Nepal Tourism News . com - Recent News - travel , trekking, expedition and more .. ...

trekking in nepal , nepal trekking, nepal trekking news, nepal travel news, visit nepal, nepal information, trek info

 

Nepal doing well on environment front: UN

Thursday - 21st December 2006

Kathmandu, December 20:

Nepal is among the leading under-developed countries, which have been doing well in not only giving priority to protect the environment, but also showing promising signs of meeting Millennium Development Goals by 2015.
Conversely, nations which have put environment at the heart of their plans are being expected
to cut poverty by 2015, according to a report jointly released by the United Nations Development Programme and the United Nations Environmental Programme. The nations have also promoted ecotourism while protected areas are growing, the report said.
In countries like Nepal and Bhutan, the governments are paying more and more attention to monitoring and reporting progress on the environment front with access to water, waste management and land degradation topping the agenda. Nepal and Bhutan have found a place alongside Albania, Lesotho, Syria, Thailand and Vietnam in the report, Making Progress on Environmental Sustainability: Lessons and recommendation from a review of over 150 MDG country experiences.
The report, which is part of a wider “toolbox” of services designed by the UNDP to help developing countries prepare national plans to achieve the MDGs, charts the progress made by the countries in considering environment as priority.
It states, “The best progress is made when countries first adopt the principle of environmental sustainability, and then adapt their development plans to their own specific ecosystems.”
However, more ambitious steps are needed, it adds.
It further contends that environmental degradation and environmental sustainability are inextricably linked with trading regimes and economic instruments.
Deputy Resident Representative of the UNDP in Nepal, Bijay Singh, said, “The level of commitment to environmental issues has gone up here. But it is also true that the implementation aspect is not strong enough.” Conceding that Nepal has witnessed tremendous activism on the environment front, Singh, however, lamented the fact that environment was yet to find a place in the heart of the development plans, something which the UNDP and UNEP report reinforced as a surefire way to achieve the MDGs by 2015.
The report also talks about fostering reforms in the environmental sector, which, according to Singh, are rather too slow in Nepal.


Source THT Online