The Grassroots View... from nepal ...
introducing Prakash Mani Sharma
Name:
Prakash
Mani Sharma
Age:
48
Role at Friends of the Earth
Nepal:
Director, Friends of the
Earth Nepal (Propublic)
Profession:
Public Interest
Lawyer
Qualifications:
Masters in
Law from Delhi and Masters in Environmental
and Natural Resource Law from Lewis and Clark
Law School, Portland, Oregon.
Became involved with Friends of the
Earth:
through work as a lawyer on
environmental cases
“
At Friends
of the Earth Nepal (aka Propublic), we are
seeing the devastating impact of climate
change caused by global warming right here on
our doorstep.
The Everest (Sagarmatha) National Park,
home to the Himalayas, is a unique and
irreplaceable landscape – undoubtedly one of
the most beautiful places on earth. Yet many
of its glacial lakes are in grave danger of
catastrophic flooding, as the mountain
glaciers high above them steadily melt away –
according to recent EC studies, at the rate
of 15 metres a year. Should any of the
glacial lakes burst its banks, that would
result in a human, environmental and economic
disaster, threatening thousands of local
inhabitants and their homes and livestock, as
well as rare animals such as the snow leopard
and panther and the country’s hydropower
plant facilities. Nepal’s tourist industry,
its principal source of income, would be
irreparably damaged and if the glaciers were
eventually to disappear completely in a few
decades time, so too would our fresh water
supply.
People power
A couple of years ago, Friends of the Earth
Nepal decided to take matters into our own
hands. In 2004, we presented a petition,
drawn up with the International Climate
Justice Programme, to the UNESCO World
Heritage Committee in Paris asking that the
Sagarmatha National Park be placed on the
List of World Heritage Sites In Danger, along
with a handful of other sites in Belize,
Peru, Canada, the US and Australia.
The petition was submitted in person by a
group of record-holding Everest climbers
including Pemba Dorjee Sherpa and Temba
Tsheri Sherpa. Reinhold Messner, Sir David
Attenborough and Sir Chris Bonnington gave us
their support, and Sir Edmund Hillary also
joined the pettioners and spoken publicly of
his concern for the future of the
Himalayas.
By being entirely driven by the public rather
than government, our petition is a ‘first’
and demonstrates the weight of feeling here
about the damage being inflicted on our
landscape. Damage which, ironically, has not
been created by ourselves, but by the
greenhouse-gas emitting actions of companies
and countries elsewhere in the world. Nepal
may be very rich in natural resources but
economically it is very poor. The people and
the government here are helpless to deal with
the problem alone. Remedial work needs to be
carried out by the richer nations – and
specifically by those whose activities have
caused the problem in the first place.
Our children’s
children
What we hope to achieve with our petition
therefore is not only the funding of remedial
measures by UNESCO members, including the
introduction of a sophisticated drainage
system for the lakes, but also a cast-iron
commitment to cut carbon dioxide emissions.
In 2006, our petition was sent to the General
Assembly of UNESCO member states, and the
next General Assembly meeting in summer 2007
will hopefully mark a turning point for
us.
All those countries which have signed up to
the UNESCO World Heritage Convention of 1972
– and that includes the US - have a legal
obligation to transmit World Heritage Sites
to future generations. It’s a legal
commitment as well as a moral one. It’s as
simple as that.
Legal eagle
I became involved in environmental issues
through my work as a lawyer. I started out as
a corporate lawyer but then, in 1989, took on
a case against a marble company whose quarry
operations were severely damaging the local
landscape. At that point Nepal had no
environmental law but I argued in the Supreme
Court that there should be a ‘right to life’
enshrined in our constitution: if companies
are polluting then they are taking away that
right to life. An environmental law was duly
introduced and, encouraged by this
development, I decided to found ProPublic in
1991 as an independent non-profit civil
society organisation committed to the cause
of public interest and citizens’ rights.
the highs...
“I feel very fortunate to work on
environmental issues and particularly climate
change as I feel it’s the biggest
environmental threat of our time. I do think
that our efforts are making appreciable
difference. Our UNESCO petition has led the
World Heritage Committee to conduct a study
on the impact of global warming on the
cultural and natural aspect of a number of
world heritage sites.”
and the lows...
“I feel frustrated when I don't see a
serious and positive response from developed
countries regarding the problem of global
warming and, in some cases, their denial of
climate science. It does make me discouraged
at times - but never enough to give up.”
We now have 172 staff working in 12
offices throughout Nepal on a wide range of
issues involving environmental justice,
gender equality, good governance and
anti-corruption. The team comprise
environmentalists, women’s rights
activitists, lawyers, journalists, engineers
and economists.
Propublic was originally an associate of
Friends of the Earth and is now a full
member. It’s very good to be part of a big
global network, to feel you’re one of the
family.
Turning wrongs into
rights
What drives me personally is my sense that
mankind has done so much to mess nature up
that we are responsible for mitigating these
problems as much as we can. Rivers can’t
speak for themselves; trees can’t speak for
themselves. We have to speak for them.
As a lawyer, I feel it’s my responsibility to
help. That’s why my next goal is to take
legal action against all the profit making
institutions who are contributing to the
global warming, such as power and automobile
companies, to force them to compensate for
the harm their operations have caused and to
pay for mitigation cost.
Support the work of Friends of the Earth
Nepal
Support the appeal to build an
eco-home
office building
in Kathmandu.
Find out more about the
work of ProPublic
.
Read about more
Friends of the Earth groups
around the world.
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