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Kura garnu ramro hunchha: It's good to talk

September 05, 2003

THOUSANDS of breathless trekkers each year gratefully stop to admire the stunning high altitude scenery as they pass through the village of Landruk on their way to Nepal's famous Annapurna mountain range.

As their gaze shifts from the famous 'Fish Tail' mountain to the brilliant green sloping terraced foot hills 6,000 ft up the Himalayas they could be forgiven for thinking it was all mother nature's work.

It isn't. In fact it's all down to novel relationships being forged between local farmers and international scientists in a groundbreaking project that is gradually changing the way that the local farmers grow their crops by building upon, rather than replacing, their traditional knowledge.

Much to the surprise of many other scientists worldwide, the hardy villagers of the region', who famously swell the ranks of the British Army's Ghurkha Regiment, are starting to adopt more sustainable scientific farming methods and are reaping the rewards.

For years social scientists in the UK have worried that new technology would make redundant the traditions and knowledge gained over generations by local farmers; that local methods would be supplanted by Western technology. Natural scientists, on the other hand, have found it difficult to develop improved technology suitable for hill farmers because the intricate hill farming system is so complex.

Then, in collaboration with LIBIRD, a grassroots organisation in Nepal, the University of Wales in Bangor, decided to pursue a middle way, pooling the vast local resources and modern scientific techniques.

A team of top scientists were dispatched to the area known to climbers as the 'Gurung staircase'. It was a delicate mission where diplomacy and tact weighed heavier than their scientific apparatus.

But there was a big plus to the mission. Because Dr Fergus Sinclair and his Nepali PhD student, Pratap Shrestha, were as eager to research and understand local faming traditions as they were to impart their own scientific theories.

Now in the heady arena of academia they have another mountain to climb.

At the prestigious annual Festival of Science held by the British Association for the Advancement of Science these two natural scientists will tell Britain's well- intentioned anthropologists they had got it wrong.

That there is a middle way, and like the terraced slopes of Landruk, it is flourishing.

Said Pratap Shrestha, who works for LI-BIRD - Local Initiatives for Biodiversity, Research and Development, a Nepali Non Government Organisation: 'In the past, modern technology wanted to over ride traditional farming methods. This led to a counter argument from social scientists that traditional methods were sufficient and should be protected.

Adds Dr Sinclair, Director of Research at Bangor University's School of Agriculture and Forest Sciences:' It will be a bit tricky. It is unusual to have a natural scientist invited to talk to anthropologists. It is even trickier telling them their theories were not quite right.'

'Our aim was to strike a balance between international science and local methods rather than seeing them as in opposition.

' Local people need assistance is solving environmental problems. The key issue is bringing science to bear on local problems in ways that strengthen rather than supplant local science.

'This begins- but doesn't end -with discovering the great reservoir of sophisticated knowledge local people have about their environment.'

Their main area of concern was soil and water management and the need to reduce erosion and loss of nutrients.

The area is exclusively subsistence farming. Livestock provide manure that is the main source of soil fertility. Forests have traditionally supplied fodder for livestock but access to forests is diminishing because they have been degraded through over exploitation and are now coming under strict controls in community forestry schemes, that may preserve the forest in the longer term but lead to immediate shortages of fodder.

The interdependence of crops, livestock and forest has started to weaken and more than half the farms in the area cannot produce enough food.

So Dr. Shrestha encouraged villagers to form research teams and the exchange of local and international knowledge began.

At a time when scientists thought that all raindrops under trees were similar in size farmers revealed that when rain hit trees with large leaves the drop size became larger and that big drops caused greater soil erosion.

It was then realised that scientists through a fault in measurement technique had failed to recognise that larger raindrops splashed on impact increasing erosion. For a natural scientist that was vitally important knowledge.

In turn the villagers learned that the use of different grass seeds improved growth rate and contained greater nutrient. Villager, Mrs. Joginta Sunar who cultivates half a hectare became one of the many who volunteered as a research farmer.

By common consent she decided to experiment with hedgerows and a new type of grass. It was so successful her plot became the centre of the village's attention and she now wants to diversify and breed Angora rabbits for wool production.

And its these new types of grasses, inspired by a project at Bangor University that adds to the green, Himalayan slopes admired so much by passing trekkers.

It is Pratap Shrestha's task now to similarly inspire those doubting anthropologists and campaigners in other grassroots organsiations, who champion indigenous rights without acknowledging local needs for modern technology'

The research was funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID) forestry (FRP), livestock (LPP) and natural resources systems (NRSP) programmes but DFID except no responsibility for any outputs produced or opinions expressed.

Wales Bangor, University of