Why Conservation Alliance Nepal (CAN)?

Nepal is a landlocked country situated between the two most populated, giant economies. Our neighbors are the first and third largest carbon emitters in the world and major drivers of climate change. Blessed by nature with a bounty of splendors, Nepal is also a topographically fragile nation and lies on a fault line in which the Indian continental plate is shifting below the Eurasian plate at the rate of 2 cm per year. It ranks eleventh and sixteenth globally, in terms of vulnerability to earthquakes and multi-hazards. Multi-hazards are complex events associated with droughts, earthquakes, floods, mass movement, glacial lake outburst floods (GLOF), and wildfires. They can occur simultaneously or sequentially. Such hazards are outcomes of changed environmental conditions generated by global warming. 

Nepal has been unable to cope with the havoc wrought on the lives and property of the nation, caused by the effects of these natural and manmade disasters such as floods, landslides, deforestation, and transport accidents, among others. They account for hundreds of fatalities per year. It is a matter of grave concern from the perspective of good governance and human security. 

The definition and understanding of security over the years have amplified in scope embracing larger comprehensive dimensions. The referent objective is no longer limited to the military only and ranges from the economic and environmental to the human and psychological domains too. Conflict is an integral part of human evolution and survival is a basic human instinct. Therefore, it follows that threats to the security of an individual, group, tribe, or nation, as a rule, hold primacy on all agendas: internal, regional, or global. Consequently, global warming, climate change, and its debilitating effect on the environment and the quality of life rather than the quality of living, has taken the lead position on all contemporary global and regional agendas.

Conservation Alliance Nepal is an organization composed of highly experienced academicians, technicians, and practitioners in this field of endeavor, with cross-cutting work experience and credible networking capacity. It aims to undertake a mission to build resilient partnerships and alliances, dedicated to providing pragmatic and actionable solutions to the effects of the natural hazards including those induced by global warming. Its initiatives will build on various insights developed by numerous researchers to identify shortcomings, best practices, and gaps to overcome difficulties faced by related authorities and agencies in translating words into action.