WITHOUT F EAR OR FAVOUR Nepal’s largest selling English daily Vol XXVIII No. 199 | 8 pages | Rs.5 O O Printed simultaneously in Kathmandu, Biratnagar, Bharatpur and Nepalgunj 34.2 C 14.0 C Friday, September 11, 2020 | 26-05-2077 Nepalgunj Jomsom Ruling party calls on cadres to stop criticising its policies on social media Leaders and analysts see this as a step to shrink democratic space within the party as well as the larger society and it will be opposed. TIKA R PRADHAN and all three tiers of government will KATHMANDU, SEPT 10 be resolved and the party decides to control all differences, indiscipline As the months-long conflict within the and factional activities,” states the ruling Nepal Communist Party seems document. to have been resolved and the post- But party leaders have said the poned Standing Committee meeting move was nothing but a ploy to shut set to start Friday, the party leader- the dissenting voices against the ship, fearing widespread dissent, now hegemony of the two chairs who have seems intent on smothering opposing taken over the control of the party. voices within the party. “Most leaders of the party have Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli and been airing their views through differ- Pushpa Kamal Dahal, the two chairs, ent media because party meetings are having settled their differences, have not held, but it does not mean that now proposed a ban on criticising they can’t express their opinions party policies, leaders and cadres through social media,” said Ram through social media which party Kumari Jhakri, a central committee leaders and experts say could shrink member and a lawmaker. “We have democratic space within the ruling sacrificed a lot for this constitutional POST PHOTO: HEMANTA SHRESTHA party. right and we won’t let it go.” A shop selling copper kitchenware and other household items in Kathmandu opens on Thursday after a three-week long closure due to the Covid-19 restrictions. Authorities decided to ease the “Responsible comrades and the Party leaders had already been prohibitory orders in place since August 19 by announcing various rules, like odd-even vehicle scheme, only takeaway service for restaurants and allowing different shops to open on different all concerned are directed to complaining against the lack of due days of the week. strictly stop the tendency to write non- procedure like holding meetings regu- sense against the party’s larly, thus shrinking the democratic policies, leaders and cadres and to act space. in opposition to the benefit of the The central committee meeting, party,” says the chairs’ proposal to be which must be held every six months presented at the Standing Committee as per the party statute, has been held Killing of a one-horned rhino after 41 months of zero on Friday. only two times in more than two years “With effective implementation of and the first meeting was held just to institutional decisions taken through collect citizenship certificates of the poaching is worrisome for conservationists, authorities certain procedures the problem of members. factionalism spreading in the party >> Continued on page 2 The death of a rhino in Chitwan National Park leaves conservationists fearing pandemic might see a new start of poaching incidents similar to the past if left unchecked. National Park, and three in Parsa National Park. Thousands of rhinos once roamed the jungles of southern plains before their number fell sharply in the 1950s and the 1960s. The rhino population slowly recovered with the establish- ment of Chitwan sanctuary in 1973. However, the decade-long armed conflict and political instability once again saw a massive decline in the population of rhinos and other wild- life in protected areas. Rhino conservation suffered its worst during the decade-long armed conflict between 1996 and 2006 when 157 rhinos were killed by poachers. Forty-eight rhinos died in each of the fiscal years 2001-02 and 2002-03. Of these, 37 were killed by poachers in 2001-2002 and 32 the next year. In the past 22 years, a total of 502 one- horned rhinos have died inside Chitwan National Park from various POST FILE PHOTO causes. Rhinos are killed for their horns but in this case it had not been removed. Rhino horn grounded into powder is believed to cure cancer and other CHANDAN KUMAR MANDAL The death by gunshot wound after diseases in Chinese medicine and KATHMANDU, SEPT 10 the longest ever gap on record has fetches up to USD60,000 per kilo on the nonetheless come as a shock for con- black market. A one-horned rhino has been killed in servationists in Nepal, since this In the last few years, when illegal Nepal after 1,249 days. could be an indication of more poach- poaching of rhinos had been largely It may be a long time since the last ing while security forces are focussed controlled, the unprecedented surge time a rhino was killed but it has wor- elsewhere. in natural death of rhinos has come as ried conservationists reminding them “We have witnessed a similar pat- a new challenge. of a time rampant poaching of the tern before 2006 when the country was There has been an unprecedented wildlife in the country’s protected in the midst of armed conflict which rise in the death of rhinos due to nat- areas when the country was facing saw a massive loss of wildlife,” said ural causes in the last four years. In another crisis in the form of an armed Kumar Paudel, a wildlife crime the fiscal year 2016-17, 25 rhinos were civilian conflict. researcher. “This and other incidents reported dead, including one killed by On Tuesday, a rhino of about 20 of seizing of wild animal parts from poachers. Twenty-six rhinos died in years of age was found dead in different parts of the country indicate the following fiscal year 2017-18, 43 in Laukhani post area of Nawalparasi how the nationwide lockdown has 2018-19, and 26 in 2019-20 26. inside Chitwan National Park. seen an increase in poaching.” Before this sudden surge, the num- According to Haribhadra Acharya, There have been reports of move- ber of rhino deaths due to natural a spokesperson of the Department of ments of poachers and instances of causes was around 15 annually, National Park and Wildlife poaching inside protected areas. according to government data. Conservation, the rhino succumbed to Days after Nepal went into the lock- The ongoing pandemic and restric- the injury caused by a gunshot on its down, security forces killed a poacher tions have added a new challenge for head. in Parsa National Park on March 27. rhino conservation, say conservation- “Park officials had heard a gunshot In April, six Himalayan musk deer, an ists. a few days ago,” Acharya, who is also endangered species, were found dead “In the aftermath of the Covid-19, an ecologist with the department, told inside Sagarmatha National Park. people working abroad and in urban the Post. “We did not find the bullet at Since 2006, however, poaching inci- areas have gone back to their villages. the crime scene but the post-mortem dents have gone down drastically with Illegal poaching of the wildlife for report confirmed that the rhino suc- the country celebrating zero poaching easy and extra money could motivate cumbed to injury caused by a bullet.” years for rhinos several times in the them to kill wildlife,” said Paudel, “Since the rhino’s horn and other recent past. Zero poaching year means who is also the co-founder of parts were intact at the scene, 365 days without a single rhino killed Greenhood Nepal, a science-driven although poachers killed it, the parts by poachers. nonprofit that focuses on the human could not be sold in any illegal trade.” Since achieving the first zero poach- dimensions of conservation. ing year in 2011, the country has Paudel’s own research published achieved zero poaching years on earlier this year concluded that pover- six other occasions— in 2014, in ty alone was not the leading cause for 2015, in 2016, in 2018, in 2019 and involvement in illegal wildlife trade. in 2020. “Illegal poaching of wildlife has Before the latest killing and significantly increased even in South the 2017 incident, the last rhino Asian and African countries,” he said. was killed on May 3, 2014. “There have been instances of selling According to the 2015 rhino of wild animal parts on social media census, the latest year for which platforms even in Nepal. Since people figures are available, Nepal is have more free time and it also brings home to 645 rhinos—605 in extra income they are getting engaged Chitwan, 29 in Bardiya National in such activities.” Park, eight in Shuklaphanta >> Continued on page 2 C M Y K FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 2020 | 02 NATIONAL Take infected areas as clusters, restrict movement and speed up tests, say experts Doctors say that contact tracing and tests will be ineffective if Covid-19 spills over to the wider community. ARJUN POUDEL submit it in to a laboratory. KATHMANDU, SEPT 10 “Cluster cases can even be identi- fied by focusing on the address of the Kathmandu Valley reported 572 new infected people,” said Adhikari. cases of Covid-19 infection on “Targeted polymerase chain reaction Thursday, the highest single-day spike tests and pool tests can be done in in cases so far in the Valley. areas with more cluster cases. If we Of the 1,246 new cases reported in can’t perform tests, such areas should the last 24 hours throughout the coun- be locked for two weeks to prevent the try, 46 percent have been reported only spread of the infection.” in the capital on the first day after the As of Thursday, 50,465 persons have relaxation of the prohibitory order.