Hidden beneath the 1st, 3rd, 4th, and 5th highest peaks in the world lies a baby blue lake of love. As winter thaws, romance fills the air. For any other duck, algae and spiders might suffice for a romantic getaway, but for the Ruddy Sheldrake—nicknamed the Brahmin Duck or Love Duck in Nepal—only the extreme will do.
It’s as if the ducks live in a day dream, dots in the background of a postcard from a faraway land. Hindu priests travel from around the world to pray by the cool, crisp glacier runoff. Whether it’s the holiness or the view, something about the place makes the duck fall in love harder than usual.
They experience the world together, flying higher than most of us ever will (14,000 feet to be precise). When one of them has quacked their last quack, they show just how deep their love is. The widow refuses to eat, a hunger strike beyond any political stance or moral sacrifice. In the corner of a lake anonymous to the world, they reach a quiet conclusion: it’s not worth living without love.
As the lake’s water source faces an uncertain future, the duck population in Nepal has remained steady. This isn’t another endangered animal story. Nepal’s unique approach to community-based conservation means the country’s 118 different ecosystem variants are very much alive. The country boasts more than 950 species of birds, 13,067 species of plants, and 17,097 species of animals, including one-horned rhinos, Bengal tigers, Asiatic elephants, gaurs, and red pandas.
Thanks in part to 22,500 forest community user groups, forest cover in Nepal has risen from 25% to 45% since the 1990s, making it one of the few developing countries to expand its forest cover. Nearly 40% of Nepali households are involved in some way. This is supported by the fact that now more than 23% of Nepal’s land is protected by the government.
A forest user community group (FUG) is a collection of residents, elected by the locals who use the forest, working together with authorities (such as national forest staff) to protect and manage the ecosystem. Typically, this is land the government has handed over for a certain period of time. The FUG typically builds out an operation plan for the forest, including land-use plans, and undertakes forest patrols and awareness-raising activities to curb illegal activities. There are different models for who is engaged and how.
In Nepal, a 25-year partnership with Denmark’s aid agency Danida enabled the building of the legal framework for the FUGs to be implemented, acting as a catalyst for the concept’s growth. In the support service model, an FUGs or a partner NGO can engage with the District Forest Offices to collaborate on how to plant available seeds, oftentimes obtaining the seeds for free.
Nepal’s model is also unique compared to neighboring countries in that it does not require sharing any benefits with the government. Forestry staff mainly act as facilitators to ensure equal local representation instead of regulators or owners. When proceeds are returned to locals, they can be reinvested in the local community.
This leads to a substantial amount of revenue earned by protected areas being spent on the development and betterment of local communities. This includes reinvesting in wildlife monitoring through extensive spatial monitoring and reporting tool patrolling (SMART), global positioning system (GPS), and global information system (GIS).
The story looked very different 40 years ago. Deemed the “Himalayan Crisis,” many believed the mountains were approaching dire levels of environmental damage from deforestation, overgrazing, and terracing of marginal land. Some predicted the loss of all forest cover in Nepal by the year 2000. The effects were felt by communities in the form of fuel-wood shortages, soil erosion, and silted water sources.
But the government acted, establishing the National Park and Wildlife Conservation Act. As a result Chitwan National Park, one of the duck’s winter residences, opened in 1973, and Sagarmatha National Park, their high-altitude breeding place, in 1976. Sherpas historically had their own system in each community, deemed shingo nawa, or forest guards, for communal natural resource management. But under the Conservation Act, their new name —community user forestry groups—was formalized.
As the economy has moved from agro-pastoralism and trade to being largely reliant on tourism, giving the operations of FUGs to local communities is an example of how new policy can coexist with creating space to carry on these old practices. Instead of isolating locals from conservation strategies, they are made part of the business model. When the priorities of forest conservation are tied to livelihoods and jobs, they reinforce the economic value of conservation.
Mingma Sherpa, who manages a tea shop in the Khumbu Valley, reflects on how her generation was the first to wake up to the need to limit deforestation in the area: “Now we have the village people stronger, every year stronger and stronger. Before, the old generation didn’t know the trees would die. Younger generation [is now] stronger in the community. All together, sometimes discussing what he do, what I do, what they do.”
During COP28, the details of a UN-sponsored carbon market program were eagerly anticipated. Earlier in the month, the new markets advisory body agreed on the key provisions to make the new mechanism operational; all that remained was to approve the recommendations. It promises an internationally agreed-upon framework to ensure greater control and transparency of high-quality carbon credits. While the limelight has focused on new tech to better monitor forests, operators are forgetting about the forest’s biggest asset: the people inside them.
Community forest groups can be a model to build resilience and trust across stakeholders. Biodiversity credits can open new sources of funding while ensuring the Brahmin duck and their caretakers are valued accordingly. Integrating FUGs into carbon credits could replace the income stream usually offered by government land and allow for more opportunities for FUGs to be put into practice. As the efforts of local communities are recognized and rewarded in several ways, protecting our forests and their inhabitants doesn’t need to be complicated.
As carbon credits try to answer the impossible question of how to value nature, we find ourselves back at the beginning, asking what our forests need to continue to protect us. But nature has always been there, waiting to uncover the answers to our deepest questions. Thanks to a healthy population of Brahmin Ducks, another question is answered. The answer is yes, love is worth dying for. And if you still haven’t found it, maybe that special person is waiting in the clouds, bathing in the waters of the gods, waiting for you to waddle by.