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Nepal blockade: Six ways it affects the country

Nepal blockade: Six ways it affects the country

By blogger: at 2016-07-13 00:00:00

Nepal has been gripped by a blockade in the country's south for the past two months, leading to acute shortages of fuel and medicine. The blockade is led by ethnic minorities who say they are discriminated against in the new constitution. The government also accuses India of deliberately worsening the embargo - something India denies. The BBC looks at six ways the blockade has affected Nepal.

1. Chopping trees The crippling shortage of essential fuels such as liquefied petroleum (LP) gas, widely used for cooking in Nepal, has clearly put a lot of pressure on the country's forest resources. Nepali newspapers are awash with reports of incidents of illegal logging in several forests in the unrest-affected Tarai plains of southern Nepal, which boasts some of the country's best lush green forests and national parks. Officials say that, right now, things are still under control - but if the fuel supply situation doesn't return to normal, more and more trees could be chopped down by loggers and those in need. Thakur Bhandari, an official at the Federation of Community Forest Users Nepal (FECOFUN), the umbrella body of the country's nearly 19,000 community.

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