Dependency on national park resources of people living in a mountain protected area

National Parks can provide diverse benefits to those living in and around them, supporting livelihoods and providing opportunities to harvest natural resources and to participate in nature-based tourism. To explore the direct benefits to local people, a questionnaire-based survey was conducted in four villages in Langtang National Park, Nepal. Firewood and fodder / grasses were the main resources harvested by local people. Household size and the total number of livestock units were the only significant predictors of resource use (firewood and fodder). These findings suggest that local people are dependent on national park resources. Strategies to reduce firewood dependency and hence pressure on the national park forests are recommended

Park–People Interaction and Public Perceptions towards Parsa Wildlife Reserve, Nepal

Protected areas (PAs) are established to conserve biodiversity and ecosystems. PAs also provide natural resources to local people that support their livelihoods. However, local people residing nearby PAs often face diverse costs that may influence their overall attitude towards PAs. This actually determines the degree of participation and support of local people in nature conservation. This paper assesses the attitude of local people towards PAs taking a case of Parsa Wildlife Reserve (PWR). The research methods employed were household survey followed by focus group discussions, key informant’s interview and participant observation. This study found that the local people in and around the PWR have negative attitude towards it. Only 34 per cent liked its presence whereas 58 per cent of the respondents were not happy to be included in the buffer zone. Reasons for disliking the reserve was mainly due to wildlife damage; restrictions in resource use; and arrest and prosecution by the park authorities. In contrast, reasons for liking the reserve were the opportunities for natural resource use, biodiversity conservation, and tourism/business. The paper concludes that by addressing the negative attitudes of local people helps the reserve authority to enhance long term sustainability of PWR

Beyond conservation: Assessing broader development outcomes of protected areas in Nepal

Protected Areas (PAs) are set aside for biodiversity conservation but at the same time they are recognized for their role in supporting development goals. However, the benefits provided by PAs also come with costs to local people. Integrated Conservation and Development Projects (ICDPs) are a PA management approach that aim to maximize local benefits through enhancing conservation and development outcomes, while also reducing costs. We implemented a household level survey in two PAs in Nepal managed using an ICDP approach to assess local people's perceived benefits and costs and determine if this approach was achieving its intended outcomes. Since both PAs are popular nature-based tourism (NBT) destinations, respondents were asked questions specific to this activity and others more general to the PA. The coded qualitative responses revealed ten categories of benefits and twelve categories of costs. Most respondents perceived extraction benefits from PAs, and when asked to reflect specifically on NBT, they mostly identified economic benefits. Crop and livestock loss was the main perceived costs from PAs, whereas sociocultural costs were the main costs from NBT. Chi square tests showed that proximity to the PA office and residency status had the most significant differences in perceptions of benefits and costs from both PAs and NBT. People perceived very few benefits related to participation, cost mitigation, and conservation, which does not match the intended outcomes of ICDPs. Although there may be practical implications for engaging distant communities in management, this may help to enhance conservation and development outcomes from PAs

Beyond Protected Areas: Assessing Management Effectiveness of a Ramsar Site in Nepal

Ramsar Sites, wetlands of international importance, are an international category of protected wetland areas recognized under the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands. Protected areas around the world are not achieving the conservation objectives for which they were established, often due to a lack in effective management practices. Hence, protected area management effectiveness and its assessments are crucial elements of achieving responsive and pro-active management. Ramsar Sites that are not recognized as a protected area under the national park and wildlife conservation act in Nepal are often ignored for such assessments and receive little attention in terms of conservation and management. This study aimed to fill this gap by assessing Jagadishpur Reservoir Ramsar Site, which falls into the above category. The Ramsar Management Effectiveness Tracking Tool was used to assess the management effectiveness. Transformed into the global standard reporting format, the overall management effectiveness was 0.27 on a 0 to 1 scale. This score is considered to be in an inadequate range, requiring significant conservation intervention from government with support from conservation partners. This first assessment of Ramsar Site outside of protected area in Nepal and its comparison to global and European regional-level assessments provides the benchmark for future evaluation to track progress in management effectiveness. In conclusion, Ramsar Sites outside formally protected areas are often neglected and intermittent projects, and ad hoc implementation of small-scale activities seems inadequate to improve management effectiveness

Sexual health behavior of adolescents: A school based study conducted in Kathmandu district of Nepal

Adolescent (10-19 years) is a transitional phase of life marked by vulnerability to various risky sexual behaviors. The main aim of this study was to assess the sexual health behaviors of adolescent studying at grade nine and ten in a school of Kathmandu district, Nepal. A school based, descriptive cross-sectional study was carried out among all students (n=133 adolescents) aged 14 to 18 years studying at grade nine and ten. A structured self-administered questionnaire was adopted as a data collection technique. The data was entered into Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 16 and analysis was done by using simple descriptive and inferential statistics. The p-value less than 0.05 (5% level of significance) was considered to be statistically significant. Almost 66.9% of adolescents were aware about the concept of safer sex and 9% adolescents had done sexual intercourse. The median age at first sexual exposure was found to be 15.0 years. Majority (88.7%) of the respondents had no parent-child communication at home on matters related to risky sexual behavior. The late aged adolescents were more sexually exposed than the middle aged adolescents but condom use at first sexual exposure was found more among middle aged adolescents. Almost 91.66% of sexually exposed adolescents were male. The sex of the respondents, peer pressure to have risky sexual behavior, age categories were found as important factors for the sexual initiation of the adolescent groups. Therefore, peer groups approach should be designed and implemented for bringing desirable change in adolescents’ sexual practice

Draft bills and research reports on: reducing judicial corruption and child labor in Nepal

These two draft bills and accompanying research report comprise the work of two teams of Nepali officials from Nepal's Ministry of Law and Justice who prepared them in the context of the Boston University School of Law Program on Legislative Drafting for Democratic Social Change. They attended that Program as part of a larger Ministry of Law and Justice Program, funded by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), to strengthen Nepal's legal framework and the Rule of Law. Using the bills and reports as case studies, the four officials aimed to learn legislative theory, methodology and techniques. The Ministry had assigned them, on their return to Nepal, to play a significant role in institutionalizing an on-going learning process to strengthen Nepali drafters' capacity to prepare the effectively implementable legislation necessary to ensure good governance and development

Association of Preoperative mid-stream urine culture, Renal pelvic urine culture and Renal stone culture in the detection of Systemic inflammatory response syndrome/urosepsis post Percutaneous Nephrolithotomy

Introduction: Urosepsis post Percutaneous Nephrolithotomy (PCNL) is a dreaded complication with high mortality rate. Objective: To find the association of preoperative midstream urine culture (PMUC), renal pelvic urine culture (RPUC) and renal stone culture (RSC) in the post-operative development of Systemic Inflammatory Response Syndrome (SIRS) and urosepsis. Methods: It was a prospective cross-sectional observational study. The study included all symptomatic patients meeting the inclusion criteria who underwent Percutaneous Nephrolithotomy from 18th August, 2019 to 28th March, 2020. PMUC, RPUC and RSC were done and analyzed accordingly. Results: A total of 140 (73 males, 67 females) patients underwent PCNL. PMUC was positive in 15% (21/140) as compared to RPUC and RSC which were 7.9 % (11/140) and 4.3% (6/140) of total cases. None of the patients had simultaneous culture positivity in all the three types of specimens. Only two (1.42%) patients had simultaneous positivity in pelvic urine culture and stone culture. The organisms obtained in pelvic urine culture and stone culture were same i.e. Klebsiella and Escherichia coli respectively. Only two (1.42%) patients developed SIRS post PCNL, where in both the cases stone culture were positive but PMUC and RPUC were negative. Urosepsis was found in none of the patients. In the Fischer Exact test PMUC and RPUC were not statistically significant in the detection of SIRS post PCNL. Whereas only RSC showed statistical significance in the detection of SIRS. Conclusion: Stone culture has high prediction for SIRS and it might be considered for patients undergoing PCNL in order to prevent stone related infective complications

Wildlife Tuberculosis: An Emerging Threat for Conservation in South Asia

Wildlife tuberculosis (TB) is becoming one of the emerging challenges for conservation globally. South Asian region is home to many endangered species like Asian elephants, rhinoceros, and Bengal tigers. Although it carries more than one‐third of global burden of human TB, TB in livestock and wildlife has not been adequately studied. This chapter reviews the present knowledge and information about animal‐adapted members of Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex and wildlife TB in South Asia. Recent studies of TB from different wild animals in Nepal and Bangladesh have found that M.orygis is an emerging threat of wildlife TB in the region. These studies have demonstrated wide diversity of M. orygis strains circulating in the region indicating its endemic distribution. M. orygis–associated TB was discovered from a free‐ranging rhinoceros in Nepal and the finding could signify threat of TB in other wild animals, including a possibility of unknown maintenance host. Recent studies also revealed an emerging challenge caused by TB to elephants in different South Asian countries like Nepal, India, and Sri Lanka. Wildlife TB is becoming a conservation challenge in South Asia, but given the paucity of research in this area, it is overlooked and underexplored

Impact study of temperature on the time series electricity demand of urban Nepal for short-term load forecasting

Short-term electricity demand forecasting is one of the best ways to understand the changing characteristics of demand that helps to make important decisions regarding load flow analysis, preventing imbalance in generation planning, demand management, and load scheduling, all of which are actions for the reliability and quality of that power system. The variation in electricity demand depends upon various parameters, such as the effect of the temperature, social activities, holidays, the working environment, and so on. The selection of improper forecasting methods and data can lead to huge variations and mislead the power system operators. This paper presents a study of electricity demand and its relation to the previous day’s lags and temperature by examining the case of a consumer distribution center in urban Nepal. The effect of the temperature on load, load variation on weekends and weekdays, and the effect of load lags on the load demand are thoroughly discussed. Based on the analysis conducted on the data, short-term load forecasting is conducted for weekdays and weekends by using the previous day’s demand and temperature data for the whole year. Using the conventional time series model as a benchmark, an ANN model is developed to track the effect of the temperature and similar day patterns. The results show that the time series models with feedforward neural networks (FF-ANNs), in terms of the mean absolute percentage error (MAPE), performed better by 0.34% on a weekday and by 8.04% on a weekend