Supplemental Information to the Jal Jangal RFI No. 72036721R00001 Post.pdf

Attachment 2:

Supplemental Information to the Jal Jangal RFI No. 72036721R00001

Situation Model

This situation model depicts factors described in the Request for Information. The green box represents the proposed scope and the green ovals the high-level biodiversity focal interests of the proposed activity.

The brown ovals depict human well-being focal interests that result from the conservation of biodiversity focal interests and the ecosystems services they provide. The pink boxes represent the direct threats to the biodiversity focal interests and the orange boxes the indirect threats (i.e., drivers) to direct threats.

Assumed causal relationships among these factors are represented by arrows.

Summary of USAID Natural Resources Management (NRM) Portfolio Assessment

USAID conducted an assessment of its NRM portfolio and found that the activities achieved their initial outputs, such as the creation of tools, knowledge, advocacy and capacity. Approaches to manage capture fisheries and invasive species have seen significant progress on policy; and those to address poaching and wildlife trafficking, and manage species have been effective at achieving the desired outcomes.

Livelihoods approaches that focus on building community capacity, awareness, and skills made progress towards desired intermediate outcomes, but there may be value in investing more in areas of marginal, degraded forest with poorer communities, who may not be part of the community forest user groups.

Project components that directly addressed resilience building of communities to natural disasters and climate change also showed promising results.

Challenges included outputs not always linking sufficiently to reduce threats or affect conservation outcomes due to non-overlap of project implementation periods, geographies or scales. The programs also faced challenges in being able to identify the right institutions or people who would use the data and tools; short time frames of implementation; and delay in changes required in government institutions and policies. There were also uncertainties in enabling conditions such as market conditions, incentives and governance; as well as whether benefits from livelihood approaches will be sufficient to achieve the behavior changes needed for threat reduction. Approaches that were dependent on changes in government policies or institutions were found to be slower at making progress towards ultimate threat reduction outcomes on issues of human-wildlife conflict, payment for ecosystem services (PES), basin level planning, sustainable hydropower and regulating local infrastructure.

Threats Assessment

Through an internal exercise and a detailed desk review, USAID assessed the direct threats to terrestrial and aquatic biodiversity and the drivers of these threats. The assessment was specific to the Gandaki and

Karnali basins, but the threats are likely to be valid for other areas of Nepal. These included the following known and perceived threats:

● Aggregate mining is a major threat to freshwater ecosystems5, and is driven by demand for construction materials, lack of awareness of mining impacts, lack of competitive alternatives for construction, and weak regulatory policies.

● Agricultural water pollution threatens freshwater and fisheries 6,7, and is driven by the use of uncertified agricultural inputs, and weak management practices and extension services.

● Climate change caused by greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have impacted Nepal disproportionately, causing droughts, floods, storms, glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFS), avalanches and landslides, disturbing ecosystems and affecting both humans and biodiversity. For instance, between 1990 and 2015, there has been about a 1000 hectare decrease in snow and glacier coverage and the same increase in barren land in the Gandaki8 and Karnali basins9.

● Encroachment and grazing in forests and grasslands is driven by a lack of alternative income sources for rural communities and in-migration, causing loss and degradation of habitats.

Indiscriminate burning, overgrazing 10,11, and agricultural intensification threaten grasslands12;

while unproductive cattle left in forest areas can transmit disease to wildlife13. On the other hand, it is estimated that nearly 50% of total farmlands in the mountain region have been abandoned due to out-migration14, while remittances had a positive impact on forest cover11.

● Forest fires are caused by hot, dry weather and deliberate burning by graziers, poachers and Non

Timber Forest Produce (NTFP) collectors15. Forests dominated by Sal (Shorea robusta) and Pine

(Pinus roxburghii) are particularly susceptible to fires, leading to extensive degradation. In 2016, for example, fires impacted 50 districts and damaged 12,000 community forests.

● Hydropower dams are a major threat to freshwater ecosystems. Dam development is being driven by a high demand for energy, but is strongly associated with sustainability concerns. There is a lack of knowledge, capacity for planning and advocacy and poor regulation. Studies indicate that fish catch and migratory species have declined upstream of dams16,6.

● Illegal and destructive fishing in small-scale fisheries is an emerging problem that is driven by overuse of explosives, poison, electric current and small meshed nets to catch fish, including at breeding grounds and during peak breeding seasons6.

● Illegal collection and killing of wildlife is driven by human-wildlife conflict, international demand and resultant transboundary trade for wildlife products, involvement of criminal networks, and a lack of law enforcement capacity13,17.

● Invasive species/pests/disease threaten both terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems, and are driven by escaped exotic cultivated varieties, climate-related factors, and a lack of awareness and capacity to manage invasives. Most invasives occur in agroecosystems followed by wetlands and grasslands18,9.

● Infrastructure development represents a severe threat to ecosystems. It is driven by demand for access, poor planning and design, weak oversight and regulation and public finance constraints.

Studies have demonstrated that roads are one of the greatest anthropogenic drivers of environmental degradation, erosion and landslides in Nepal19. Other high impact developments include power lines, proposed railways, hydropower dams and expanding urban areas.

● Urban domestic waste, comprising solid waste and sewage, threatens both forest and freshwater ecosystems20. It is driven by poor awareness of management options, lack of capacity for water management, and a lack of public finance for waste treatment facilities.

● Unsustainable collection of timber and non-timber forest products is driven by in-migration and lack of alternative income options for rural communities. However, rural electrification21, education and non-farm business assets are associated with declining deforestation rates, while community management has resulted in forest rehabilitation22, sustainable NTFP production23 and sustainable incomes across Nepal.

● Water diversion/inter-basin transfers are driven by the demand for irrigation and drinking water, increasing commercialization of agro-business, urban population growth, weak on-farm water management practices, and a lack of incentives for efficient water use. They are a threat to freshwater ecosystems, with reduced water volume and discharge documented in the Mahakali, Karnali20 and Gandaki river basins24.

Reference Material Cited in the Request for Information

The following references are cited in the Request for Information and this Supplemental Information sheet. They were compiled from a review of the literature available online to describe the threats and their drivers to the biodiversity focal interests within the scope shown in the situation model above.

1. USAID. Fact Sheet on Hariyo Ban https://www.usaid.gov/documents/1861/fact-sheet-hariyo-ban-project

2. USAID. Fact Sheet on Hariyo Ban II https://www.usaid.gov/nepal/fact-sheets/hariyo-ban-program-phase-ii

3. WWF (2016). Hariyo Ban Program Phase I: Achievements and Learning https://wwfint.awsassets.panda.org/downloads/hariyo_ban_final_factsheet___phase_i__december_

2016.pdf

4. USAID. Fact Sheet on Paani https://www.usaid.gov/nepal/fact-sheets/paani-program

5. Dahal, K. R., Sharma, C. M., & Gupta, R. K. (2013). Threats on fishery resources and fishers’ livelihood due to riverbed extraction in the Tinau river, Nepal. Journal of Sustainable

Environmental Research, 2(1), 1-11.

6. Giri, S. S. (2018). An Overview of Small-scale Fisheries in South Asia. Small-scale Fisheries in

South Asia,1.

7. Husen, M. A., Gurung, T. B., & Nepal, A. P. (2019). Drivers of fisheries and their management in the lakes of Pokhara Valley, Nepal. Journal of Fisheries, 7(2), 706-713.

8. Rai, R., Zhang, Y., Paudel, B., Acharya, B. K., & Basnet, L. (2018). Land use and land cover dynamics and assessing the ecosystem service values in the trans-boundary Gandaki River Basin, Central Himalayas. Sustainability, 10(9), 3052.

9. Shrestha, B., Ye, Q., & Khadka, N. (2019). Assessment of Ecosystem Services Value Based on

Land Use and Land Cover Changes in the Transboundary Karnali River Basin, Central Himalayas.

Sustainability, 11(11), 3183.

10. Forest Resource Assessment Nepal (2016). Churia forests of Nepal. Department of Forest Research and Survey, Ministry of Forests and Soil Conservation, Government of Nepal, Kathmandu, Nepal.

11. Fox, J., Saksena, S., Hurni, K., Van Den Hoek, J., Smith, A. C., Chhetri, R., & Sharma, P. (2019).

Mapping and Understanding Changes in Tree Cover in Nepal: 1992 to 2016. Journal of forest and livelihood, 18, 1.

12. Amin, R., Baral, H. S., Lamichhane, B. R., Poudyal, L. P., Lee, S., Jnawali, S. R., ... & Joshi, D.

(2018). The status of Nepal’s mammals. Journal of Threatened Taxa, 10(3), 11361-11378.

13. Bhattarai, B. P., & Kindlmann, P. (2012). Impact of Livestock Grazing on the Vegetation and Wild

Ungulates in the Barandabhar Corridor Forest, Nepal. In Himalayan Biodiversity in the Changing

World (pp. 157-175). Springer, Dordrecht.

14. Rai, R., Zhang, Y., Paudel, B., & Khanal, N. R. (2019). Status of farmland abandonment and its determinants in the transboundary gandaki river basin. Sustainability, 11(19), 5267.

15. Matin, M. A., Chitale, V. S., Murthy, M. S., Uddin, K., Bajracharya, B., & Pradhan, S. (2017).

Understanding forest fire patterns and risk in Nepal using remote sensing, geographic information system and historical fire data. International journal of wildland fire, 26(4), 276-286.

16. Asian Development Bank (2019). Impact of Dam on Fish in the Rivers of Nepal: Asian

Development Bank, Manila, Philippines. https://doi.org/10.22617/TCS189802 https://www.usaid.gov/documents/1861/fact-sheet-hariyo-ban-project https://www.usaid.gov/documents/1861/fact-sheet-hariyo-ban-project https://www.usaid.gov/nepal/fact-sheets/hariyo-ban-program-phase-ii https://www.usaid.gov/nepal/fact-sheets/hariyo-ban-program-phase-ii https://www.usaid.gov/nepal/fact-sheets/hariyo-ban-program-phase-ii https://www.usaid.gov/nepal/fact-sheets/hariyo-ban-program-phase-ii https://wwfint.awsassets.panda.org/downloads/hariyo_ban_final_factsheet___phase_i__december_2016.pdf https://wwfint.awsassets.panda.org/downloads/hariyo_ban_final_factsheet___phase_i__december_2016.pdf https://wwfint.awsassets.panda.org/downloads/hariyo_ban_final_factsheet___phase_i__december_2016.pdf https://www.usaid.gov/nepal/fact-sheets/paani-program https://www.usaid.gov/nepal/fact-sheets/paani-program https://www.usaid.gov/nepal/fact-sheets/paani-program https://doi.org/10.22617/TCS189802 https://doi.org/10.22617/TCS189802

17. Paudel, K., Potter, G. R., & Phelps, J. (2020). Conservation enforcement: Insights from people incarcerated for wildlife crimes in Nepal. Conservation Science and Practice, 2(2), e137.

18. Chitale, V., Silwal, R., & Matin, M. (2018). Assessing the Impacts of Climate Change on

Distribution of Major Non-Timber Forest Plants in Chitwan Annapurna Landscape, Nepal.

Resources, 7(4), 66.

19. Sudmeier-Rieux, K., Devkota, S., Rajbhandari, P. C. L., Howell, J., & Sharma, S. (2019). Invited perspectives: Mountain roads in Nepal at a new crossroads. Natural Hazards and Earth System

Sciences, 19(3), 655-660.

20. Sharma, S., & Shah, R. D. T. (2017). Major stressors influencing the river ecosystems of Far and

Mid Western Development Regions of Nepal. Current World Environment, 14(2), 231.

21. Tanner, A. M., & Johnston, A. L. (2017). The impact of rural electric access on deforestation rates.

World Development, 94, 174-185.

22. Poudel, N. R., Fuwa, N., & Otsuka, K. (2015). The impacts of a community forestry program on forest conditions, management intensity and revenue generation in the Dang district of Nepal.

Environment and Development Economics, 20(2), 259-281.

23. Dhakal, P., Paudel, D. R., & Baral, D. R. (2016). Inventory of non-timber forest products in

Western Nepal and strategies for sustainable management. International journal of environment, 5(3), 87-103.

24. Shah, R. D. T., Sharma, S., & Bharati, L. (2020). Water diversion induced changes in aquatic biodiversity in monsoon-dominated rivers of Western Himalayas in Nepal: Implications for environmental flows. Ecological Indicators, 108, 105735.