Best of 2021: The environment is paying the price for officials’ greed

Like most locals from villages dotting the banks of the Indrawati in the Sindhupalchok district of central Nepal, Kamal Ratna Danuwar grew up with stories that revered the river. After all, the perennial waters of the snow-fed Indrawati nourished their fields and gave villagers bountiful harvests twice a year.

Danuwar remembers running barefoot along the banks of the turquoise river with a bamboo fishing rod in one hand and his game in the other. As a young boy, he was told that bringing back anything other than fish was a bad omen. “Not even a pebble,” he remembers his elders berating him. They believed anything brought back from the river would bring home angry spirits since the same river that fed them was also where they performed the last rites of their dead. So, young Danuwar, heeding the elders’ warning, brought home nothing but the fish he caught.