Mind the mining

Illegal river mining and haphazard road building must stop if we are serious about protecting the environment.

Haphazard road construction in hills and illegal riverbed extraction down in the plains have become all too common in Nepal. Be it the Chure region, Kaligandaki River, or any other hill or river, such activities have robbed these ecologically sensitive places of their natural beauty and richness. This in turn poses a significant threat to wildlife, environment and humans, and the severity of the risks escalates during the monsoon due to frequent floods and landslides. Yet the Nepali state appears largely unbothered.