Engaging students and young people is a cornerstone of our urban nature programme in Kathmandu. Nurturing curiosity and respect for the natural world is essential if our work is to endure – and if the urban forests we create are not to slip back into becoming the neglected public dumping grounds they once were.
We have already benefited from the enthusiasm of students from schools and colleges, most notably Rato Bangala School, who have supported area clean-ups and sapling planting. Last week, however, we piloted a new and highly successful approach to student engagement. Following a presentation I delivered at Pulchowk Campus, Institute of Engineering, Tribhuvan University, 35 students spent an enjoyable morning visiting two urban forests planted by our social enterprise partner, Lily’s Leaves, alongside the Bishnumati River. This was an activity that we were delighted to organise alongside Asian Development Bank (ADB) and Cities Development Initiative for Asia (CDIA) as an initial step in the major new ADB Kathmandu Valley Ecological Urban Renewal (KEUR) programme that is due to launch imminently. Watch this space!
At the first site, ‘Bishnumati 1’, planted in July 2024, the visit began with a lively game of ‘plant bingo’. Each student received laminated images of eight native species used in the plantation and was invited to locate and photograph them on their mobile phones. The first three students to correctly identify all eight species were rewarded with small prizes. This was followed by talks from two retired botany professors, Krishna (‘KK’) Shrestha and Keshab Shrestha, who introduced the students to the characteristics of the target species, including their preferred growing conditions and their religious, economic and medicinal significance.
The group then moved on to a second plantation, ‘Bishnumati 2’, where the remaining half hour from the morning session was simply spent exploring and enjoying the space in the warm February sunshine. Our volunteer cinematographer, Paul Laurance Burnett, captured drone footage that beautifully conveys the setting and atmosphere of the visit.
We look forward very much to repeating this and other forms of student engagement in the future – this was a brilliant trial run! Also, we have invited these students to volunteer their time as seed collectors, searching the forests around Kathmandu valley for the seeds of native species that we can germinate at our nurseries and add as new species to our forest planting projects. Hopefully our two professors will be able to offer the necessary supervision to ensure the species are just right for our needs, including for the restoration of biodiversity.
Please note that these forests have been planted through grants and public donations made through our Big Give matched fundraising campaigns and, more recently, through gifts in memoriam of loved ones and gifts in Wills. Our next Big Give environmental campaign – ‘Earth Raise’ – will launch on 22nd April to which you can make a matching pledge now through this link.
