This thesis looks at the internal community processes set in motion by intervention in the context of the current community forestry policy of Nepal which has embarked on handing over local forest resources to local user groups. The overall aim of the thesis is to explore the question : How does intervention lead to certain types of effects through dynamics within the community? These processes have been something of a 'black box' so far. This research is based on fieldwork in adjoining forest user groups in the western hills of Nepal for nearly eight months starting from August 1994. The research examined the outcome of earlier interventions in these adjoining forest communities. An important finding of this study is that the nature of use rights is evolving and contestable rather than fixed. It is further argued that there may be inequitable outcomes in terms of cost and benefit sharing amongst households after forests are officially handed over. This is attributed to differing perceptions about the nature of equity. The poor do not necessarily get fair treatment despite provisions for equality of opportunity in Operational Plans. It is argued that inequitable outcomes do not, however, necessarily lead to non-compliance partly because the system, though inequitable, is based on at least a pseudo-democratic model rather than direct coercion. Intervention has a role. However, it is argued that effective intervention has to pay proper attention to attaining better use rights and better equity. The key to attaining better use rights is the need to appreciate the fact that use rights are contestable and dynamic by nature / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

The community and leasehold forestry regimes (CF and LF regimes) are high priority programmes that are designed by the Nepalese government to conserve forests and reduce poverty through the introduction of formal institutions in terms of legal property rights and governance structures and processes. However, little is known about the mechanisms through which informal and formal institutions influence resource access of the poor under these regimes. By employing a collective case study approach, this research provides some understanding of the mechanisms through which formal and informal institutional factors influence access of the poor to forest resources governed under the CF and LF regimes in Nepal. This study found that informal institutional factors significantly influence the impact of formal institutions irrespective of the regime that was imposed on the Nepalese hill communities. It was revealed that where more than one social group co-exist in a community, discriminatory sociocultural norms (for example patriarchal and caste-based norms), and customary property rights favour one social group over others. As a result, certain social groups have greater access to resources and benefits from the resources than do other social groups. Of particular significance, and not previously reported, the lack of prior experience in collective action of the low castes along with their weak social networks and poor leadership ability is highlighted as being directly linked to their relatively limited access to forest resources. When the Bista system, a specific type of a traditional bridging social network is eroded, the low castes end up with less access due to removal of support from the high castes. This study shows that a more inclusive regime (for example CF regime) is likely to lead to more effective outcomes for the livelihood of the poor as compared to a more exclusive regime (e.g. LF regime). When the powerful are included in the forest user group (FUG), along with the poor, there is less resistance to the shift in property rights and the improved access of the poor to forest benefits that the regimes are intended to achieve. However, it was found that active participation is more determinant of resource access than is a specified set of property rights granted by right of membership in a FUG. Although some FUG governance structures provide a forum where the disadvantaged members of the FUGs have the right to participate in decision making, their participation is constrained by discriminatory sociocultural norms. Further, this study revealed that the decision-making processes dominated by the elites tend to address the needs of the disadvantaged members to only a very limited extent. However, improving capacities has the potential to enhance participation of disadvantaged members in the processes. The research findings suggest that informal institutions must explicitly be considered in the design and implementation of CBNRM regimes in order for them to be successful in improving livelihoods of the poor. The implementing staff need support mechanisms for changing their own attitudes and behaviours to those that are more favourable to the social shift that the regimes are intended to bring about. CBNRM regimes have the potential to improve the livelihoods of the poor, but research must continue on how this can be achieved.

The celebrated Sherpas of Himalayan mountaineering, who lived in the rugged high-altitude environment of the Everest area of Nepal, lacked Western style medical services and so iconic New Zealander, Sir Edmund Hillary, 'hero' of Everest, built them a small hospital in 1966. He administered Khunde Hospital through the Himalayan Trust, but with substantial support, since the late-1970s, from the Sir Edmund Hillary Foundation in Canada. Overseas medical volunteers assisted by local staff provided a range of outpatient and inpatient, curative and preventive services. The history of Khunde Hospital, therefore, provides a case study for the introduction of modern medicine, as Sherpas referred to Western or biomedicine, and for the implementation of an overseas aid project. In my analysis I have moved away from a binary, oppositional examination of a cross-cultural encounter and have situated Khunde Hospital in a conceptual device of 'worlds'. I argue that the hospital existed and operated simultaneously within multiple separate yet interconnected worlds, but do not privilege one discourse over another. These worlds work beyond culture, encompassing institutions, political structures and knowledge communities and were physical, social and intellectual spaces within which there were rules and norms of behaviour that structured action. In order to explore the histories of Khunde Hospital I set it within four distinct but overlapping worlds: that of Sir Edmund Hillary, the Sherpa, Western medicine and international aid. These are worlds that I have identified as being important for the questions I am looking at. My central discussion is the ongoing encounter between Sherpa beliefs and practices about sickness and modern medicine, particularly looking at the individual patient�s use and non-use of the hospital and how staff there responded. The response was neither a one-way diffusion of Western medical practice, nor a collision between the spirit-suffused system of the Sherpa and scientific biomedicine. People used the hospital for some things but not others, based on their perception as to whether the hospital was the effective, appropriate option to take. Over the years, the hospital and community became used to each other in a relationship that was in practice a coexistence of difference. Each acknowledged and could incorporate aspects of the other�s beliefs and practices when dealing with a person�s sickness, but remained separate. Using the conceptual device of worlds, however, suggests the need for this example of the introduction and spread of Western medicine to be grounded in a consideration of Hillary�s particular form of aid, the shifting discourse of international medical aid between the 1960s and the 1990s and the unique world of the Sherpa of Khumbu. All of these worlds influenced the provision of health care at and from Khunde Hospital in different ways, sometimes separately but often simultaneously, and at some times and for some issues more than others. People, place and relationships often had as much influence as - and sometimes more than - the medicine. If the key to understanding Khunde Hospital is the relationship between Sherpas and Hillary and the respect that began in a partnership on the mountains in the 1950s, then the multiple worlds of Khunde Hospital underscore the complexities of implementing Sherpa requests to build a hospital in their rugged home near the world�s highest mountain.

Thulung Rai is an endangered Tibeto-Burman language of eastern Nepal, currently<br />spoken by approximately one thousand people. It is a member of the Kiranti group in the<br />Himalayish branch of Tibeto-Burman, along with languages characterized principally by their<br />complex pronominalizing verbal inflectional systems.<br />This dissertation provides an overview of the grammar of the Thulung language, along<br />with selected texts and a glossary. The aspects of the grammar which are discussed are those<br />which are particularly relevant as far as Thulung’s heritage as a Tibeto-Burman language is<br />concerned. The chapters discuss the phonological system of the language; the case marking<br />system; the use of discourse particles; nominalization and its etymological and semantic<br />relationship with relativization and genitivization; the finite verbs, with their complex agreement<br />system and stem alternations; the augmentation of verbs with aspect-bearing derivational<br />suffixes; clause-combining by means of converbs and sequencers.<br />Each of these topics bears a significance to Tibeto-Burman studies as a whole, and these<br />are characteristic features of languages from this area. The areal context for Thulung is another<br />important aspect of this dissertation. The endangered status of Thulung is a result of the inroads<br />of the Indo-Aryan national language of Nepal, Nepali. Each chapter, in addition to describing<br />and analyzing particular grammatical topics, also discusses the equivalent constructions in Nepali<br />in light of whether they constitute the source for the construction in Thulung as it stands today.<br />The contributions of this dissertation are in providing reliable and up-to-date information<br />on a little-known minority Tibeto-Burman language of Nepal. This is an important addition to<br />the field of Himalayan languages and will be useful for efforts towards reconstructing the<br />development of Tibeto-Burman languages in the Himalayas. An important dimension of this<br />dissertation is that it looks at grammatical features in one language in the context of their<br />distribution over the linguistic area, even across language family boundaries. In this way, the<br />materials presented are useful as another case-study of an intense language contact situation.

Abstract Disclosing how business practice can be regarded as a contributor to several forms of sustainability, this thesis is based on a minor field study enlightening how this contribution may be possible through Corporate Social Responsibility, CSR.The thesis provides the response and opinions of people who in some affirmation are engaging in or are related to social responsibility; either it may be from the academic works and earlier conducted research related to the CSR topic, or it may be from those who perform social responsibility and are the participant actors of this minor field study. These people last mentioned have all had their opinions spoken through semi – structured interviews and other data have been collected based on the methodology of Actors Approach; all empirical data is structured according to Aspers’ (2007) model of “meaning” including the tools text, visuals and practice.The analysis is divided into three parts; articulation, reconfiguration and cross-appropriation as a way to create understanding of how the study’s phenomenon can create style change (Spinosa et al 1997). Conclusions drawn from the field study are businesses implementing social responsibility do create a style change in environmental and societal aspects. Yet to what extent may differ depending on in their situation, their views of the concept, how long they have been using and promoting the concept and further in what ways their work contributes to a societal and environmental change through CSR practice. The field study has been conducted within the municipality of Kathmandu, Nepal

My thesis explores the effect of tourism and the opportunities it is providing for Nepalese women who are actively looking for waged, high skilled, high status employment. These jobs include but are not limited to trekking guides, hotel/guesthouse managers, and upper level management positions, both within and outside of the tourism sector. I am focusing on women whose education and skill levels enable them to seek jobs above low skill, low status employment, such as farm workers and low level clerical staff. I am studying the shifts in Nepalese society that enable a specific market to emerge for participation for educated and ambitious women, and if such a shift is happening, whether or not Nepalese women are taking advantage of this opportunity to lead the way toward gender equity.

This paper argues for the importance of scale, management and sovereign-led development in considering a more human-centric model for Third World development. It begins by reviewing the history of the mainstream Western development model through the evolution of modernization theory and foreign aid. It explores general critiques of this model offered by scholars, focusing on unequal power relations, the high cost of aid, and problems with ‘cookie cutter’ style development projects that don’t take into account disparate environments. As the paper progresses, focus shifts more specifically to hydropower development and ‘Big Dams’. Nepal is the main case study for exemplifying the problems with foreign-aid-funded dam projects and for proposing the alternative model of smaller scale, management-focused, nation-led development projects. While the scope of this study is limited, the growing success of these projects in Nepal suggests that more focus should be paid to applying these methods in other developing countries.

La exposición humana a grandes altitudes puede provocar diversos grados de deterioro funcional y orgánico, presentando el sistema nervioso una gran sensibilidad frente a cambios en la presión parcial de oxígeno.Mediante una historia clínica especialmente confeccionada, exploración física neurológica y resonancia magnética (RMI) craneal se estudió a varios grupos de alpinistas de élite que hubieran escalado por encima de los 7.000 m. de altitud en utilizar equipos de oxígeno en una ocasión como mínimo. Éstos fueron comparados (en diferentes fases de estudio) contra ellos mismos, con un grupo de nativos del Himalaya de la etnia Sherpa que poseían un historial excepcional en cuanto al número de ascensos a montañas mayores de 8.000 m. y con un grupo control que nunca había sobrepasado los 2.500 m. de altitud.Mientras todas las exploraciones físicas fueran normales, prácticamente todos los alpinistas presentaron clínica de orden neuropsicológico a gran altitud y el 44-58% también tras las expediciones, mostrando el 46-61% alteraciones RMI cerebrales (atrofia cortical y/o leucoaralosis preferentemente posteriores). En ningún sujeto del grupo control se detectó cambios RMI y tan sólo el 14% de Sherpas presentó clínica neurológica y cambios RMI similares. Las diferencias respeto a la aparición de alteraciones RMI cerebrales fueron altamente significativas entre haber o no sido expuesto a grandes altitudes, así como entre ser nativo del Himalaya o de nivel del mar. No hubo correlación estadísticamente significativa entre las imágenes RMI patológicas y la edad, la sintomatología, el número de ascensiones superiores a 7.000 y 8.000 m., el tiempo de exposición a gran o extrema altitud y la máxima cota alcanzada. No obstante, parece haber una relación entre la tolerancia a la altitud extrema y a la aparición de alteraciones RMI, entre el tiempo transcurrido desde la última escalada superior a 8.000 m. y la presentación de atrofia cortical, entre el sexo femenino y la menor frecuencia de RMI alteradas. Ascender a grandes alturas, no necesariamente extremas, provoca la aparición de sintomatología neuropsicológica y alteraciones en la imagen de la estructura cerebral en un elevado porcentaje de humanos de nivel de mar pero no en los nativos del Himalaya estudiados. Esta supuesta protección étnica frente a la hipoxia ambiental puede justificarse por la existencia de peculiares adaptaciones, especialmente del metabolismo aeróbico, derivadas de una permanencia crónica bajo presiones barométricas notablemente reducidas. Los hallazgos detectados por RMI sugieren la presencia de lesión degenerativa, no obstante, permanece desconocido su predominio cerebral posterior, así como su evolución e implicación clínica a largo plazo. / Exposure to high-altitude may induce functional and organic disturbances in humans. Central nervous system showing the highest sensibility to changes in oxygen pressure. Three groups of elite European mountaineers, who ascended over 7000 m. without oxygen supplement, were studied by magnetic resonance (MRI) of the brain and evaluated by a complete clinical history and neurological testing. These groups were compared with themselves before and after a single climb, with an outstanding group of Himalayan Sherpa climbers and with a healthly control group which had never been exposed to above 2500 m. While almost all of European climbers suffered neuropsychological symptoms during high-altitude exposure, 44-58% during post-expeditions and 46-61% showed MRBI brain abnormalities (cortical atrophy and/or leuko-araiosis), only 14% of highlanders showed MRI brain changes. In a high percentage of lowlanders, ascend to extreme altitude may produce neurological disorders and structural brain abnormalities, when after only one exposure to a hypoxic environment. The severity of this impact appears to be much smaller in Himalayan natives who may have a cerebral protection associated with special adaptations to chronic hypoxia. The type of MRI changes observed in these sportsmen suggest a degenerative brain damage, although its evolution and long-term clinical repercussion remain unknown, and deserves further investigation.

A biological citizenship can be important to gain human rights. This is evident for the disability movement in Nepal, which recently have gained a lot of ground in their struggle for their rights. The NGO Nepal Hemophilia Society (NHS) is a part of this movement and has also profited from this progress. However hemophilia is disease that mostly transmitted to males, which means that the female members of NHS is not affected medically by the disease but socially to a high degree. This thesis aims to explore how the female members handle this situation and find an agency in their vulnerable position.

<p>This dissertation presents the first findings of aerosol indirect effect in the foothills of the Himalayas (Central Nepal), through a systematic research approach involving satellite data analysis, field campaign, growth factor estimation and numerical modeling studies. Satellite retrieved aerosol optical depth data over the region were first used to identify the dominant modes of spatial/temporal variability of aerosols in the region. Based on the observed dominant spatial mode of aerosol in the pre-monsoon season (Shrestha and Barros 2010, ACP), a field campaign was organized under the Joint Aerosol Monsoon Experiment (JAMEX09) at Dhulikhel and Besisahar to simultaneously measure dry and ambient aerosols size spectra using SMPS and chemical composition using filters (Shrestha et al. 2010, ACP). The diurnal cycle of aerosol number concentration exhibited a consistent peak in the morning and evening period, which was found to be associated with increase in local emission and the delay in ventilation of aerosol through upslope flows and mixing (inferred from an idealized numerical study over Besisahar). The aerosol size distribution was mostly unimodal at night and bimodal during the day, with a consistent larger mode around 100nm and a smaller mode located around 20nm. The chemical composition of PM2.5 was dominated by organic matter at both sites. Organic carbon (OC) comprised the major fraction (64~68%) of the aerosol concentration followed by ionic species (24~26%, mainly and ). Elemental Carbon (EC) compromised 7~10% of the total composition and 27% of OC was found to be water soluble at both sites. The aerosol number concentration increased and decreased in the presence of synoptic scale aerosol plumes and after rainfall events respectively.</p><p>A simple model based on Köhler theory was used to explain the observed growth factor using an assumption of (NH4)2SO4 aqueous solution including the presence of slightly soluble organic compounds (SSC) with an insoluble core as a function of molality and mass-fraction. The measured growth factors suggest that the aerosols are in metastable state due to the strong diurnal cycle of relative humidity (RH). The bulk hygroscopic parameter estimated from the DGF and chemical composition of aerosols suggests less hygroscopic aerosols at both locations as compared to previous studies. The dry aerosol size distribution and the bulk hygroscopic parameters were used to estimate the cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) spectrum, which was vertically scaled up to lifting condensation level (LCL) assuming that the shape and chemical properties of aerosol remains unchanged (Shrestha et al. 2011, submitted to JGR). Finally, these regional CCN spectra for polluted and clean conditions as well as standard continental and marine spectra used in numerical weather prediction models (Cohard et al. 1998) were used to probe CCN sensitivity for a pre-monsoon storm system in Central Nepal during JAMEX09. A significant shift in the maxima of the accumulated precipitation was observed between the continental aerosol spectra (Cohard et al. 1998) and the polluted spectra for Dhulikhel. This shift caused the displacement of rainfall maximum away from the Kulekhani water reserve catchment, which is key to hydropower in Nepal. Detailed analysis of the simulations suggests that simgnificant differences in the space-time variability and intensity of precipitation, if not areally integrated amounts, can be explained by differences in the timing and intensity of latent heat release and absorption due to freezing/melting of hydrometers and evaporative cooling of droplets, strengthening cold pool formation and associated circulations. This numerical study provides the first look on the aerosol indirect effect over Nepal for a single pre-monsoon rainfall event, and how aerosols can potentially affect the precipitation distribution (to be submitted to JGR). In addition, it shows the importance of using regionally consistent CCN spectra in model parameterizations of aerosol-cloud interactions. At local places, the differences in simulated precipitation between marine, JAMEX09 clean and polluted air spectra were smaller (up tp ± 50%) than the difference between those simulations and the standard continental aerosol spectra (±200%).</p> / Dissertation