- Nepal’s government has issued a controversial ordinance bypassing parliament to enable foreign investment in various sectors, including protected areas.
- The ordinance coincides with Nepal’s Investment Summit, facilitating projects like cable car routes and hotels within national parks.
- Details of the ordinance remain undisclosed, but it reportedly amends laws governing protected areas, allowing construction in previously restricted zones.
- Critics have expressed concern over the potential long-term consequences, questioning the impact on conservation efforts and local communities.
KATHMANDU — Nepal’s government has bypassed the country’s parliament to issue a controversial ordinance facilitating foreign investment in different sectors of the country, including protected areas, in a move that could have long-term consequences for the country’s hard-won conservation gains, experts say.
Although the details of the ordinance, signed into law by President Ram Chandra Poudel on April 28, are still under wraps, a government spokesperson told reporters that it amends several prevailing laws, including the National Parks and Wildlife Conservation Act, which governs protected areas in Nepal.
“The government is yet to publish the ordinance in the [official] gazette, so we don’t know the details yet,” Padam Shrestha, a lawyer who specializes in natural resource litigation, told Mongabay. “However, we can say that it is part of the government’s wider effort to open up protected areas to infrastructure development.”
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