Cook electric
Practical Action
Pressure on forest resources became an issue in the area when the pastoral traditions of the
Gurungs - whose ancestors came down to Nepal's middle hills from the Tibetan plateau - gave
way to settled agriculture. The growing population and, more recently, the arrival of tourists have
increased this pressure.
It is not simply the increase in numbers that causes the problems. Tourists are 'hungry' for
resources - particularly energy. The average tourist requires at least three times as much energy
as a Nepali householder because of their demands for hot water and special kinds of cooking.
Recent decades have also seen the erosion of traditional social control mechanisms for resource
management, or ritithiti. Forest resources and land used to be owned and controlled communally,
and distributed according to family requirements. People grazed their cattle on a rotational basis,
and collected fodder and fuelwood from particular areas at certain times. But the traditional
systems failed to adapt quickly enough to keep pace with the rapidly increasing pressure on
resources. A new approach to resource management was needed.
ACAP
Enter the King Mahendra Trust for Nature Conservation's Annapurna Conservation Area Project
(ACAP). The project was established in 1986 to help communities meet the challenges of
tourism and development without compromising the environment. ACAP's policy of 'conservation
through development aims to keep people in the conservation equation, rather than trying to shut
them out. ACAP adopted Ghandruk as its headquarters and began working with the villagers on a
variety of projects including forest conservation, alternative energy, conservation education, health
and sanitation.
From the beginning ACAP emphasized community participation, helping to set up village
committees to oversee activities. Its work in the energy field began with forest management
schemes: launching re-afforestation programmes, introducing a 'kerosene only' policy for the
region around the Annapurna Sanctuary, where fuel wood was severely depleted, and promoting
solar water heaters and back boilers in the tourist lodges.
Solar water heaters were only partly successful. They proved useful for hot showers, but are
prohibitively expensive for many households and tourist lodges. Back boilers - which are
installed behind the cooking stove and heat up water passively - were adopted more widely but
still depended on firewood.
In the light of these developments and the increasing
pressure on fuelwood resources, ACAP began - as part of
its conservation activities - to consider the potential for
electric cooking through the construction of a micro-
hydro scheme. After detailed feasibility studies, work
began on this ambitious project, which represented a
major investment for the village.
The Ghandruk micro-hydro
The Ghandruk scheme generates power by diverting a
stream that rushes past the village on its precipitous
drop to the valley basin. This stream is no more than a
metre wide in the dry season, but it generates 50 kW of
power: enough to provide electric light for every house
in the village, and for all the lodges and 20 per cent of
families to cook with electricity.
Most of the equipment needed for the micro-hydro unit
was made by Nepali manufacturers. It was installed by
Development and Consulting Services, a Nepali non-
5
Figure 9: Villagers preparing a
water channel at Sikles village,
near Ghandruk. Community
participation is an essential
element of micro-hydro schemes.