You are here: Home > Orientation Hall > Annex >

Nepal: The Impact on the Mountain Ecosystem in Nepal

In the mountains of Nepal, the ecosystem in totality has been maintained in balance for a long period of time. The forests, rivers, terraced agricultural systems, livestock and human beings have lived from generation to generation in total harmony with nature. However, with the increase in human population, the demand for their basic needs has also increased. This has resulted in extraction of more fodder, more timber and more fuelwood from the forest, consequently leading to a massive deforestation which contributed to flood, siltation and erosion of fertile top soil from agriculture terraces. The loss of fertility of soil, resulted in reduction of food grain production, thus making the life of mountain people extremely difficult. The effect of such devastation is not only limited to mountain but the scoring effect of sallow rivers of mountain, also carried a large amount of sand and silt, and deposited in the fertile land of plain initiating a process of desertification.

This example indicates that the destruction of one vital component of ecosystem, might lead to a chain of disastrous affecting human survival.