KATHMANDU — Until the summer of 2024, residents of Rajabahs village in Nepal’s southeastern Madhesh province reeled under a water shortage for more than eight years as wells and springs…
MUSTANG, Nepal — On a crisp morning after a night of rain, the breeze diffuses the smell of wet earth in the village of Kagbeni in Mustang, Nepal’s trans-Himalayan frontier.…
Nepal has long relied on hydropower projects to meet most of its energy needs, but recent complaints from Indigenous and local communities have cast a shadow over the development of…
KATHMANDU — Nayaram Sunar vividly remembers the day at the end of monsoon season in 2019, when rain was pouring in relentlessly on his sister’s corn field in the village…
Having receded by 350 million hectares (almost 865 million acres) since 1850, trends in Latin American forests are now inflecting away from further losses of tree-covered habitats and toward their…
KATHMANDU — Nepal’s private hydropower developers are keeping a watchful eye on the Supreme Court as it prepares to issue the full judgment on a historic case related to the…
KATHMANDU — Wildlife trafficking for the illegal pet trade in Nepal has made a significant shift online, according to recent research that attributes the trend to the rapid penetration of…
POKHARA, Nepal — On a May morning in Pokhara, Nepal’s tourist town in the lap of the world-famous Annapurna range, 40-year-old Hemanta Dhakal climbs to the terrace on the roof…
KATHMANDU — A decade ago, people from Salija village in western Nepal traveled several hours into the uphill forests to gather firewood and feed for their livestock, Shakhamani Khorja recalls.…
TAPLEJUNG, Nepal — In the misty hills of eastern Nepal near the border with India, 48-year-old farmer Surya Bhattarai patrols the steep slopes of Sudap Community Forest in Taplejung district.…
KATHMANDU — Nepal has launched a species action plan focused exclusively on conserving the endangered dhole (Cuon alpinus), also known as the Asiatic wild dog. The new 262.9 million rupee…
KATHMANDU — Nearly five months after Nepal’s Supreme Court struck down a law allowing infrastructure development inside protected areas, the government continues to push for such projects as the court…
KATHMANDU — The first-ever study of GPS-collared snow leopards carried out in Nepal has shown that these hyper elusive big cats spend up to a third of their time in…
KATHMANDU — A Eurasian otter (Lutra lutra) found in the Karnali River in western Nepal marks the species’ northernmost record in the country, offering hope for range expansion but raising…
KATHMANDU — In March 2021, dozens of elephants marched through the grasslands and sal (Shorea robusta) forests of Chitwan National Park, their riders armed with GPS devices and notebooks, searching…
KATHMANDU — Nepal’s Supreme Court has refused to extend the suspension of a controversial cable car project at a pilgrimage site in the country’s eastern hills, sparking concerns of confrontation…
LUMBINI, Nepal — Legend has it that before he became the Buddha, a young Prince Siddhartha Gautama nursed an injured sarus crane (Antigone antigone) back to health. Since then, the…
MANANG, Nepal — In Bhraka village of western Nepal’s Manang district, 72-year-old Buddhist nun Tashi Lama sits in silence, chanting as she turns her prayer wheel. Ever since she took…
KATHMANDU — Recently, one morning in Kathmandu, senior lawyer Padam Bahadur Shrestha reclined in his cluttered second-floor office in a neighborhood near Nepal government’s administrative headquarters Singha Durbar. On one…
KATHMANDU — The environmental impact assessment for a controversial cable car project in an area of Nepal held sacred by Indigenous communities has been found to be riddled with errors…
KATHMANDU — The most extensive biodiversity survey yet of Nepal’s little-studied Madhesh province has revealed a wealth of wildlife facing threats from infrastructure development — and with virtually no protected…
KATHMANDU — Nepali conservationist Reshu Bashyal has been named one of the six recipients of this year’s prestigious Whitley Award in recognition of her work to tackle widespread poaching of…
KAPILVASTU, Nepal — At his fish pond near his home in Krishnanagar Municipality in western Nepal’s Kapilvastu, Imtehaj Khan closely watches a large TV screen mounted on a wall. For…
KATHMANDU — Following decades of speculation, skepticism and lack of consensus, Nepal’s government has announced the country’s first-ever consolidated national estimate of snow leopards (Panther uncia): 397 individuals. The figure,…
BARDIYA, Nepal — Ram Raj Dhakal, 22, jolts awake to an alert on his phone. A wild elephant has strayed into a village near Thakurdwara, on the fringes of Bardiya…
by 7 April 2025
In November 2023, at 4 a.m., four snow leopards made their way into Mingmar Gurung’s livestock corral in Dhakmar village, Mustang district, Nepal. Hearing the goats’ commotion so early in…
KATHMANDU — In February this year, Indian media reported the rising number of cases involving tiger bone glue — an illicit sap-like substance made by pressure-cooking tiger bones and sold…
As Nepal’s reptiles are one of the least studied among the country’s diverse flora and fauna, researchers have long been saying that it could be home to numerous species waiting…
The home range of fishing cats (Prionailurus viverrinus), found in parts of South and Southeast Asia, could be more expansive than previously thought, a recent GPS-collaring study focusing in and…
CHITWAN, Nepal — One of Nepal’s biggest cities on the northwestern fringes of Chitwan National Park has been dumping its municipal waste in a forest that serves as an international…
LUMBINI, Nepal — Three years ago, Ram Chandra Kurmi, a farmer from the village of Gaidahawa in south-western Nepal, abandoned his small vegetable plot . The 39-year-old, who once supported…
SARLAHI, Nepal — In 1984, Bharat Kumar Pokhrel was a young forester with a mission to turn theory into practice. Fresh out of forestry school, he joined Nepal’s Sagarnath Forest…
