Villages in Nepal are facing severe impacts of climate change resulting in low agricultural output: Apa

World-Record-21-times Mt. Everest summiteer Apa Sherpa has said many villages across Nepal are facing severe impacts of climate change which has resulted in low agricultural output and caused natural calamities like landslides.

Apa Sherpa

Speaking at a press conference organised in Lalitpur on Wednesday to inform about the successful completion of the 99-day long trek on the Great Himalaya Trail-Climate Smart Celebrity Trek (GHT-CSCT) from the eastern part of the country to the far-west, Sherpa said, “local people along the trail have been directly affected by the negative impacts of climate change on agriculture, the main source of their livelihood, as droughts as well as excessive rain has destroyed their harvest.”

Sharing the experiences from the trek , Sherpa said the trek made him realize that Nepal is even more beautiful than it appears from the top of world’s tallest peak and is full of natural bounty and honest, helpful people who gave him and his team members place to spend their night, warm hospitality and helped them find the way.

He said his team has collected a sea of useful information from the trek and would like to share it with the government and development partners through a report soon.

Also speaking on the occasion, Dawa Steven Sherpa, two-times Mt Everest summiteer and member of the GHT-CSCT, said that the most significant problem they saw during the trek was the adverse impact of climate change on agriculture due to lack of rain and forest fires caused by dry spell.

However, Dawa said that they also saw to their pleasant surprise that some of the most remote parts of the country have benefitted from rapid advancement in telecommunication facilities and other modern forms of communications.

“Local people used mobile phones to communicate with each other, FM radio stations were everywhere, roads and airfields connected even remote parts of the country,” he said while highlighting the positive things they saw during the trek. He also said they had to only spend few nights on dark during the entire trek because everywhere they went people were lighting their houses with electricity from micro-hydro projects, solar panels and there was encouraging use of bio-gas plants to meet their fuel demands.

Senior government officials, representatives from developments partners like DFID, British Council and SNV congratulated Apa and his team on successful completion of the trek on the Great Himalaya Trail and expressed their views regarding climate change and how novel endeavors like GHT-CSCT can help address such problems.

The 1,700 km long GHT-CSCT began in mid-January and concluded at Darchula in Far-Western Region, 23 days ahead of the schedule, though it is 120 days long trek that is claimed to be longest trekking route in the world.

The trek covers 20 districts in the mid-hills and low mountains of Nepal, many of which have been reported as vulnerable to Climate Change impacts according to the National Adaptation Programme of Action (NAPA) report.

The trek is organised to highlight the impacts of climate change in the Himalayas and to promote the GHT as the best trekking trail in the world-offering trekkers the possibility to experience extremely rich cultures, breathtaking landscapes and diverse range of flora and fauna. Nepalnews.com