Exam practice

(Some plants are both, like jatamasi and sarpagandha.)

Climate change warms the air and the sea. Warmer air can hold more water vapor (about 7 % more for each 1 °C), and it changes the winds that bring the monsoon. So rain no longer comes at the usual times: it falls out of season, or in short, very heavy bursts, with dry spells in between.

Climate change warms the Earth. Seawater expands as it warms, and ice on land (glaciers and the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica) melts and runs into the sea. Both add to the volume of the oceans, so the sea level rises.

Climate change alters temperature, rainfall and seasons faster than many animals can adapt or move. Their food plants may disappear or flower at the wrong time, their habitats (such as cold mountain tops, wetlands or coral reefs) shrink, and new diseases spread. Species that can’t adapt or move to a better place decline and may die out.

An animal’s natural habitat gives it the food, water, shelter and breeding places it is adapted to. Habitat loss is the biggest reason animals become endangered. If the habitat is protected (as in Nepal’s national parks and community forests), the animals can find food, breed and increase in number by themselves.

Medicinal plants contain useful chemicals: some kill microbes (neem, turmeric, tulsi), some soothe or heal (aloe vera on burns), some help breathing (asuro). Used in the right amounts, they can relieve common ailments cheaply, with fewer side effects than some medicines, and they are available locally. Many modern medicines are made from them. (But they must be used with knowledge, and serious illness needs a doctor.)

Tulsi has many uses for health: it helps digestion, relieves coughs, colds and sore throats, and kills some germs. It is also sacred, grown in many homes and worshipped, and kept near people at the end of life as a sign of respect. For these reasons it is called life-giving. (You may hear that it “produces more oxygen”; in fact tulsi gives off no more oxygen than other plants of its size.)

Every part of the neem tree (leaves, bark, root, flowers, fruit and seeds) is useful. It is used for skin diseases, as an antimicrobial on wounds and in chickenpox, as a toothbrush, in Ayurvedic medicines, to keep insects out of stored grain and clothes, and as a natural pesticide (neem oil). Because it is used in so many ways, it is called multipurpose.

In traditional Tibetan and Chinese medicine, yarsagumba is believed to give strength, stamina and energy, and is taken as a tonic, often with honey or milk. It contains substances (such as cordycepin) that scientists are studying for such effects. (There isn’t yet strong proof from trials in people that it boosts energy, which is worth knowing.)

Climate change is a long-term change in the climate of a place or of the whole Earth (its average temperature, rainfall, winds and seasons) over decades or longer. It can have natural causes, but the change happening today is mainly caused by human activities, such as burning fossil fuels and cutting forests, which add greenhouse gases to the air and make the Earth warmer.

Natural: changes in the Sun’s energy; changes in how much sunlight the Earth reflects (snow, ice, clouds); volcanic eruptions.

Human-induced (the main cause today): burning coal, oil and gas for energy and in vehicles; industries; deforestation; and farming and waste that release methane and nitrous oxide. These add greenhouse gases, which trap more heat and warm the Earth.

1. Drought and floods: rain comes at the wrong time or all at once, harming farming and food supplies.
2. Melting glaciers and glacial lakes: Himalayan glaciers are shrinking, glacial lakes are growing, and outburst floods (GLOFs) threaten villages, as at Thame in 2024.
3. Rising sea level: seawater expands and land ice melts, flooding coasts and islands.
4. Loss of biodiversity: plants and animals can’t adapt; some move uphill, others face extinction.
5. Health: heat waves, diseases like dengue spreading to new places, malnutrition when crops fail.
6. Unpredictable weather: unseasonal rain, longer dry spells, more landslides and forest fires.

Animals whose numbers have fallen so low, usually because of habitat loss, hunting, pollution or climate change, that they are in danger of becoming extinct are called rare (or endangered) animals. Examples in Nepal: the Bengal tiger, one-horned rhinoceros, red panda, snow leopard, gharial and pangolins.

1. Study and research their numbers and needs.
2. Protect their natural habitats (national parks, conservation areas, community forests): in-situ conservation.
3. Strictly stop poaching and illegal trade.
4. Breed them in zoos and breeding centers and return them to the wild (ex-situ conservation), as with gharials.
5. Make suitable laws and enforce them.
6. Raise public awareness, and let local people share the benefits (buffer-zone income, tourism), and compensate them for losses to wildlife.

• Learn which rare plants grow in my area and tell others about them.
• Never uproot or buy rare plants taken from the wild (like panch aunle or jatamasi); help report smuggling.
• Grow native and rare plants from seed at home and school, and join tree-planting drives, and look after the saplings.
• Help stop forest fires and uncontrolled grazing.
• Reduce my own carbon footprint (walk or cycle, save electricity and fuel, don’t burn rubbish) and encourage my family to do the same.
• Join an eco-club, and take part in my community forest group’s work.

I agree. Today most herbs are dug up in the wild and sold raw and cheap, often by being over-collected. If local people are trained:

1. to collect sustainably (leave enough to regrow; harvest at the right time),
2. to grow herbs on their own land instead of taking them from the wild,
3. to process them into oils, powders and medicines, which sell for many times the price of raw herbs, and
4. to use them correctly at home, in the right amounts,

then they earn more, the wild plants are protected because they become a lasting source of income, and Nepal’s traditional knowledge is kept alive and put to use.

Yarsagumba is one of the most valuable natural products in the world, sold mostly to China. Its collection already gives thousands of mountain families their biggest income of the year, and the government earns royalties. But over-collection is reducing it. If its habitat is protected, collection is controlled (seasons, permits, leaving some to spread spores), and research is done on growing it, the harvest can last for many years and even increase. Selling it processed and with a fair, legal market would bring more foreign currency into the country, and more jobs and income to remote districts like Dolpa and Darchula.

A (man-made reasons): burning fossil fuels, industries, deforestation, vehicles.
B (natural reasons): changes in the Sun’s activity, changes in how much sunlight the Earth reflects, volcanic eruptions.
C (effects): drought and floods, rising sea level, loss of biodiversity, harm to human health, unseasonal weather, melting glaciers.
D: measures to control climate change, which lead to: solar radiation management, emphasizing carbon storage, and reducing carbon emission.
(Solar radiation management means reflecting a little sunlight back to space, for example with white roofs. Ideas for doing it on a large scale, by spraying particles high in the sky, are still only being studied, and are very controversial.)

The picture says the future of the Earth is in our hands.

• Methane: food and other organic waste in a dump rots without air and gives off methane, a greenhouse gas about 80 times as strong as CO₂ over 20 years.
• Burning: rubbish dumps often burn, or are set on fire, releasing carbon dioxide and black smoke (black carbon), which also warms the air and darkens Himalayan snow so it melts faster.
• Waste of resources: everything thrown away took energy (and so emissions) to make.

What helps: separating waste at home, composting kitchen waste, recycling plastic, paper and metal, using less plastic, and never burning rubbish.

(Good news first: the one-horned rhino is no longer on the verge of extinction in Nepal. Its numbers rose from about 100 in the late 1960s to 752 in 2021, and the IUCN now lists it as vulnerable, not endangered. But it still needs protection.)

1. Stop poaching: army and park patrols, strict punishment, and action against the trade in rhino horn.
2. Protect its habitat: the grasslands and wetlands of Chitwan, Bardiya, Shuklaphanta and Parsa; remove invasive weeds like mikania that smother its food plants.
3. Spread the population: move some rhinos to other parks (as Nepal has done to Bardiya and Shuklaphanta), so one disease or flood can’t wipe them all out.
4. Count and study them regularly.
5. Involve local people: share park income with buffer-zone communities, compensate damage to crops, and run awareness programs.

Main reason: lack of knowledge. Most people don’t know which local plants are medicinal, which part to use, how much, or how to prepare it, and the traditional knowledge of older people is being lost. There is also little research, processing or market for local herbs, so ready-made medicines are easier to get.
What can be done:

1. Record the knowledge of elders and traditional healers before it is lost (Project work 6.3’s handbook is a start).
2. Teach about local herbs in schools and communities.
3. Grow medicinal plants in home gardens, school gardens and community forests.
4. Train local people to process and sell herbs.
5. Support research, so that the herbs that really work, and their safe doses, are known.