Modeling Resilience

Stall-fed goats

Feeding goats in stalls keeps them off hillsides and out of forests, where their browsing can strip vegetation and cause erosion.

Cardomom

By planting soil-anchoring, economically valuable cardamom plants, villagers help reforestation efforts while creating a new income opportunity.

Plastic Tunnels

These lightweight, low-cost greenhouses help extend the growing season, enabling households to increase incomes and improve nutrition.

Good governance

Work with local groups helps ensure that women, the poor, and other marginalized people are involved in decisions on managing their forests, and that forest resources are equitably shared.

Solar-powered fencing

To mitigate human-wildlife conflict, communities use solar-powered electric fencing around villages, fields, and livestock to reduce conflict and increase food security.

Efficient cooktops

Finding fuel for cooking and warmth is challenging in the mountains. Improved metallic cookstoves burn fuel more efficiently than regular fires, reducing pressure on forests.

Rebuilding foot trails

Foot trails often offer the only access routes to remote communities, which rely on trekking tourists for important income. Post-earthquake, cash-for-work payments for trail reconstruction generated much-needed funds to help people restart their livelihoods.

Prayer flag poles

Buddhist prayer flags are strung in high places; their mantras are believed to spread compassion and goodwill. By promoting metal poles instead of wooden ones (which must be replaced every few years) Hariyo Ban helps take pressure off forests.

Homestays

Nepalese homestays allow tourists to enjoy wildlife viewing and local food, and to learn about traditional ways of life while providing host families a vital source of income—particularly near protected areas.

Community Forests

User groups plant trees and other native plants, and protect areas from grazing livestock, so natural forest regeneration can occur. Antipoaching units patrol forests to detect illegal activity.

Fishponds

In many communities, WWF supports the construction of fishponds that provide a critical source of sustenance and income, and also help reduce pressure on freshwater biodiversity along Nepal’s rivers and near Chitwan National Park.

Broom Grass

Clearing steep river-valley slopes for agriculture by felling and burning has caused soil erosion and landslides, but planting broom grass helps stabilize hillsides. The flower heads are used to make brooms, which are sold for income.

Biodiversity Corridors

Many fish and bird species migrate along north-south corridors, following river valleys that cut through hill and mountain ranges. These corridors may become increasingly important as the climate changes, and restoring them will allow native species to seek cooler, damper habitat.

Landslides

Earthquakes, extreme climate change-driven storms, and resulting runoff can destabilize slopes, triggering landslides that impact communities, infrastructure, and forest cover. Hariyo Ban helps at-risk villages stabilize slopes and prepare for natural disasters.