On a recent trip to the Taplejung district by our Field Ecologist, Tulsi Ram Subedi and 3 of our forest guardians, 2 red pandas were spotted. Sadly only one was live. Here's an excerpt from Tulsi's update:

I have also collected the data of raptors in the area and incidence of raptor predation on red panda was conformed because we saw part of red panda hide on the open forest area killed by Mountain Hawk eagle or Golden eagle (they were encountered near by this area). I found risk of red panda predation by raptors could increase in this area. Livestock farming is the main occupation of local communities of red panda range and they have cattle herding station inside red panda habitat which lead to forest destruction. This type of culture could create lot of open forest. Open forest is the suitable habitat for raptors to find their prey.   

To read the full update from the field, read Tulsi's post here.  

A Day in the Life of a Forest Guardian 

This real story of forest guardian is taken from Nepal where RPN has intensified its community-based red panda conservation project in the eastern Himalayan region.

Mr. Ratna Baniya, a forest guardian based in Kalikhola VDC of the Taplejung district, has enormous passion to do something for red panda conservation on the ground. His motivation to save the lives of red panda in his surroundings stems from witnessing and experiencing RPN's work. He wakes up early in the morning by 4: 30 am at the latest which is the usual time to start his day. At his regular work, he milks 5 cattle and keeps them out from the hut and manages some diet khole. By the time he takes the cattle out, his wife would have made cups of salty tea. He drinks tea in front of a camp fire inside his roofed house and chats with his wife about his day's work. He points out his day's work list and wishes that his wife would complete those. He dresses up with fleece provided by RPN and come out to garden. He looks around to find somebody to join him in the forest. He makes a long whistle to connect to his friend in the jungle if there are any. He heads off to the forest expecting his friend response in the same way. In a minute, he receives a long whistle from his friend telling him that he is already in the forest. He directs himself towards the survey block as he is not only collecting fodder today, he is also monitoring red panda in his forest. He knows that he has to cover two transects for red panda monitoring. He does not forget to take a pencil and survey sheet when he goes into the forest. As he walks, he keeps record of scats and any other signs of red panda while proceeding along the transect.  He wishes he could see a red panda directly, that helps him to know the health of panda. However he does not get this opportunity this time. He expects the next day as he is monitoring red panda for the next 5 days. He completes his survey and looks for fodder for his cattle.

He does not cut Malingo and Nigalo (two different species of bamboo) from that site. He knows that last time he had cut these from this site and this time he wants to grow them all for red panda. Instead he chooses the next site for his collection. He thinks by the next month fodder at the first site will grow and be ready for red panda food so he alternates cutting sites. He spends roughly 4 hours in the forest for red panda monitoring and fodder collection. When he returns home, the cattle bark at him. He cannot go past without giving them food. He loves his cattle as much as his family members. In remote place like this, cattle are real friends and he shares tears and happiness with them all the time.

His children approach to him. He asks them whether they drank milk or not. He enters his house and sits close to the fire place. He takes off his cloths and sits for lunch with his family members.  After lunch he sticks to his calendar. 

In the afternoon he moves off to the forest to collect fodder. This time he is joined by his wife. His wife follows him and they go into the forest. They collect fodder and also fuel wood. He asks his wife to collect dead tree for fuel wood. Suddenly his wife sees red panda scat. At the moment he was on the next tree. He climbed down and looked at the scat, speculating the age of scats. He observes the surrounding vegetation, its coverage, water availability and distance from the site to the village. He keeps a few of them with him and returns home. Later in the day, he calls to his friend and discusses about the site where he found red panda scats.

Mr. Baniya, has become a local conservation activist. He advocates about red panda conservation and its importance to their future life. This is how he lives in a village, far away from the developed world, working for the ecosystem conservation. He has not visited Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal and has never known about the Internet. He shares his experiences and how he used to see many red pandas in the past when he went into the forest with his father. Now red pandas are decreasing as his father's age (72) is increasing. He wonders how this number is decreasing so dramatically as he is not aware of urban expansion, climate change and pollution. He is not contributing to pollution in his area. He lives completely outside of the modern world.

This is something we should learn from these people who are working for climate change mitigation. These innocent villagers have no contribution to increasing pollution but they are hardworking in the mitigation of climate change. Thus it is time to address their livelihood issues and utilize their traditional knowledge of sustainable forest resources before they witness the severe impact of climate change in their daily lives. Let's work together and make them wake up for their resource conservation.