Under the project “Floating Treatment Wetland System (FTWS) – sustainable green technology to remediate the polluted surface water bodies ”, funded by the Asia Pacific Network for Global Change Research (APN) and implemented by The Small Earth Nepal (SEN) in collaboration with Central Department of Hydrology and Meteorology (CDHM), Tribhuvan University (TU), Nepal; Center of Research for Environment, Energy and Water (CREEW), Nepal; Central University of Rajasthan (CURAJ), India; University of Dhaka (UD), Bangladesh; Kathmandu Valley Water Supply Management Board (KVWSMB), Nepal;  Tribhuvan University (TU), Nepal; University of Rhode Island (URI), United States and University of Yamanashi (UY), Japan conducted an online training on FTWS Raft construction on 12 November 2022. The training was provided/moderated by Dr. Soni Pradhanang (Associate Professor, URI). The purpose of the training was to develop the capacity of the participating institutions on FTWS raft construction and apply them in the field as part of their research work in the project.

Total of seven individuals representing two collaborating institutions from Nepal and India took part in the training. The basic design of the raft used by Dr. Pradhanang was a 7×10 feet raft for her field testing. The raft used 2-3 inch layers of Styrofoam sandwiched between bamboo mat layers and enclosed by a steel cage for structural support. The bamboo mat, despite being degradable, was used as a replacement for plastic bottles to eliminate micro-plastic emissions. The raft is anchored by a 20 kg concrete block in a way that it had a certain degree of free float but couldn’t drift away with wind or tide. The plants were spaced at a 6-inch distance from the edge planting hole in the foam. 

Dr. Pradhanang recommended using 4 rafts of  7 feet ✕ 10 feet or 6 rafts of 5 feet ✕ 8 feet, per corner/point of the test area to cover at least 5% of the test area. She suggested using polyethylene foam as a replacement for styrofoam in case of availability issues. The anchor could be steel rebars or concrete blocks depending on the availability. A new layer could overlay the bamboo mat layers as degradation occurs.

From the training, participants of the project team learned to prepare FTWS rafts for field application in their respective project sites.

On 14 July 2020, The Small Earth Nepal (SEN) in collaboration with the Central Department of Hydrology and Meteorology (CDHM), Tribhuvan University (TU), NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), and United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Kathmandu organized  CDHM Talk Program Series 14  “From the Beauty of Snowflakes to the Mystery of Wobbly Earth: Joy of science exploration at NASA” by Dr. Surendra Adhikari (Glaciologists and Geodesist at JPL) at CDHM Kirtipur, Kathmandu.

The program was attended by 57 participants, mostly graduate, and undergraduate students. The program was chaired by Dr. Dipak Aryal (Professor and Head, CDHM). The opening remark was done by Dr. Dibas Shrestha (Asst. Prof., CDHM) followed by a brief introduction about the talk program and the presenter, Dr. Surendra Adhikari, by Dr. Dhiraj Pradhananga (President, SEN, and Assoc. Prof., TU). Dr. Adhikari gave his short introduction and shared his fascination towards ice and geoscience from an early age. Dr. Adhikari presented his study on Greenland ice mass change from 2002-2020 using GRACE and GRACE-FO satellites. A few of his current studies include bedrock GPS for continuous measurement of glacial discharge and sea-level fingerprint mapping to predict the effects of glacial mass loss on self-gravitating rotating deforming planets. These studies mainly focused on the earth’s spin axis shift/earth wobble due to glacial melt and polar ice mass change due to climate change. Dr. Adhikari expressed an innovative idea to study the impacts of climate change on the Earth-Moon system.

After a brief discussion, Mr. Michael Croft (UNESCO) provided closing remarks. As UNESCO is the specialized UN agency with a mandate for science, he discussed how the Organization seeks to advance and promote scientific research and activity in the interests of peace, sustainable development, and human security. For UNESCO, he stated, in an era of rapid social transformation, digitalization, pandemic, and climate change, it is imperative to build a culture of Open Science – to cultivate much closer links between scientists and society, especially youth.

On the occasion of World Environment Day celebrated annually on June 5, the Small Earth Nepal (SEN) in collaboration with International Center for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) organized “Best from Waste: An Environmental Fair-2018” to fortify this year’s theme “Beat Plastic Pollution”. The program was held at Shree Padma Higher Secondary School, Bhaktapur Durbar Square. Altogether 40 participants took part in the program.Selected students from grade 7- 10 actively participated in the program.

Mr. Arun Prasad Bhattarai from the Small Earth Nepal started off the program accentuating why this particular day is celebrated. He added that to highlight the problems and find solutions and make people aware of what is happening in the environment, World Environment Day is commemorated all over the globe.

The popular and well-known 3R principle: reduce, reuse and recycle was brought to light in the program. The students were given training by the experts to make innovative things from their recyclable waste. Ms. Megha Bajaj, a M. Sc student from College of Applied Science and Mr. Sagar Pradhan from Child Workers in Nepal (CWIN) acquainted the students with ideas to get creative with their reusable and recyclable waste. Ms. Bajaj taught the students to make hanging bottle garden with the help of plastic bottles and pencil holder from waste newspapers and carton boxes. The students seemed excited to plant in their creative hanging bottles. Ms. Manisha Manandhar from Grade-8 and Ms. Manisha Pradhan from Grade-7 were given a small gift by Ms. Bajaj for making a good product out of the waste at the training.

Similarly, Mr. Sagar Pradhan from CWIN emphasized on “If you can’t reuse it, refuse it”. He added that one must understand their responsibility to learn better in life. Mr. Pradhan says, “People know you by your work and you must put effort to create your identity.” He stressed upon the need to instill an urge within yourselves to take initiative and adopt positive attitude and behavior to make your environment clean. He also talked about 6R principles: recycling, reusing, refusing, repairing, rethinking and reducing the materials. Ms. Anju B.K from CWIN showed their products (bags, purses) which were made by up cycling waste banners. Mr. Mohammad Mehedi Hasan and Mr. Arijit Dey from CWIN also enlightened the students with their experience about their journey of making bags from banners.

Along with the training program, photo exhibition was also carried out which displayed the grim reality of plastic use and its malignant effect on the environment. The students observed the display with much curiosity.

The training was successful in indulging students in creative learning.  They interactively participated in the program and learned from the experts about the necessity to keep their ambience clean. Students also shared their view and opinion about what they got to learn today. They all received a positive take away message from the things they got to learn at “Best from Waste: An Environment Fair-2018”.

A four day-intensive training course on “Agro-ecosystem Resilience in a Changing Climate” started off in Kathmandu, Nepal (June 5-8, 2018) organized by The Small Earth Nepal (SEN), Nepal and Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC), Thailand. This ongoing training program is a part of the project “Mainstreaming Weather and Climate Information Application for Agro-ecosystem Resilience in a Changing Climate” implemented by ADPC and its collaborating partners. The project is supported by Asia-Pacific Network for Global Change Research (APN), Japan under its Capacity Development Programme (CAPaBLE). The project aims to enhance capacities of scientists, policy-makers and other relevant stakeholders in the Asia and Pacific region and to identify and assess global change issues at local, national and regional levels. With this objective, it has successfully conducted the training in Srilanka, Vietnam and Thailand to impart knowledge on agro-ecosystem resilience and enhance the better knowledge sharing among scientific committee, academia, government bodies and the relevant stakeholders.

Dr. Senak Besnayake, ADPC, started with an opening remark in the training. He opined that climate change is becoming more pronounced over the years and the impact of climate change is substantially high on agro-ecosystem. He added dry spells, glacier lake outburst flood (GLOFs) are posing serious threat to agriculture. Similarly, Dr. Madan Lall Shrestha, Advisor of SEN and academician of National Academy of Science and Technology (NAST) mentioned agriculture sector has more burdens of loss and damage due to changing climate. “The shift in withdraw and early onset of monsoon is making monsoon longer impacting agriculture sector, at large in Southeast Asia”, he said.  Mr. Atiq K. Ahmed, Program Specialist at ADPC also highlighted the threats of climate change on agriculture and plummeting Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is one of its adverse impact. He pinpointed that to cope with this burning issue tools of climate science, early warning system, among others in a collaborative way to facilitate farmers who are still following traditional farming system is pivotal in the context of climate change.   Furthermore, Dr. Rishiraj Dutta, the project leader, briefly talked about the contents of the training and thanked SEN and ADPC for this platform.

This course adopts a broader paradigm where resilience of agro-ecological systems is entwined with concepts of sustainable livelihoods and food security. The training program is divided into four modules viz. Module 1: “Relevance of Disaster and Climate Risk Management for sustainability of Social Ecological Systems”, Module 2: “Generation and Application of Weather and Climate Related Information”, Module 3: “Planning for Vulnerability Reduction and Resilience Building of Agro-ecosystems”, and Module 4: “Synthesis of learnings through a scenario-based exercise”. The training is moderated by Mr. Susantha Jayasinghe, ADPC and facilitated by Dr. Senak Basnayake, Mr. Mr. Atiq K. Ahmed and Dr. Rishiraj Dutta.

The training is designed to provide hands-on-experience with an intensive and interactive group exercises comprising of diverse expertise. By the end of the training session, it is expected that know-how on analyzing factors that influence sustainability and resilience of agro-ecosystems and development of interventions to sustain productivity of this systems in the face of climate change by integrating weather and climate information is well disseminated. Altogether 28 participants are attending the program that includes academia, government agencies, INGO, NGOs and the humanitarian organizations etc.

The Small Earth Nepal (SEN) in collaboration with the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) celebrated the International Day for Biological Diversity-2018 by hosting a one-day graduates workshop- “Graduates Hive: Synergizing Knowledge on Biodiversity” with the theme for this year “Celebrating 25 years of Action on Biodiversity” on 22^nd May at the ICIMOD Knowledge Park, Godawari, Lalitpur. Altogether, 30 participants had participated in the workshop.

The workshop constituted of three sessions viz Session 1: Paper presentation, Session 2: Story telling “exploring the horizon of biodiversity” and Session 3: Sharing knowledge on research tools and techniques.

The first session started off with paper presentations by the graduate students. Altogether, five papers were presented. The presentations were delivered on “Assessment of habitat by snow leopard and understanding of community-based snow leopard  conservation in  Eastern Nepal” by Mr. Sandesh Lamichhane from Kathmandu Forestry College, “Habitat analysis of Chinese Pangolin (Manis pentadactyl) in Manthali Community Forest Suryavinayak” by Mr. Mahendra Prasad Uprety from Khowpa College, “Status and distribution of anthropogenic pressure and tree species diversity in the Kailash Buffer Zone Community Forest, Bardiya National Park” by Ms. Shrijana Poudel from Kathmandu Forestry College, “Human-snow leopard conflict in Sahagun Rural Municipality, Manaslu Conservation Area” by Ms. Loonibha  Manandhar and “Distribution of red panda in Jajarkot, Mid-Western Nepal” by Mr. Badri Baral from Nepal Environmental Research Institute (NERI). It was evident from their hard work and dedication towards their work that young researchers were very much enthusiastic and concerned about the conservation of the biodiversity and their habitat. Experts from the field of biodiversity who were also the storytellers for the program, appreciated their hard work and gave their valuable inputs.

The second session of the workshop comprised of sharing the experiences, hardships, and the endeavors of prominent conservation leaders. Mr. Prasanna Yonzan, Chief Executive Officer of Wildlife Conservation Nepal (WCN) is a pioneer conservationist with over three decades of experience in conservation with great commitment against trade and poaching of wildlife and development of landscape. He stressed “Devotion of work is a must rather than a money”. He further added “stewardship” is a need of today for an effective conservation and young researchers and scientists have played a tremendous role in the conservation of biodiversity in Nepal.

Mr. Yadav Ghimire, Friends of Nature (FON) Nepal, who has played an instrumental role in the conservation of clouded leopard in Nepal, shared his stories. Born in Nepal, raised in Sikkim of India, graduated in physics, Mr. Ghimire, turned out to be a conservationist in the later phase of his life. Among many, he takes Mr. Raju Acharya as his inspiration. He got an opportunity to work for the IUCN Red Data List for Clouded Leopard from Nepal. He has travelled in many remote places in Nepal for the study of small carnivores and small felids throughout the country. “My hardship is overcome by my passion”, he says.

Ms. Tulshi Laxmi Suwal, an emerging small mammal conservationist, shared her life struggle and how she followed her dreams to be a person who she is today. She is now the President of Small Mammals Conservation and Research Foundation (SMCRF), a youth-led organization working particularly on research and conservation of small mammals. Ms. Suwal, , who was once crippled by the financial crisis even to pay her tuition fees and had faced objections of studying wildlife being a girl child is now a role model for many young women in conservation and her works in pangolin are of noteworthy.  Being the first graduate from Central Department of Zoology to study pangolin species and the first person in Nepal to observe pangolin with its baby during the fieldwork, she is thankful to her family and her friends for their continued support and she is committed to take SMCRF to a next level.

The third session was focused on the application of efficient tools for data collection: Kobo toolbox and Open Data Kit (ODK) and Google Earth Engine (GEE) for geospatial data analysis. Mr. Kabiraj  Khatiwada and Ms. Susmina  Gajurel, both from SEN gave presentations to promulgate the participants regarding the new technologies and tools to make the data collection process easier and more convenient. The Kobo toolbox and ODK, efficient tools for data collection in the field and the application of GEE in biodiversity monitoring and assessment including forest fire, eco-region zonation, land cover change, biomass monitoring etc. were the highlights of the session.

Lastly, the senior researchers were felicitated by Ms. Suchita Shrestha, the vice-president of SEN. She thanked them for taking out their valuable time for the event and inspiring young generation. She also thanked the presenters, participants and the organizing committee for the meaningful event.