a) Enhancing community solidarity

This project entitled “Enhancing community solidarity by promoting collective awareness and practice for the conservation of nature— an experimental curriculum for secondary school students and their families and teachers in a remote village of Nepal“, financially supported by Poul K. Feyerabend Foundation” in Switzerland is implemented between January 2018 to May 2023.

This initiative, aimed at strengthening the community solidarity through collective efforts of students, teachers and parents for the conservation of bio-cultural diversity in and around Shree Simle Secondary School (4S) has also become effective processes of enhancing practical knowledge about conservation importance of bio-cultural diversities.

The students enrolled and studying in grade 8 to 10 during the academic sessions of 2018 to 2023 have taken the leadership roles in organizing different extra-curricular activities related to the conservation of bio-cultural diversity in and around their school. The major extracurricular activities include: (1) preparation of the list of the biodiversity species available in the village; (2) discuss and prepare details of the identified species that includes names in different languages (Nepali, English, local language i.e. Thulung Rai including the scientific names); (3) field visits and observation of bio-cultural diversities in the village; (4) organize community meetings with teachers, parents and community members; (5) organize intra and inter-school poem writing, essay writing and drawing program on biodiversity conservation; and (6) organize three type of community events that include tree plantation and flower gardening in school premises, bamboo basket making and installation in school premise and respective ward office, and Bar-Pipal tree plantation followed with performance of all cultural rituals. Selected creative works presented in the forms of poems, essays and drawings of the participating students including the details of the enlisted biodiversities species, have been collated and published in the form of a booklet. In addition, entire processes of this initiative have been documented in the form of a video and photo documentary work.

This initiative has become valuable efforts in some aspects. They are: (1) this has helped in enhancing the knowledge of the students as well as the parents, teachers and community members on the availability of different bio-cultural diversities in their village; (2) engagements in different activities have helped develop realization of the conservation importance of bio-cultural diversity in their territory; (3) collaborations, partnership as well as co-sharing and co-learning among the students, teachers, parents and community members in different activities helped strengthen community solidarities; (4) organization and participation of different extra-curricular activities have become effective methods in complementing teaching-leaning activities of environment and biodiversity conservation included in the formal courses of syllabuses; (5) organization and participation of the students in different activities of this initiative have contributed towards the development of future conservation leaders to this village; (6) opportunity to out scale this initiative to other three communities in different districts representing three different ecological regions and diverse communities; and (7) have got opportunities to expand their network with youths from other communities including national conservation organizations. This also opened the avenues for future collaborations networking.

Primary approach of the project initiative is to nurture collaboration among the students, teachers, parents, and community members. This approach not only enhanced knowledge and helped develop community solidarities but also helped develop learning attitudes as well as critical thinking of the participating students and hence felt the importance of its continuity. However, it is always challenging in terms of ensuring required resources and technical supports, as well as institutionalization of the adopted approaches for its sustainability.

b) Enhancing knowledge and leadership capacity of youths for appropriate recognition of bio-cultural rights in Federal Nepal

This project (January 2020 to March 2022), financially supported by Siemenpuu Foundation in Finland, aimed at facilitating youths for mainstreaming in bio-cultural conservation practices and public policy debates for the appropriate legal recognition of bio-cultural rights of indigenous peoples and forest communities in Nepal. This project is being implemented in ward number 4 of Aiselukharka Rural Municipality in Khotang district, ward number 6 and 7 of Tsum-Nubri Rural Municipality in Gorkha district, ward number 2 of Iccha-Kamana Rural Municipality in Chitwan district, and ward number 15 of Kawasoti Municipality in Nawalparasi district.

A total of five proposed activities have been carried out during this project period.  These activities include: (1) assessment of the national status; (2) stakeholder consultation; (3) field visits and preparatory work; (4) implementation of the piloting activities; and (5) deliberation to policy advocacy. The implementation of piloting activity was eased by forming the implementation mechanisms that includes a project team leader, 2 youth coordinators at the national level and 4 youth coordinators in the site levels, one in each piloting site.

The first activity includes a thorough review of the existing national policies and legislations focusing on the provisions of bio-cultural rights and concerns of the indigenous peoples and local communities. The review work also attempted to assess the policy provision on the participation of youths. Further, this report is supplemented by introductory cases of selected bio-cultural sites in Nepal as well as reflection from the stakeholder consultation works.

For stakeholder consultation, the key persons of relevant national conservation agencies and concerned stakeholders as well as the community leaders of some of the selected ICCA and ICCA Network Nepal were consulted to understand the issues and concerns of the bio-cultural conservation practices. This has become useful for the selection of three piloting sites in the beginning of this project and set scenarios for the effective implementation of the project activities. As a result, Bote Indigenous community inhabiting in the ward number 15 of Kawasoti Municipality in Eastern-Nawalparasi district in Gandaki province,  Tsumba Indigenous community inhabiting in the ward number 6 and 7 of Tsum-Nubri Rural municipality in Gorkha district of Gandaki province, and Chepang Indigenous community inhabiting in ward number 2 of Icchakamana rural municipality in Chitwan district of Bagmati province were selected for piloting activities. The selection was based on the possible representation of the ecological and cultural diversity of the country (Bote represent the low land Tarai indigenous community, Tsumba represent High hill indigenous community and the Chepnag represent hill indigenous community).

Organizing community gatherings were important components of the third activity i.e. Field visits and preparatory work. In these gatherings community people, particularly the youths, were oriented on the importance of bio-cultural conservation practices and the rights of indigenous peoples and forest communities. These gatherings were followed with facilitation for self-formation of youth groups and self-nomination of youth-secretariat members (5/5 in each piloting communities with one self-nominated as coordinator) with roles to facilitate and lead site level activities.  All the youths aged 35 or below it are considered as members of the youth groups.

Under forth activity, workshops were organized to orient on the methods and processes of the self-documentation and self-assessments of the bio-cultural practices in respective communities. The self-documentation and self-assessment work were carried out by thematic groups, namely wild animals, birds, plants species, herbs and herbal medicines, seeds and vegetables, cultural practices and dresses, archaeological/cultural properties etc. The youth groups also organized youth campaigns such as dust garbage collection campaigns and self-awareness program such as oratory program and art/drawing program focused on the importance of bio-cultural conservation practices in the respective territories. The youth also attempted to explore possible collaboration and their contribution/participation in relevant community groups such as community forest user groups, buffer zone community forest user groups, village clubs, conservation management committees, and other user groups in their respective villages.

Three major activities were carried out to complement “deliberation to policy advocacy”. The first was facilitating youths for engaging in the self-production of the policy advocacy materials that include 4 photo/video documentaries, a self-assessment report and a policy brief based on their experiences of involving in different activities of this initiative. Second was organizing meetings/gatherings for co-sharing and co-learning among the youths from the piloting communities as well as from some other communities. The third was to enhance knowledge and leadership capacities of the youths by organizing sharing workshops, gatherings and exposure visits. The deliberation to policy advocacy is also complemented by self-formation of local to national youth groups aimed at initiating sustained collective efforts to enhance their knowledge and leadership capacities.

c) Document ICCA Emblematic Case in Nepal for ICCA Consortium

ICCA stands for Indigenous Peoples and Community Conserved Areas (ICCA) and ICCA Consortium is a global organization officially established in Switzerland in 2010 as an International Association under the Swiss Civil Code. It is a membership-based civil society organization supported by an international semi-volunteer Secretariat based in twenty-two countries. ICCA Consortium selected and documented a total of 18 emblematic cases across the world and one of them was from Nepal (Tsumba indigenous peoples and their nature-culture conservation in Gorkha district). The expert of REF is entrusted to document the Territory of Life of the Tsumba people in this. The documented report is submitted to ICCA Consortium and it is publicly available now.