Parks vs People: An Unresolved Conflict in Nepal
A talk by Shradha Ghale, Journalist
At a time when biodiversity loss threatens humanity, few can deny the importance of protecting forests and wildlife. But what measures are being used to achieve the goal of conservation and how do they affect people at the margins? This talk by one of Nepal’s foremost independent journalists will address this question by examining the experiences of people who live around Nepal’s national parks, as revealed through her long-term investigative reporting on this issue.
Speaker Bio: Shradha Ghale has written regularly for various Nepali and Indian media outlets over the last decade, including the Kathmandu Post, the Record, and the Wire. Much of her work focuses on the relationship between the Nepali state and the country’s historically marginalized communities. In recent years she has written about the uneven impact of the 2015 earthquake, flaws of the new Constitution, and dominant discourses of development and conservation. Her first novel The Wayward Daughter: A Kathmandu Story was published in 2018 by Speaking Tiger, Delhi.
This talk is co-sponsored by the UBC School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, the Global Reporting Centre, the School of Forestry, the Ecologies of Social Difference Research Group, the Centre for India and South Asia Research, and the Institute for Critical Indigenous Studies.