A couple of weeks ago I enjoyed meeting up with Professor Krishna (‘KK’) Shrestha who is on a summer visit to London. KK is Nepal’s leading botanist, who has given great support to Lily Katuwal KC in the Lily’s Leaves urban nature project in Kathmandu valley.

Over dinner, I discussed with KK our growing interest in incorporating endangered species to our plantations in Kathmandu valley and in Madhesh Province. He suggested to me that a really good species to plant out would be Pterocarpus Marsupium, otherwise known as Bijay Sal. On a recent visit to west Nepal he’d only been able to identify three specimens. Not only is the species threatened, but it has huge medicinal value in the control of blood sugar and management of diabetes.

That evening, I shared the advice with my colleague Dev Narayan Mandal, Founder of Mithila Trust. But Dev, as ever, is ahead of the game. He replied that the Division Forestry Office in Makwanpur District had already provided Mithila Wildlife Trust with 125 saplings. These were planted out at our Bhatighadi afforestation project back in 2020/2021. This involved successfully planting trees in a former river bed (which Dev had been told was totally inhospitable) in a major project funded by the McGough Foundation in the UK. All the saplings are doing very well!