I recently worked as a trainer on climate and conservation education focused on the Himalayan community in Nepal particularly Rasuwa district. Way back I had heard that a senior environmental specialist was humiliated while undertaking climate discussion in another Himalayan region of Nepal particularly with her phrasing of higher vulnerability of women to climate change.
First, I would like to preface that the status of gender dynamics is not as stark in the Himalayan region of Nepal with women taking on roles of leadership, men and women sharing many responsibilities in household chores etc. So, I was mentally prepared to not directly insinuate the gendered impacts of climate change.
I began first by asking who collects water and firewood in their home? To this almost all replied, “we all do”.
I again pressed, who most undertakes this duty. To this I began hearing some murmurs “women do it”. Hearing even these slight murmurs gave me confidence to move forward.
Then I asked in case of disasters given the choice that one of your children can stay in school while the others help around who would be most likely to be taken off school? Again, I heard a slight murmur, “sons would continue schooling”.
Given that these are the realities here and climate change is impacting our access to water and other resources and increasing the likelihood of more extreme events do you think women are more impacted by climate change, I asked. Many still reiterated that the share of workload is evenly distributed that both men and women are equally impacted.
I had to give them an example that they saw before them. In the class there was a mother attending with her child. Pointing out why she can’t leave her child even for a few hours with other family members while she attends this training, only then could I sense that more people were in agreement that climate change might impact women more as the share of household responsibilities is higher on women. With the advent of climate change, impacts such as drying up of water sources, lesser availability of natural resources could/are seen, and this will equate to more workload and more stress mostly on women corresponding to higher vulnerability to climate change.
The two-day training consisted of sessions about baseline information on climate change; its impacts; gender equality and social inclusion; mitigation and adaptation; biodiversity; impacts of climate change on biodiversity; red panda and climate change; and habitat conservation, climate change adaptation and the role of communities. Of these eight sessions I had particularly more difficulty in conveying information on gender equality and social inclusion; and mitigation and adaptation. The latter of this difficulty stemmed from the fact that the Nepali term for mitigation being न्यूनिकरण (Nunikaran) which literally means reduce and for adaptation being अनुकूलन (Anukulan) which seemingly gives a negative connotation as I noticed from way the pre-test questions were answered. It was quite difficult for them to wrap their head around that mitigation meant avoiding and reducing emissions as they had already perceived the term as reducing the impacts of climate change.
To make the training fun and engaging activities were also conducted such as group activity of listing the local impacts of climate change they had witnessed and drawing red panda on a sheet of paper. Of the local impacts of climate change, many listed the drying up of water sources, decrease in agricultural productivity leading to use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, the reduction in snowfall in the mountains, and earlier bloom of rhododendron. Drawing red panda was a break from the lectures where many expressed their childlike enthusiasm.
As I got to reside in Dhunche and Kalikasthan to conduct these trainings, I also got to observe many things. At least during monsoon, the water was flowing out of every nook and cranny, the waterfall was stupendous but, on the way, back to Kathmandu near Dharapani I could see a boy scooping water from a puddle to a jerrycan, making me wonder the role of micro-climate and how the impacts of climate change can vary locally.
If nothing else, I am hopeful that the community learnt the basics of climate change and its varied impacts out of these trainings. I personally got to learn how communities perceive the impacts of climate change and how better to communicate climate education.
