World Wildlife Fund

Drew Crandall, Manager of the Girls' Education Program
© WWF/Mincha Wangdi

Join Drew Crandall of the Community Conservation group as he experiences the drenching monsoons of Nepal and the winding mountain roads and stunning natural beauty of Bhutan in the Eastern Himalayas. Read his accounts of how WWF is empowering girls and their communities to improve lives and become better caretakers of their natural resources.

Arrival in Nepal | Communities Conserving | Water, Water Everywhere! | The Mountain Kingdom | Breaking the Cycle | Future Leaders | Livelihood Skills Training | Going Home

Arrival in Nepal
I'm on my way to Nepal to visit WWF Girls' Education Program sites, and have been traveling for what feels like days. I'm excited to meet this next generation of conservationists and see first-hand how WWF is helping to break the cycle of poverty and inequality.

Flying 3,000 feet over the southwestern region of the Terai Arc Landscape in southern Nepal, the Himalayan Mountains are too far north to see. In their place lie rolling green hills blanketed with forests, sprawling valleys lush with rice fields, and scattered homes. Even from this altitude, the impact of recent human settlement in the Terai is obvious - the rice fields encroach further and further into what used to be pristine habitat for tigers, elephants and rhinos. Trees are cut down to create new space for rice fields, to provide firewood for families and to construct new homes.

I was told that this region of the Terai was once referred to as the "fearful place" because it was where the Nepalese government banished convicted criminals rather than putting them in jail. This was almost the same as a death sentence because of the Terai's harsh environment. The overwhelming beauty of the Terai is matched by dangers from malaria-carrying mosquitoes and animal attacks from tigers and rhinos. In the summer, there is extreme heat and - as I will soon discover - flooding from the annual monsoon.

The Terai was uninhabitable until the 1950s, when DDT was sprayed from planes to help control the threat of malaria. Now, it's being settled by migrants who come because the land is prime for cultivating rice. Despite the monsoon-enriched soil, the people who come to live there are some of the world's poorest and most dependent on the natural resources around them. My adventure in the Terai gave me my own experience of "the fearful place" and a newfound respect for its power.

Arrival in Nepal | Communities Conserving | Water, Water Everywhere! | The Mountain Kingdom | Breaking the Cycle | Future Leaders | Livelihood Skills Training | Going Home