiful community forest. He has made it a learning center, a picnic area and there's a pond that people can come and just pay a very little amount to go and enjoy nature. And there are species of wildlife and birds and fishes in those areas.

[00:32:21] This guy almost on a daily basis gets threatened from the smugglers from the people in power because they're salivarists. The show, you robust that's very expensive trees in a dimber. The salivarists are inside that community forest and he has protected it.

[00:32:40] But he is so tired of this that I cannot, in our interview he even stated, I'm so tired I cannot protect this forest on my own anymore. All that burden is on one person's shoulder. There are death threats that he gets, even his family.

[00:32:56] And this guy was living abroad for so many years and he came back to Nepal. And then in love with this whole community and this doing is all the thing. But there's this aspect as well that there are people doing it from the individual level.

[00:33:09] What I personally feel who she is, the decision makers, the leaders, until and unless they have that empathy, it's going to be very difficult. Yeah, like I said, that's the impossible question. The next question that I'm about to ask is coming from when I was talking to someone.

[00:33:27] And they were talking about how in indigenous communities there is this way of inducing compassion for nature from a really young age. Have you seen any of those practices and are there ways for mainstreaming them or you would want to see them being mainstreamed so that there's this

[00:33:43] Cultivation of empathy, like you said for nature. I didn't spend as much time with the indigenous people. I would have loved to, but I didn't get that chance. But the local people have their own respect regarding their resources they are connected to.

[00:33:59] The Amaha forest that I was talking about, Amaha comes from native Tharo word. It goes for mother or I forgot the exact term, but the TV or mother it goes for that.

[00:34:13] And the pond that they have created around, there's a temple of the TV actually on the picture this pond around. And you can't take pork to barbecue inside the picnic area because something bad will happen according to the local beliefs.

[00:34:29] People have drowned and people have had weird allergies after that. Spitting is prohibited and all of them. Although this is creating like a fear kill my god there's this goddess so you should be careful around it.

[00:34:40] It is keeping the area clean and you don't know people are behaving which is fine. Just completely fine. I like being the devil's advocate in this podcast and it's always nice to have both sides debated so that we have a coherent idea.

[00:34:58] So earlier when we were tracing the history of how our relationship with natural resources has evolved and how the approach to natural resource governance has changed. The way I see it there are two sides.

[00:35:13] At the beginning during the 70s there was this rapid thirst for development like being the rest of the quote modern world, right?

[00:35:22] And then after in the following decades we saw the environmental impacts of it, we reverted back to conservation and that too has its own problems related to communities local communities. So I see this whole problem as a matter of creating balance.

[00:35:41] Because once there is the need to conserve the environment but also on the other hand there is this need for development there we need schools we need roads. How do you address this? I think the way is sustainability sustainable development.

[00:35:59] You use it but in a sustainable manner there are guidelines for it you simply follow the guidelines you simply stick to it because there are already studies in those areas.

[00:36:08] How much minerals can it take out stones can it take out from the water so that the flood doesn't occur and destroy the whole village. There are already studies done before you develop these kind of guidelines just stick to the guidelines. And the monitoring mechanism as well.

[00:36:24] You give projects out. I know you build these kind of infrastructures but the monitoring policies the monitoring bodies are so weak and there's a lot of corruption activities happening at this phase as well in the monitoring and while the designing and implementation part of the project as well.

[00:36:44] So the monitoring has to be very strict and effective because at this moment there are laws there are guidelines they're just not being followed. So I think the way sustainable development guidelines that we just have to follow use it but leave it for the next generation as well.

[00:37:02] And give it some resources need time to regenerate and you use them now maybe it will take two years, ten years, fifteen years to regrow the.

[00:37:13] The cell trees or the herbs you know the water resources give it time to regenerate for this so you need experts from the.

[00:37:23] So I just by a lot of this and all those perspectives care at this moment like I said you're just borrowing people from this ministry and that ministry and this area and that area rather than.

[00:37:33] Bringing fresh scientists and bringing capable and skilled people and technology that is severely lacking. You know only experts can give you that kind of ideas. Are there any other recommendations that you would like to add as we're closing up the conversation?

[00:37:51] I have all this a very good idea. I like you rightly said, Quixay, there's this very fine boundary and when you think of natural resources as commodities as a money making who you push those boundaries. And the damage that you make is kind of irreversible.

[00:38:07] It some may dig years but some are just irreversible. It's lost it's gone a human wildlife conflict that's why it's so important that we need to talk about it because in terms of biodiversity loss once that species has gone. It's gone, you can't bring it back.

[00:38:23] So you have to understand the limitedness of nature of natural resources as well. What more needs to be done is definitely strengthening of the institutional bodies like I said. Institutions at their frameworks are their guidelines, so they're just implementation is very necessary.

[00:38:42] Also the rules of the provinces here I would like to add the rules of the provinces when we talk about the three layers of government and the conflicts happening in everything province can play a very good role in managing that kind of who.

[00:38:56] They're already bodies like the province, coordination committee, district coordination committee, the PCC and CC, DCC. They have a rule to foster that kind of harmonious relationship between the three layers of government but again they're not functioning well.

[00:39:15] So I mean you're giving resources to these provinces, so at least rationalize them give them more authority.

[00:39:21] When we talk to the province people they come inside and I'm someone who says we just don't have that kind of work anything that I wanted to do I have to get approval from the federal government.

[00:39:33] In paper they say okay you have right to do this, this, this, but before I do that every time I have to go and get an authorization from the federal level. So where's the power? Where's the power that you're telling that you've given me?

[00:39:45] So strengthening of provinces are very, very important. The federalism in concept already envisions strong local words that's okay there are provinces also need to be you.

[00:39:56] And then I don't know how we're going to do this but we need to clarify the roles and responsibilities who is supposed to what, how much way to get them you know the roles and responsibilities.

[00:40:10] Even in development projects road department says one thing and then the local words says something else. So that kind of clarity in roles and responsibilities, jurisdiction authority there has to be a clarity.

[00:40:26] This is a very general recommendation but the policies that we have right now do not have that kind of technical expertise which I mentioned already. So policy coherence, technical expertise, social economic political we need that kind of landscape as well. Not just the economic part.

[00:40:47] During the government development context we observed in the highway construction you know there were the burial grounds of the curat and the limbo is and all of these burial grounds were excavated by the excavators and the bulldozers.

[00:41:00] Imagine the locals, their ancestors, being just and also there were like these jewelries that they were buried with that came up doing these excavations. People were alluding it to have the left and right, the gold and the money that we're buried with them.

[00:41:16] That's not the kind of development we want anymore or people want anymore. The cultural aspects, the social aspects, the individual aspects that has to be included.

[00:41:26] I think that brings us to the end of our conversation. I think it's incredible that we were able to bring in such a large topic in like what an hour of discussion, but I think there was an amazing conversation. Thank you.

[00:41:40] Thank you. Hoshie. This was my pleasure. I'm really really happy that I got to do this. Thanks for listening to Pots by PEI. I hope you enjoyed Kushi's conversation with strada on exploring Nepal's natural resource governance conflicts.

[00:41:57] Today's episode was produced by Kushi Hang, with support from Nishr and right with a subcutta and me, Biba-di-bata. The episode was recorded at PEI's studio and was edited by Riddish subcutta. Our theme music is courtesy of Riddishakya from Zinnabad.

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