Interfacing Indigenous Knowledge and Climate Change Education

This paper is part of my PhD thesis. In this study, using the narrative inquiry methodology, lived experiences of schoolteachers who have been teaching the topics of climate change were collected mainly through interviews in Lamjung District. This paper reflects how teachers have been teaching climate change education and how they have been balancing indigenous knowledge to deal with climate change concerns. Generally teachers have been following implemented and experienced school curricula and accumulating the factual knowledge of climate change science, which has often been linked with the empirical interest of Habermas, especially, with his theory of knowledge and human interest in education. However, the stories of six schoolteachers were not limited to what they have been teaching but also how they have been teaching, how they have been linking environmental concerns with the indigenous knowledge and cultural practices that have been contributing to sustainable management of the natural resources and climate change resilience. Thus the stories of the teachers were also analysed through Habermas's practical and emancipatory interests and indigenous worldviews by reflecting on my own stories while working on the theme of climate change and indigenous peoples at community, national and global levels since 2009

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

Indigenous Peoples’ Engagement in REDD+ Process: Opportunities and Challenges in Nepal

Nepal has a population of 26.5 million with immense cultural diversity, and indigenous peoples make up 35.81 percent of the total population (2011, CBS). 59 indigenous nationalities have been legally recognized under the Nepal Foundation for Development of Indigenous Nationalities (NFDIN) Act 2001. The NFDIN Act defines indigenous nationalities, also referred to as Adivasi Janajati, as communities who perceive themselves as distinct groups with their own mother tongue, traditional culture, written and unwritten history, traditional homeland and geographical areas, and egalitarian social structures. The indigenous peoples of Nepal inhabit different parts of the country, from Himalayan mountains bto the hills and plains. They have a symbiotic relationship with nature and have been playing a crucial role for sustainable management of forests, natural resources, biodiversity and ecosystem through their traditional knowledge and cultural practices for generations in Nepal. With the emergence of the concept of REDD+ Mechanism in 2009, indigenous peoples have been speculating how it would address their issues and concerns in relation to their rights over their resources, land, forest and safeguards