ADB_book_18 April.qxp - Himalayan Document Centre - icimod

cooperative ventures provided neither dependablenor adequate supply of water to Nepal or India andhave been unable to improve agriculturalproductivity (Dixit 1994, Gyawali and Dixit 1994).Another author points out that trust andunderstanding have been eroded, creating a majorimpediment to cooperative development (Kumar etal. 1994).The most recent example of a project that hasrun into problems is the Mahakali Project, which hasbecome a hot political issue in Nepal. Although therehave been several rounds of negotiations, there arestill numerous outstanding issues that need to beresolved before the project can move ahead (Swain2002). India’s unilateral construction of dams inborder areas to prevent summer floods and to storewater during the dry season has created problemson the Nepalese side. Every year some dam iscontroversial; recent cases include the Mahalisagardyke and the Khurdolotan dyke. During summer bothof these have inundated large areas in Nepal (TheHimalayan Times 2003).Urban Environment and ConflictsGiven the rapid increase in urban population, it is notdifficult to imagine that intense competition forspace and other resources will lead to conflicts. Incities around the world, conflicts over water,dumping sites, air quality, and noise levels areleading to litigation and outright violence (Matthewet al. 2004). In the early stages of urban development,there is a high tolerance for environmental problems,but with further growth a point is reached whenawareness, and the ability to afford a cleanerenvironment, increases and urban renewal begins totake place.Urbanization in Nepal is still among the lowestin the world, although it has been rising quite rapidly.In 2001, 12% of the population—roughly 3.2 millionpeople (Sharma 2003)—were urban dwellers.However, the distribution is very skewed becausefive of the bigger centers with over 100,000population had 39% of the total urban population andthe remainder was distributed among 53 othercenters. Increasing the size of an urban area gives itmany advantages, but it also appears to bring manyenvironmental problems and associated conflicts.Kathmandu’s notoriety as a polluted city hasgrown over the years and so have the conflicts.Because it is the capital city and the biggest urbancenter in the country, its experience provides a goodidea of what can be expected overall if problems arenot dealt with in their early stages. Some of theconflicts are related to certain types of industrial anddevelopment activities. Fortunately many of theproblems have not sought violent solutions andpeople have instead opted to go to court. Some ofthese court cases and decisions are presented belowas examples of the environmental conflicts facingurban areas. These cases have been taken from thecollection of environmental cases put together by ProPublic (Sharma et al. 2000).One of the earliest recorded cases of urbanenvironmental conflict was in 1968/69 when aconcerned citizen filed a case against the cityauthority’s plans to construct stalls for shops arounda public park in the heart of Kathmandu City whichhad a historic significance (Sharma et al. 2000). Thecase was dismissed but was reopened when thepersistent individual took his grievance to the RoyalPalace and succeeded in getting a Royal directive tothe court to reconsider his case. However, theplaintiff died before the second hearing and the courtstated that accordingly there was no need for adecision and dismissed the case, although in itsearlier decisions the court had ruled that theconstruction had no personal impact on theindividual.Another case appeared in 1972/73 when anindividual complained against his neighbor’sactivities to destroy a public pond next to his propertyfor construction on the site (Sharma et al. 2000,pp.13-18). Again the court went through severalrounds of deliberations. Dissatisfied with the court’sfirst ruling, the complainant filed a petition to theRoyal Palace and succeeded in obtaining a directivefor reconsidering the case. The city also had aninterest in the case, had formed a committee to lookinto the public significance of the pond, and hadearlier recommended that the pond was indeed avery holy site with significant religious value for thelocal people. In its second deliberation the courtreiterated this aspect of religious significance andordered that the pond be preserved.The next case, in Bhaktapur, may be the first ofits kind in Nepal on air and noise pollution control. In1978/79 a person complained about a factory’sexhaust fumes, pointing out that it had adverselyaffected the health of the people living around thefactory and that this had increased after the ownerhad illegally expanded the factory’s capacity(Sharma et al. 2000). He also pointed out that the cityauthority and the department responsible for givingthe license to the industry had neglected their dutiesby not looking into the expansion proposal carefully.The court considered the facts and gave a surprisingdecision that there was no evidence of damage tothe person or the property of the complainingindividual and dismissed the case. Pollution was anew subject and empirical evidence of the healthimpacts of deteriorating air quality was probably not168 Environment Assessment of Nepal : Emerging Issues and Challenges