Environmentalists push back against Nepal’s hydropower plans in protected areas

Nepali conservationists have expressed outrage over the Ministry of Forest and Environment’s recent proposal to scrap existing guidelines through the backdoor to make it easier for developers to build large-scale hydropower projects inside the country’s protected areas.

A draft of the proposal, titled “Construction of Physical Infrastructure Inside Protected Areas (Procedures),” was recently posted on the ministry’s website; if it is implemented, hydropower developers will be allowed to build projects entirely inside protected areas, release only a fraction of the water in the river during the peak dry season compared with prevailing provisions and acquire land for developing power projects inside protected areas more easily.