Nepal is one of the richest countries in the
world in terms of bio-diversity due to its
unique geographical
position and latitudinal variation.
This wild variation fosters an incredible
variety of ecosystems, the greatest mountain
range on earth, forested
hills and valleys. The rectangle of Nepal,
on the flanks of the Eastern Himalayas, is
only 160 km (100 miles)
wide.
Yet in that short distance it drops from the
dizzy heights of its northern frontier to
an altitude of only 100m (
330 ft) on its southern border with India.
The Himalayan mountains were created by geological
processes that began around 150 million years
ago when a giant
"raft" of the earth's crust, bearing what
is now India, broke away from the huge southern
landmass. The raft
drifted northward and collided 60 million
years ago with Asia.
The intervening former ocean floor was buckled
into a vast mountain range-Himalayas-meaning
'Home of Snow'.
The valley between the roaring peaks of Annapurna
and Dhaulagiri abound in " saligrams'. Saligrams
are black
fossils of marine animals that have a spiral
shape. These ammonite fossils date back to
the jurassic period over
100 million years ago and provide dramatic
evidence that the mighty Himalaya was indeed
once under water.
The Himalayas curve across S.Asia some 2400
km( 1500 miles). they stretch between J & K
in the West and Assam I
the East, and along the way sweeps right across
northern Nepal.
A mountain flight in a light airplane takes
one close to the famous ranges.
The range is divided into three sections.
The Great Himalayas in the North which include
Mount Everest, the
lesser Himalayas in the centre and the outer
Himalayas in the South, which includes the
Shivalik range.
The Himalayas have an average height of about
6100 m ( 20,000 ft). Of the 109 peaks in the
world rising to more
than 7315 m ( 24,000 ft) above sea level,
96 are in this range. Seen through the clouds
in winter, frozen rivers
interperse the peaks.
From mountain peak to valley, the vegetation
changes are swift.
Bare slopes and ice take over the peaks…………
followed by alpine grassland and dwarf shrubs.
Deodar dominates the coniferous zone.
The hills are terraced and cultivated upto
about 2700m ( 9000 ft).
The cable car to "Manokamna", a popular temple
of Nepal, offers a good view of the ridge
across the Trishuli
River……….. The
tropical zone is dominated by SAL trees.
A
trip on the 'dugout canoe' takes one through
the Rapti river, through the TERAI jungle.
A mugger crocodile, a resident of the river,
disappears into the water…….. as soon
as it came out of its riverside
cave.
Another mugger is half immersed, still like
a rock.
Sand pipers move around in groups in shallow
waters.
Nearly 12% of Nepal's TERAI area is protected
as National Parks or sanctuaries. These are
hotspots of
biodiversity protecting many endangered species.
The hardwood forest of Chitwan is home to
450 species of birds
including the Great Pied Hornbill.
The wilderness of Royal Chitwan National Park,
a World Heritage site, is home to the Great
Indian Rhinoceros, the
one horned rhino. An estimated 544 of this
Asian variety are protected in the Park.
The National Park in the TERAI cannot be described
as wilderness in the strict sense since Nepal
believes that
conservation of bio diversity should be compatible
with sustainable utilization of forest resources.
When the
grass inside the open grassland grows tall,
neighbouring villagers are allowed into the
park to harvest a number
of grass species. It is found that rhinos
and elephants can live in secondary forestsand
as such certain level of
human exploitation of forests for timber,
fuelwood or fodder may not be incompatible
with the overall biological
diversity.
The rhinos are noticeable with their protruding
horns made of compacted hair. Horns are present
in both male and
female. Body of the rhino is covered with
a heavy studded armor that is prominently
folded in front of the
shoulder and around the hind legs. Tail of
the rhino is set in a deep grove in the buttock
area. The rhino is
hairless. All rhinos are nearsighted-which
causes unprovoked attacks in self defense when
a rhino is surprised
by, say, a bicycle.
Rhinos are entirely herbivorous feeding on
tall grass, shrubs and aquatic plants.
Female rhinos usually produce one young after
a gestation period of about 18 months. Rhino
calf may stay with
its mother for more than two years. Calving
occurs once in six to seven years. Average
life span of a rhino is
about 70 years.
This mother rhino bears bullet injuries signalling
that poachers are an ever present threat to
these animals.
Rhino parts are traded in the international
market at very high prices. Since 1975, the
Royal Nepal Army has been
responsible for dealing with poaching and
enforcement of conservation laws. Punishment
for rhino poaching is 15
years in jail or a RS 1,00,000 lakh fine or
both.
Every year, catastrophic floods in the TERAI
wipe out large populations of ungulates. One
could catch fleeting
glimpses of spotted deer as they dashed through
the undergrowth. Sambar deer also was rare
to come by.
With the decrease in the supply of prey, tigers have
become most elusive.
The numerous lakes and ponds of Nepal offer
transitory halts for migratory birds on their
flight from Mongolia,
Siberia and Tibet enroute to India.
The community forests of "twenty thousand
lakes" , a Ramsar Site, is a paradise for
bird watchers.
Large numbers of black ibis rest on tree tops
while a lone snake bird is all set to spread
out its wings to dry.
A small party of coots near the hyacinth seems
to have broken off from a much larger group
circling overhead.
Just 7km from Khatmandu, the capital city,
is "Taudaha" a historical pond overgrown with
hyacinth. Winter
visitors like ruddy shelducks and pochards
are seen swimming about here.
Continued silting of ponds and lakes is contributed
to a large extent by grazing domestic cattle
who loosen up
the mud on forest floors which then is carried
into the lakes by the rains.
Unchecked mining is denuding hill after hill.
As naked hillsides replace the thick woodlands
that normally absorb
and store rainfall, Nepal suffers lethal floods
and mudslides during the monsoons and serious
water shortages
during the dry season.
Wild elephants of Nepal have all but vanished.
The occasional herd is from the forests of
the Shiwaliks and the
TERIAI along the Himalayan foothills in Uttar Pradesh, in India.
With rapid changes in the landscape and increased
human activities, the elephants stopped their
seasonal migration
around 1994 through the forests of Uttar Pradesh,
India to the connecting forests of Kanchanpur,
Kailali, and
Bardia districts of Nepal.
They are now confined to forests that cannot
sustain their basic needs.
Elephants do appear on the landscape of Chitwan
as transport to carry tourists into the forest.
They are seen in the rivers along with their
mahouts who scrub them clean and give them
a bath with curious
tourists watching from all sides.
This one is even obliged to give a bath to
the apparently delighted tourist on her back.
You see more elephants in Chitwan than any
other mammals - this time at the imaginative
breeding centre for
endangered elephants on the banks of the River
Rapti.
Chained to poles, these intelligent beings
( elephants have got the biggest brain in
animal kingdom) sway back
and forth in obvious boredom.
The spectacular evolutionary history of the
Proboscidea, the order to which elephants
and elephant like mammals
belong, begins about sixty million yers ago.
There are only two living representatives
of the Proboscidea now-
the African elephant ad the Asian elephant.
The dwindling populations of the Asian elephant
has opened the eyes of wildlife managers to
the reality that a
growing viable population does not exist in
the wild anymore.
The young ones at the elephant breeding centre
roam free within the enclosure. They are naturally
curious and
explore their surroundings. Bananas are a
treat always - to the tourist as well as to
the elephant.
But who will teach him how to coordinate the
10, 000 odd muscles in his trunk to pick up
food ? This exclusive
appendage has myriad uses in the jungle - to
identify, visualise, gather clues, communicate
from infancy,
establish kinship by entwining, store vital
information from smells and textures to testing the
muscular strength of their
playmates.
Will the elephant, unable to realise the full
potential of this appendage slowly evolve
to have a nose like other
animals? But the privilege of knowing whether
elephants are in the process of evolving into
new forms, or not is
not ours.
Since alterations in genetic make up can occur
only as each new generation is concieved,
it follows that we
cannot witness in our own life times the cumulative
effect of many generational changes in animals
whose longevity
is about the same as ours. The consequences
of inbreeding or loss of genetic variation
in elephants have not been
studied in detail.
Though the breeding centre has a resident
bull elephant, wild bulls are encouraged to
approach the females.
For many scientists, elephants are fundamental
to the environment and they classify them as Keystone
Species or even
Super Keystone Species. This means that the
elephant’s role in ecology is so significant,
it is a key factor to
the maintenance and continuity of the ecosystem.
According to these views, if the elephant
disappears, its entire ecosystem may be lost.
The great continental blocks of India and
Central Asia, which first collided about 60
million years ago, are still
moving, compacting with one another and pushing
up the buckled sedimentary rocks of the himalayas
still higher.
This natural process is measured in eons whereas
the evolution and possible extinction of species
like the Asian
elephant/ Bengal Tiger and the One horned
rhino is measured in a few human lifetimes.
The realization that
overuse of our natural resources is largely
responsible for this accelerated pace of evolution
is dawning on us.
In this respect the Wilderness of Nepal is
a future waiting to happen.
