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<P><FONT face="minion, georgia"><FONT color=#003a00 size=+2><B><A
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<P><FONT face="minion, georgia"><FONT color=#003a00 size=+2><B>Indigenous
knowledge and biodiversity under threat</B></FONT></FONT>
<P><FONT face="arial, helvetica"><FONT size=-1>(Thursday, Jan. 16, 2003 --
CropChoice news) -- This piece from the January 11th edition of The Kathmandu
Post, quotes Binayak P. Rajbhandari. CropChoice published one of his pieces
earlier this month (link available at end of this story).
<P>By Sudha Shrestha
<P>KATHMANDU, Jan 11:Ram Maya Suwal (name changed), an elderly woman from
Navadesh, a small village of Thimi does not take the local herbal medicine she
used to take for her headache.
<P>In her twilight years, her sons have convinced her to take ‘Citamol’, a
modern-day medicine. Taking herbal medicine is a thing of past, her two sons
would say. Similarly, her two little grandchildren are addicted to eating junk
foods instead of home-cooked meals.
<P>With the advent of modernity, Nepalese are coming of age over the years with
significant change in their mode of life no matter where they are. Junk food
culture has become almost a craze. However, the sad thing about the modern trend
is that it is virtually replacing precious things about our rich heritage and
mode of life including indigenous knowledge and wisdom. The experts attribute
the phenomenon to the onslaught of the globalisation process.
<P>According to them, the negative impact of globalisation has manifested itself
in the loss of indigenous knowledge and indigenous life-support system along
with loss of bio-diversity, in rural Nepal.
<P>Globalisation that has set free-market economies in motion in the world is
being blamed for the further impoverishment of the Third World. As never before,
the gap between the haves and have-nots of the world, is widening at a faster
rate. South Asia where half the world’s poor lives has been hit hard. The rural
people in Nepal are quite exposed to the negative impact of globalisation.
<P>According to Dr. Binayak P. Rajbhandari, executive director of Himalayan
College of Agricultural Sciences and Technology, indigenous agriculture in
Nepal, has been greatly affected with the introduction of Western model
agriculture pattern.
<P>"Western pattern in Nepalese agriculture has created havoc leading to the
loss of indigenous resources and knowledge. This makes Nepalese rural women more
vulnerable to this change with their loss of control and access over the
indigenous resources. As more than 75 percent of activities in agriculture is
performed by rural women, the change will affect their means of livelihood,"
says Dr. Rajbhandari.
<P>Once a rice-exporting country, Nepal had more than 2000 varieties of rice.
Today, almost all disappeared except for 9 to 10 varieties.
<P>Dr. Rajbhandari fears that Genetically Modified Food (GMF), which developed
countries like Japan and Europe have banned for their negative health impact,
may make inroads into Nepal via India.
<P>"If GMF food arrives in Nepal, it would wreak havoc in Nepalese agriculture,
beside causing negative health impact. Already GMF mustard seeds have arrived in
India and the days are not far off for Nepal," he further says.
<P>Americans spent billions of dollars on experiment of GMF, which they are
likely to dump in Third world countries to feed thousands of hungry people. The
controversy surrounding GMF is that they carry negative impact on human health
while their cultivation would pose threat to bio-diversity and the eco-system.
<P>For technology-rich countries like the US, the genetic resources have been
the most precious resources to generate wealth.
<P>Dr. Meena Acharya, a renowned economist of the country assesses the impact of
the globalisation the other way round.
<P>"The globalisation process itself is not bad as it creates skills, employment
and integration. But the hegemony of multi-national companies will not serve the
interests of the majority of people. Unfortunately, years of political conflict
in our country hindered the ground-work preparations in that direction, " she
said.
<P>Today, Nepal is likely to bear the burnt of globalisation in the immediate
future, due to the lack of safety net, resource base and productivity in its
economy.
<P>Many precious indigenous herbs and their knowledge are flying abroad due to
the lack of supervision and we have to pay huge sums for their patent rights.
<P>"It’s worrisome. Our main concern should be how to protect indigenous
knowledge and biodiversity and internal resources," argues the veteran
economist.
<P>Dr. Rajbhandari, observes that the time has come to reverse the trend of
globalisation by making it pro-poor instead of pro-rich.
<P>"Our development model is still lop-sided, based on Western model," he said,
while emphasising the need for pro-poor development model, from rural women’s
perspective.
<P>To put it in Dr. Acharya’s words, "Nepali economic policy is simply
bandwagonism. The time has come for soul-searching. We simply should not
blindly, follow global trends without proper ground-work preparations. It will
impoverish the masses of the country instead of enriching them".
<P><A target=_blank
href="http://www.nepalnews.com/">http://www.nepalnews.com</A>
<P>Sustainable livelihood and rural development in Southeast Asia, <A
target=_blank
href="http://www.cropchoice.com/leadstry.asp?recid=1256">http://www.cropchoice.com/leadstry.asp?recid=1256</A></FONT></FONT></P></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>