Partnership for Quality Tourism, Nepal

His Majesty's Government has been assisted in developing the new institutional arrangements by a project called "Establishing a Partnership for Quality Tourism." Under this Project, a steering committee chaired by the Minister of Tourism and Civil Aviation and made up of responsible from both the public and private sectors of tourism, set out to prove that the partnership idea will work. A small Project Team, with regular support from the private sector and from Ministry and Department of Tourism staff, has implemented the initiatives of the Steering Committee.

The title of the project tells of its aim. "Partnership" means the public and private sector working together. "Quality tourism" means improvement of Nepal's tourism products, attractions and services at all levels while reducing negative impacts on Nepal's natural, social, and cultural environments. The project embraced the idea of an integrated process of marketing, product development and quality control. It began with three pilot initiatives which were planned and implemented by a Steering Committee and Task Forces made up of people from government and the private sector of Nepal tourism.While the principle partners are His Majesty's Government and the private sector, UNDP plays a supporting role.[Top]

Tengir Too Biosphere Territory, Kyrgyzstan

Tengir Too means "Mountains of the Heavenly Spirits."The magnificent mountain world of the Tengir Too with its pearl, Issyk-kul, is the habitat for unique and rare plants, important medicinal herbs and the Tyan-Shan spruce forests. Issyk-kul is the second-largest and second-deepest mountain lake on earth. Framed by towering mountain ranges, which rise 3000m above the level of the lake, it is protected by mountains and fed by warm, in some cases subsurface, springs. The seemingly endless green mats of alpine and subalpine grasslands which cover the entire Tengir Too are the heartland of Kyrgyzstan and its nomadic culture. Pasturing rights are regulated among the clans and families according to customary law. This delicately balanced socio-economic system is guaranteed by common land ownership.

Conservation is a part of Kyrgyz culture. The Tengir Too Biosphere Territory is to be part of a worldwide network of areas in UNESCO's "Man and the Biosphere" Programme and is to be developed into a model region for Central Asia.

The key objectives for this reserve are the protection of natural and cultural heritage; sustainable economic development; research into the environment and into human-natural interaction; and education and information for the people. It is broken down into zones of differing utility, and hence, differing use intensity. These are as follow.

Non-utilised zones: Areas in which nature is preserved in its natural state and left to itself, and protected areas within the utilisation zones;

Extensive utilisation zones: landscape areas without permanent settlement, which are seasonally used, and which have a high degree of naturalness;

Development zones: Traditional settlement and economic areas with intensive land utilisation where all forms of human activity are permitted , provided these activities do not damage the environment. An ecologically-appropriate land use is the stipulated goal.

Rehabilitation areas: Areas whose ecological functionality has been partially or wholly lost, and is to be restored. This biosphere territory is a structural principle which integrates the various zones of an ecologically, economically and culturally cohesive region under the principles of sustainable development. The people of and around this reserve are to be involved in the planning and development at every stage. [Top]

Technology Transfer Project to Help Save Lake Erhai, China

The International Environmental Technology Centre, the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) Office of Water and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) have joined forces with the Chinese International Centre for Economic Development and Technical Exchange (CICETE) in preparing a comprehensive management plan for Lake Erhai. The main objectives of the project include reversing serious problems, restoring the water quality of the lake and saving the local tourism industry.

Lake Erhai is situated in the Western part of Yunnan province in southwestern China, near the border of Myanmar, and sits approximately 2,000 metres above sea-level. It is a typical Asian highland lake, both in terms of geomorphology and general ecology. The lake has a surface area of 250 km2, an average depth of 10.2 m and has a water volume of 2.88km3. The watershed covers approximately 2,565km2 and includes nearly 120 rivers which empty into the lake. Only one river, the Xier, drains Lake Erhai. The Xier subsequently flows into the upper Mekong drainage system.

In addition to providing water to the region's 1.4 million people, Lake Erhai is a major tourist magnet, annually attracting an estimated 2 million tourists to the region. Water demand from the agricultural and industrial sectors has also increased. However, what has really attracted the attention of tourism officials is the continued deterioration of water quality in the lake. This is primarily a result of mismanagement of wastes from several wood pulp factories and sedimentation from increasing timber harvesting. The impact of marble quarrying activities on the aesthetics of the region is also a concern. In addition, non-point source run-off from the agriculture, animal husbandry, and fish culture sectors have all impacted water quality during the last 10-15 years.

The combined impact of these uses has resulted in a downward spiral: lower water levels and structural changes in the aquatic organism communities which in turn aggravate productive sectors such as tourism and fisheries, forcing people into other destructive practices in order to surviv3e, such as the collecting of rare herbs and flowers and the over-harvesting of timber

The Chinese counterparts have stressed the need to employ a comprehensive planning approach in the case of lake Erhai and UNEP is making two important contributions to this project. First, the overall planning process is based on the UNEP Water Programme EMINWA model (Environmentally Sound Management of Inland Waters) which includes not only preparation of an environmental profile, but also a complete analysis of socio-economic aspects affecting future management of the lake and including local participation throughout the decision process.[Top]

( IETC's Insight, Summer 1996 )

Transborder Cooperation in Managing Protected Areas

The synthesised output from the November 1995 Transborder workshop and travelling seminar in the Australian Alps has been produced and is now available. Produced by Mountain Protected Areas Network members Larry Hamilton, Janet Mackay, Graeme Worboys, Bob Jones and Gregor Manson, it represents contributions from 35 men ann women managing border parks around the world in mountain areas. As well as discussing the benefits and difficulties of cooperative management across borders, it presents guidelines and a typology, using examples. It includes five case studies: Krkonose/Karkonosze; Waterton/Glacier; the Australian Alps; Hohe Tauern; and Alpi Maritime/Marcantour. Co-published by the Australian Alps Liaison Committee and CNPPA/IUCN Mountain Theme, Transborder Protected Area Cooperation is available from David Sheppard, Protected Areas programme, IUCN, Rue mauverney 28, CH 1196 Gland, Switzerland.[Top]

Great Escarpment of South-Eastern Australia

The declaration of a new national park in New South Wales has closed a gap to create a conservation corridor made up of various kinds of protected areas, extending for 150 kilometres along the Great Escarpment. The new South East Forests National Park of 90,000 hectares was created out of public forest lands. A further 30,000 hectares may be added to this park. Currently, transboundary agreements are being negotiated with the State of Victoria which could further extend the area.

The Great Escarpment of eastern Australia is a major landform feature that lies to the east of the Great Divide for 2,800 km between Cairn, Queensland and the NSW-Victorian border. Typically separating tableland from the coast, the Great Escarpment may be prominent in form, rising abruptly above the coastal plains by several hundred metres; it may also be obscure and, at some locations, absent. The Great Escarpment is still undisturbed for many kilometres of its length and its natural habitats include rainforest , wet sclerophyll eucalypti forest and dry sclerophyll eucalypt forests which include woodland communities.

Two World Heritage Areas are reserved along sections of its length. Broadscale clearing and fragmentation has impacted the forests of eastern Australia especially to the west and along the Great Dividing Range. Despite these processes the Great Escarpment still offers potential for achieving significant north-south conservation corridor connections. In the case of NSW many protected areas are fortuitously found along the Great Escarpment and there are also many areas of publicly owned lands managed for forestry production and water supply catchments. In 1996, public landuse policy decisions created a 90,000 ha South East Forests National Park for Southeastern NSW. The Park decision also achieved a conservation corridor that interconnects protected areas for over 150km along the Great Escarpment. This same conservation corridor could be extended to over 600 km subject to the outcome of further critical NSW government forest policy decisions to be made for small "connecting" areas by 1999. The potential outcome is an outstanding continuous conservation corridor along the great Escarpment from the Victorian border to central NSW.

Similar potential exists for 400km of the Great Escarpment in Northern NSW. These statewide policy decisions could result in 1000km of (disjunct) north-south Great Escarpment conservation corridor lands. Such a conservation corridor system would limit the fragmentation process and would guarantee the interconnection of large protected areas along the Great Escarpment. It would provide an outstanding contribution to Australian biodiversity conservation.[Top]

( Mountain Protected Areas Update, December 13,1996 )

Review of Extensive Livestock Development in Central Asia

Extensive livestock production remains an important component of the Central Asian economies. In the Kyrgyz Republic there are twice as many sheep as people. In the high dry mountains which cover most of that country, yaks and thick-wooled sheep are probably the most viable enterprise apart from tourism. Wool is the second major export. In the low-lying Kara Kum and Kyzl Kum deserts that extend over much of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and southern Kazakhstan, local breeds of sheep can thrive in the extreme climates. There are twice as many sheep as people in Turkmenistan, at stocking rates as low as 15 ha per animal. More than half the agricultural output of Kazakhstan is derived from livestock, which depend on natural pastures for their feed. The situation is similar in the Kyrgyz Republic. In addition to the potential for expanding exports of livestock products to new markets such as Japan, China, Western Europe and Turkey, the food and transport which livestock provide are increasingly important to households now trying to cope with price inflation and shortages of fuel and other essential commodities.

The expanses of desert and steppe in Central Asia have long been exploited by pastoral peoples, seasonally moving their herds of horses and flocks of sheep to different pastures. In a region where annual rainfall is typically less than 300 mm, and extremes of heat and cold occur, much of the land could be only used briefly each season by domestic herbivores grazing off vegetation flushes. Farming was confined to desert oases and to irrigated valleys using melt water from snow-covered mountains. For the rest of the land, value could only be extracted fleetingly by a low-density human population, specialized in raising livestock on open ranges.

During the twentieth century technology and ideology combined to re-organize the way land was used. Large-scale irrigation projects enabled fodder to be grown, obviating the need for livestock to be moved in search of food. Political theory made it obligatory to "civilize" nomads by settling them. A great experiment in industrialized, state-controlled pastoralism ensued. Although the experiment was at first disastrous, adjustments were made over the decades. Lessons were learned and new techniques introduced. By the time the old Soviet Union dissolved and new independent states emerged some five years ago, there was a relatively high-yielding livestock industry, based on a combination of modern inputs and traditional skills, making use of natural pastures supplemented by cultivated fodder. Resources of land, livestock and labor were collectively managed. Output was geared to the requirements of a large and secure domestic market - the former Soviet Union - which subsidized the cost of producing fodder for livestock in return for meat, wool, leather and dairy products at below world-market prices.

These conditions no longer prevail. Land and livestock are no longer necessarily held collectively. Different types of pasture land are developing market values. Labors have other choices. Fodder production is no longer subsidized, while guaranteed markets at pre-set prices are a thing of the past. As input and product prices shift in relation to supply, demand and government legislation, individual livestock producers must now face the open market with little protection from the state, but also with few restrictions. Fortunes can be made, but flocks and herds can also be lost.

In response to newly-emerging market conditions, pastoralists with privately-owned animals are altering their grazing and livestock husbandry systems. One option is making maximal use of the natural pastures, by lengthening the migratory cycle and reducing dependence on expensive cultivated fodder. This requires sufficient herding labor and secure access to grazing land. Another choice is to continue supplementing the natural forage with purchased or home-grown fodder. This option depends on a high domestic or international price for livestock products, in order to justify the cost of animal feed. A third option is to stop raising animals for surplus, and instead to grow crops under irrigation and retain animals only for home use. Other livestock-keepers are leaving agriculture altogether and seeking employment in the towns.

One of our questions is whether the "traditional" forms of migratory pastoralism are re-emerging in Central Asia, and whether these forms are compatible with a modern industrial economy. But the question may be misplaced. What may be re-emerging is not necessarily 'traditional' pastoralism at all, but rather a predictable response to the industrial economy which happens to exist in these areas now. Two of the characteristic features of 'traditional' pastoral nomadism are migratory herd (and usually household) movement, and a subsistence-orientated household economy. The re-emergence of these features may be attributable to price changes of inputs and outputs rather than simple conservatism on the part of producers.

Migratory herd movement is most sensitive to changes in input prices. In the cold desert regions of Central Asia and Inner Asia, herds move to escape extremes of cold, lack of water or insufficient natural forage. All these deficiencies can be remedied through capital expenditure on industrial inputs -livestock shelters, water development and (most importantly) cultivated/irrigated forage. These inputs were formerly provided by the state through collectives. With privatization, the costs of these inputs have devolved onto the individual livestock-owning family. It may be more attractive for families to move their flocks away from problems of resource insufficiency rather than to invest in expensive inputs to alleviate the problems on site. Hence the re-emergence of migratory production systems.

The re-emergence of market-shy household pastoral economies, on the other hand, may be attributable to changes in pastoral output (rather than input) prices, relative to the retail cost and availability of food. Taking the example of another pastoral system (Mongolia) which experienced privatization earlier, industrial collapse has undermined the purchasing power of urban consumers. The terms of trade between industrially-produced foods and livestock products are now very unfavorable to consumers; pastoralists therefore choose to retain an increasing proportion of their own production (Humphrey and Sneath 1995; OECD 1995).

As centralized purchasing, fixed prices and government controls are removed, pastoralists prefer to sell through unofficial (thus unrecorded) channels to cross-border markets (Kerven 1993; Edstrom 993). What appears as pastoral withdrawal from trying to feed the cities, and even a massive destocking through deliberate slaughter, may actually reflect the sub rosa emergence of high-value regional or international trade in animal products (Duncan 1994). With new international trade links, pastoralists search for a source of cash to buy consumer items. These are not the 'traditional pastoralists' of a century ago.

Price responsiveness is also evident in Central Asia as pastoralists shift to private marketing of meat and milk products to supply domestic consumers, having lost out in the formal high value regional markets for fine wool (replaced by Australia) or karakul pelts (less fashionable). But at first this domestic market is not as lucrative as the old wool or pelt trade, and the pastoralists must cut their costs. An immediate option is to reduce expensive fodder inputs whenever possible - i.e., conserve fodder for maintenance and survival feeding of livestock - and migrate. But again, this so-called traditional behavior is really only a response to price changes. Such a case has been recently recorded in France, where, in response to shifts in European Union subsidies from a product basis to a herd/land basis, some livestock farmers are now keeping sheep under more extensive management, using more land and less inputs (especially fodder) for the same amount of livestock (Chabosseau and Dedieu 1995).

Prevailing institutional arrangements influence what is "economic". If policy-makers do not recognize that migratory husbandry systems are reasonable responses to economic incentives and constraints, they may construct institutional impediments (in land tenure, for example) that induce herders to ignore an otherwise appropriate form of production-migratory pastoralism. This form of production may be quite appropriate both for some livestock producers and for the nation.

The challenge now is to carry out policy-relevant research in an environment in which prices, husbandry systems and institutional arrangements are all changing. Which choices pastoralists make will have a cumulative effect on people's lives, national economies and trade patterns. The direction and impacts of these trends are at present unclear. Under these new conditions, new research is needed, to discover how producers are responding and adapting to rapidly-shifting economic parameters. Only when there is sound knowledge of how the new pastoral livestock-husbandry systems are evolving can relevant advice be given on the best ways to develop the extensive livestock sector in Central Asia.

It is not only the economic and institutional environment which is altering. Livestock can also cause environmental damage, when political or economic circumstances enforce sub-optimal management methods. Large tracts of open rangeland and more valuable irrigated areas have been degraded and their productive capacity thus undermined, by the intensive livestock husbandry and fodder cultivation enjoined by the Soviet governments over this century. With mobility reduced, animals were kept at higher density for longer periods of time on the same pieces of land. Increased grazing pressure, as animals were no longer moved quickly over the land, has meant a reduction in plant species diversity. Soil erosion by wind and water followed from the plowing up of grasslands to be replaced by fodder and food crops. Now there is the added pressure of labor and input costs, which means that owners, even if they wished, cannot always afford to take their animals to distant pastures, or to feed them supplemental food. As a result, grazing pressure has increased around settlements. These are important environmental considerations which need to be researched at the local level, as changing economic factors bring new hazards but also new solutions to the conservation of natural resources in Central Asia.

Several questions emerge. Is irreversible degradation occurring? What effect have the existing systems of livestock management had on land degradation? How might changes in methods of livestock management effect land degradation in the future? What are the economic variables which may bring about changes in livestock management, which would reduce or increase degradation?

Overall, the issues fall into two distinct but related themes; how producers are adapting to the large-scale economic and institutional transformations engulfing their worlds, and secondly, how the natural resource base is being affected by these changes in livestock management. Addressing these issues will require research by both natural and social scientists. Four policy-oriented research issues are:

* Empirical studies of changes in land tenure under conditions of land privatization and new commercial markets for livestock inputs and outputs.

* Field investigation of the costs and returns of extensive versus intensive systems of livestock management, to producers at different economic scales.

* Ecological studies of the causes of grazing-land degradation, and possible ways to prevent or reduce the causes, under emerging market conditions.

* Participative research on the most appropriate institutional forms for delivery of inputs and social services to dispersed pastoral households, under conditions of reduced state support.

National scientists in Central Asia have initiated research-mostly biological- on some of these issues. Their efforts could be supported and strengthened through collaborative, multidisciplinary research involving researchers with a background on similar issues in pastoral regions elsewhere. The first step in defining a research program would be for senior range and livestock scientists from Central Asia to meet with interested counterparts, to work out common themes based on research strengths in various institutions.[Top]

(Carol Kerven, John Channon and Roy Behnke - Overseas Development Institute, London, in Dryland Pasture, Forage & Range Network News)

Analysis of Case Studies of Participatory Watershed Management in Asia

There are several examples of very rich ancient, traditional and some recent participatory experiences in watershed management which have facilitated development of cultures in the process or which used traditions and culture for sustainable watershed management in Asia. These have been documented in Field Doc. 4 "Case Studies of people's participation in WM in Asia: Part 1: Nepal, China and India and 5: "Case Studies of people's participation in WM in Asia: Part 2: Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Vietnam of the PWMTA-FARM program. An analysis was presented during the Regional Workshop on Participatory Approaches to Integrated WM by the PWMTA program in October 1996, in Kathmandu. These case studies have applied different participatory approaches. The following can be distinguished: indigenous efforts, which have been a way of life of the people since ancient times on which a society was practically structured; traditional efforts which are based on the culture and mores of the people and facilitated efforts by means of development agents. The participation process may also include a combination of these approaches.

The Sri Lankan case study by Henry Gamage, is a case of indigenous watershed management efforts. The people of South Asia have developed land and water management systems since ancient times to sustain themselves under the most harsh dry climatic conditions. This revolved around a cascade of small reservoirs, where the upstream watershed was for rainfed shifting agriculture, the downstream of the small reservoir was for supplementally irrigated crops and the homestead was an integral part of the system. Each activity became a ritual resulting in a harmonious lifestyle with nature. With the introduction of interventions during the colonial era, the system came under considerable strain and has partly fallen in disrepute today.

The Indian case study by B. Mishra is an effort based on traditions and culture of the people. It continuously relies on the moral and cultural forces to initiate, motivate and sustain people's participation in WM in a very harsh climate. It took almost twenty years to convert a degraded human and environmental and human situation to a very self reliant, environmentally-sound and sustainable WM. The development was lead by a Ghandhian-inspired leader, Anna Hazare, who is now leading the same approach all over Maharashtra in India, assisted by the ongoing national WM program of the Government.

The case studies from China by Wu Deyi, Thailand by D. Emphandhu, T. Lakhaviwat-tanakul and S. Kalyawongsa, and Nepal by R. Bogati were facilitated either by policy-instuments, development agents and others. In china, land-use tilting policies backed by large government investments in infrastructure has resulted in change. Integrated farming systems and common property resource development approaches were used to generate quick net benefits both economically and ecologically in an entire watershed. In Nepal, efforts were made to develop farmers' organisational capacity for individual and common resources' management in a watershed. Funding and intial subsidies were provided by an INGO facilitated the process by training, farmers' group formation, subsidies, demonstrations for economic benefits. In Thailand, an inter-village network of farmers group was facilitated through envisioning by the Buddhist philosophy of life. The government and international facilitators helped train local facilitators.

Some of the lessons of these case studies are:

The aim of integrated watershed management should encompass the human as well as natural resource development of the watershed.

The integrated watershed management should be based on the dominant cultural and value system in relation to the dominant thoughts of a society with nature and the universe.

Alternative ways of strengthening farmers' organisation for their empowerment need to be integrated into the WM programs.

Most education and training programs need to update their curricula to train professionals to facilitate the process of farmers' decision making, farmers' empowerment, farmers' organisation building and farmers' own management of the WM programs.

Investments in WM programs should be designed at the national level and made available to the farmers or other users through national channels. In most countries, bank loans exist or farmers. However, farmer-managed funding is more effective, is less misused and results in better managed community and household resources.

A policy framework exists in almost all countries which allows for the community and public lands to be titled to the people for use. WM programs should facilitate this process and help land use titling to the people. [Top]

(Prem Sharma, PWMTA-FARM, Nepal in Asian Watmanet Newsletter)

Feedback to dits@icimod.org.np