LETTERS

Save Nepal’s rhinos

Recently, the government disclosed the result of “Rhino census 2005” which disappointed the

environmentalists. Despite the efforts of the government and various NGOs, including the King Mahendra Trust for Nature Conservation, the number of one-horned rhinos has gone down to 372 from 544 in 2000. We all know that the Royal Chitwan National Park extended its area by

establishing the buffer zone. The park uses some money for forest and community development activities. But wild animals move beyond the park’s boundary. Their mobility depends on factors like poor habitat management inside the park, unavailability of good space and food in the fields. The park officials should maintain the habitat inside the area and punish the poachers by putting them in prison rather than releasing them immediately after the cases are filed.

The policy-makers should visit the sites and support the field officials’ plan of action rather than just organising meetings in Kathmandu for the sake of only safeguarding their jobs. Moreover, the park managers must involve the stakeholders who work for nature conservation

such as community forestry and leasehold forestry groups, district forest offices and local NGOs. There must be coordination among the stakeholders and enforcement of rules with full commitment to save the rhinos.

Bijaya Paudyal, Aaloknagar

Initiate talks

The economy is going downhill because of the ongoing conflict, escalating violence and deteriorating law and order situation. Whereas security expenses are rising at an alarming speed, revenue generation is static. This is unfortunate for a country like Nepal where it is vital to fight poverty. The money which is used for buying arms and ammunition should have been logically spent on overcoming social injustice, the root cause of all violence. In the past 10 years we have suffered enough and the people do not want to witness more violence.

Normalcy can return only with mutual understanding and not through war. Therefore, the warring sides should initiate talks right away.

Akesh Jaiswal, Birgunj

Respect law

This is in response to the news “Lawyers ask Dr Giri to resign; threaten to hit streets” published in THT on June 14. It is quite natural to raise such issues and bring them before the public as nobody has the right to misuse the state funds. But it is not justifiable on the part of the legal practitioners to threaten to hit the streets on this issue. The law of the land is quite sufficient to deal with the defaulters. By resorting to forceful means they would only set a wrong precedent. If lawyers, who are supposed to protect law and provide legal counselling to the commoners, themselves take to the streets to push their demands, then who would be there to follow the rule of law? This would not only affect and weaken our legal system, but also ridicule the rule of law. A culprit, be it a powerful person or a common citizen, who commits crimes against society and the nation, must be punished but only through legal means. No one has the right to defame law. No one should cross legal barriers, be they lawyers or any other groups or individuals.

Ambika Pandey, Chitwan