WHO WE ARE

The Nepal Himalayan landscape covers millions of hectares of steep mountains and hills extending from Nepal’s Far western Nepal to India’s Kangchenjunga Complex and to the Toorsa Strict Nature Reserve in Bhutan. It shelters immense biodiversity and is a vital source of water for people downstream. Already, the landscape and the people who depend on it are suffering from the severe effects of climate change. Limbu, Magar, Newar, Tamang, Rai, Sherpa and other Indigenous Peoples and ethnic communities are at greater risk of drought, flash floods, landslides and food shortages resulting from degradation of soils, erosion and changes in the composition of species. Deforestation exacerbates these risks. Measures to mitigate and adapt to climate change are crucial to the Nepalis and the world which depends on mountain ecosystems for water.

 

The Himalayan landscape in Nepal and the people and biodiversity it shelters are threatened by forest degradation and climate change. Empowered local communities must lead the sustainable development and the protection of this forested landscape, and at MEFBA we have the vision, skills, relationships and experience to support their leadership. Since last six years, we have helped the local communities in Nepal build their capacity to secure their land tenure and resource rights, govern and manage their lands and improve their livelihoods. Today, there are tremendous new opportunities in the Nepal Himalayan to further support local communities, government, civil society and the private sector to overcome these threats. We offer five entry points for action that will foster prosperous communities and a thriving landscape by capitalizing on the ambitions of the communities, our experience in Nepal and the work of many other organizations. Through our investments in the Nepal Himalayas, we can contribute directly to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations 2030 Agenda. By 2030, we can lift 50,000 people out of poverty, empower 16,000 women to take active roles in decision-making, strengthen the capacity of more than 115,000 people to adapt to climate change and foster sustainable management of 40,000 hectares of community forest and regenerate 25,000 hectares of smallholder farm soils.

The Sustainable Development Goals were adopted by the United Nations in 2015 as a call-to-action for people worldwide to address five critical areas of importance by 2030: people, planet, prosperity, peace, and partnership. These Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) are a collection of 17 global goals aimed at improving the planet and the quality of human life around the world by the year 2030.

The accumulated experiences from community and smallholder forestry amassed over many decades offer invaluable lessons for furthering progress towards the SDGs, while supporting local forest-farm based development. The success of community and smallholder forestry farm is largely dependent on a number of conditions, which interact in complex ways. They can be grouped into four broad categories:

1. Policies, institutions and governance, including land tenure and rights to forests and trees, regulatory framework and public administration, representation, participation and stakeholder cooperation, mechanisms for decision making, issues of power, enforcement of laws and regulations, and reconciliation of cross-sectoral policies and issues
2. Empowerment, capacities and culture, including education, technical, managerial and leadership capacities, issues related to security and conflict, gender issues and culture
3. Economic opportunities and access to markets, including livelihoods, commercial opportunities, linkages to markets and value chains and access to capital
4. Extent and condition of natural resources, including the extent of forest area, forest condition, forest health, age and species structure 


The experiences from community and smallholder forestry also reveal common constraints and barriers associated with the conditions included in these four broad categories that often limit the success of community and smallholder forest/farm and its potential contributions towards the SDGs. Significantly, many of the SDGs and associated targets specifically address these constraints. As a consequence, progress on these SDGs would help reduce or eliminate a number of these constraints and barriers and support community and smallholder forestry/agro-forestry.

• Fostering sustainable, inclusive and gender equitable management of mature plantations led by communities
• Building a multi-stakeholder platform to create synergies between natural resource management and local development based on EbA (ecosystem-based adaptation)
• Enhancing the climate resilience of local communities by increasing forest and agro-forestry based opportunities and income
• Building a women’s leadership circle to empower gender equality champions by rebalancing power by building climate equity from the ground up
• Building the capacity of Indigenous Peoples and ethnic communities living in the fragile mountain regions to adapt to climate change

 

Creating value for all stakeholders for generations to come is at the core of our strategic framework – by sustaining forests and small hold farms, investing in people (with focus on women, IP and the youths), improving the planet, creating innovative nature based products and delivering inspired performance. The Mt. Everest Forest Botanicals Alliance Roadmap will lead to continued sustainable development in the agro – forestry sector and help realize our unique potential for positive impact.

Is to advance the SDG Agenda through bio economy and a thriving community agro-forestry sector that sustains healthy productive forests & people’s well-being in Nepal and the Himalayan Biosphere Systems.

Mt Everest Forest Botanicals Alliance is grassroots based national platform for strategic collaboration across the forest and farm products value chain. Together we aim to bring more of Nepal’s forests under sustainable management, expand markets for responsible forest products and ensure growth and vitality of forest resources today and for future generations.

Mt. Everest Forest Botanicals Alliance goal indicators cover six key areas of sustainability for the forest & farm sector:

• Landscape, Forest/Agro-forestry Management & Fiber Sourcing
• Resource Management
• Energy & Climate
• Water & soil Stewardship
• Health & Safety
• Supply Chain Co-impacting

The Mt. Everest Forest Botanicals Alliance SDG Protocol presents the forest sector’s current alignment with the SDGs. It identifies the above six core SDGs, where the sector and its value chain have the highest potential to influence, drive sector transformation and create long-term value:

• SDG 6 (clean water and sanitation),
• SDG 7 (affordable and clean energy),
• SDG 8 (decent work and economic growth),
• SDG 12 (responsible consumption and production),
• SDG 13 (climate action), and
• SDG 15 (life on land).

Our core values are key to achieving our mission to create a better future for people and nature. These values form the compass that guides the way we work with our partners in the community forests and small hold farms.

Impact is our driver, the reason we exist. We are passionate about solving some of the most urgent environmental and social challenges of our time, from deforestation, soil degeneration, climate change, and biodiversity loss to rural poverty and rebalancing the power dynamics in gender issues. We’re implementing proven and scalable solutions on the ground while testing innovative ways and technology to drive change.

Our alliance is all about changing the way the world produces, sources and consumes. We amplify our impact through change across the entire supply chain, change in the relationship between people and nature, and change within our own organization.

 

We generate new ideas and are not afraid to leap into the unknown. Only by constantly asking for feedback, evaluating, adapting, and innovating can we create the kind of impact we want to make.

Our greatest strength is our alliance itself. We are an alliance of farmers, forest communities, companies and consumers committed to creating a world where people and nature thrive in harmony.

 

Working together as a team across departments and geographies towards a common mission allows us to collaborate with our stakeholders around the globe, create impact where it is needed and learn from each other. We take pride in our work, celebrate our successes and have fun together. 

Building an alliance requires being open to the contribution, perspectives and needs of all our diverse allies and colleagues around the globe. Together we strive to address some of the most pressing social and environmental challenges of today—this is only possible by being open about their complexity and creating better understanding around them.

We are a diverse and dispersed organization, with colleagues located in strategic places across the globe to create the biggest impact. Working together across geographies demands that we are open and honest, so that we can support each other in the best way possible.

We build relationships based on trust, respect and integrity. We embrace transparency as the best way to build trust across our alliance. With our work we lay the foundation for trust between farmers, companies and consumers. Trust enables us to amplify each other’s voices and together be a bolder, louder force for good.

 

Our motivated team is highly knowledgeable and professional and we trust colleagues to take the right decision with the best intentions in mind and we hold ourselves accountable for our commitments.