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Fanning the flames
by Navin Singh Khadka
[chinadialogue.net]April 23, 2009
The
forest fires that recently flared up in Nepal raise important questions
about the effects of climate change on the Tibetan Plateau. Navin Singh
Khadka reports.
The forest fires that flared unusually viciously in many of
Nepal’s national parks and conserved areas this dry season have left
conservationists worrying if climate change played a role.At least four protected areas were recently on fire for an unusually long time. Satellite imagery from US space agency NASA
showed most of the big fires were in and around the national parks
along the country’s northern areas bordering Tibet. Active fires were
recorded in renowned conservation success stories like the Annapurna,
Kanchanjunga, Langtang and Makalu Barun national parks. The extent of
the loss of flora and fauna is not yet known. Press reports said
more than 100 yaks were killed by fire in the surrounding areas of the
Kanjanchanga National Park in eastern Nepal. Trans-Himalayan parks host
rare species such as snow leopards, red pandas and several endangered
birds. More than the loss of plants and animals, the carbon dioxide
emitted by the fires was a matter of concern, according to Ghanashyam
Gurung, a director at WWF’s Nepal office. Some of the national parks in
the plains bordering India were also on fire, but those caused less
concern among conservationists and forest officials. “Fires in the
protected areas in the plain lands can be controlled easily because we
have logistics and manpower ready for that – and that is what we did
this time,” said Laxmi Manandhar, spokesman for Nepal’s Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation.
“But in the national parks in the Himalayan region, we could hardly do
anything because of the difficult geography. Nor do we have facilities
of pouring water using planes and helicopters.” Forest fires in Nepal’s jungles and protected areas are not
uncommon during the dry season between October and January. Most of the
fires come about as a consequence of the “slash and burn”
practice that farmers employ for better vegetation and agricultural
yields. But this time the fires remained out of control even in the
national parks in the Himalayan region where the slash and burn
practice is uncommon. In some of the protected areas, the fires flared
up even after locals and officials tried to put them out for several
days. So, why were the fires so different this time? “The most obvious
reason was the unusually long dry spell this year,” says Gurung, just
back in Kathmandu from Langtang National Park
to the north of the capital. “The dryness has been so severe that pine
trees in the Himalayan region are thoroughly dry even on the top, which
means even a spark is enough to set them on fire.” For nearly six months, no precipitation has fallen across most of
the country – the longest dry spell in recent history, according to
meteorologists. “This winter was exceptionally dry,” says Department of Hydrology and Meteorology
chief Nirmal Rajbhandari. “We have seen winter becoming drier and drier
in the last three or four years, but this year has set the record.” Rivers are running at their lowest, and because most of Nepal’s
electricity comes from hydropower, the country has been suffering power
cuts up to 20 hours a day. Experts at the department said the severity
of dryness fits in the pattern of increasing extreme weather Nepal has
witnessed in recent years. Had it not been for recent drizzles, conservationists say some of the national parks would still be on fire. They point to “cloud burst phenomena”
– huge rainfall within a short span of time during monsoons, and
frequent, sudden downpours in the Himalayan foothills – as more
examples of extreme weather events. “Seeing all these changes happening
in recent years, we can contend that this dryness that led to so much
fire is one of the effects of climate change,” said Rajbhandari. Anil Manandhar, head of WWF Nepal, had this to ask: are we
waiting for a bigger disaster to admit that it is climate change? “The
weather pattern has changed, and we know that there are certain impacts
of climate change.” However, climate-change expert Arun Bhakta Shrestha, of the
Kathmandu-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain
Development (ICIMOD),
was cautious about drawing conclusions. “The prolonged dryness this
year, like other extreme events in recent years, could be related to
climate change but there is no proper basis to confirm that. The reason
[why there is no confirmation] is lack of studies, observation and data
that could have helped to reach into some conclusion regarding the
changes.” Indeed, there has been no proper study of the impacts of climate
change on the region: not just in Nepal but in the entire Hindu Kush
Himalayas. This is the reason why the region has been dubbed as a
“white spot” by experts, including the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC). Limited studies have shown that temperature in the Himalayas has
been increasing on average by 0.06 degrees Celsius annually, causing
glaciers to melt and retreat faster. The meltdown has been rapidly
filling up many glacial lakes that could break their moraines and burst
out, sweeping away everything downstream. In Nepal and neighbouring
countries, these “glacial lake outburst floods” and monsoon-related
floods resulting from erratic rainfalls are at present the most
talked-about disasters in the context of climate change. If conservationists’ and meteorologists’ latest fears mean
anything, forest fires may also be something that would be seen as one
of the climate impacts. In the wake of the 2007 United Nations climate change conference in Bali, Nepal has been preparing to join an international effort
known as Reducing Emission from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD).
But if the forest fires it saw this year became a regular phenomenon,
the country will instead be emitting increased carbon dioxide into the
atmosphere – a case of climate science’s not very aptly-named “positive feedback”. —Navin Singh Khadka is a journalist with the BBC Nepali
service. He has a sustained interest in environment, with a focus on
climate change vis-a-vis Himalayan ecology.
