How a hydro project company violated the rights of Nepal’s indigenous communities

The list of alleged crimes and lies is long: accusations of forging local signatures, signing children’s names on contracts, creating false reports, bulldozing through farmlands under the cover of night and trapping sacred animals.

While speaking with Mongabay, Karma Bhutia had dozens of legal documents running through his hands, spilling over his desk, enough to fill a book, all pointing to Sangrila Urja Pvt Ltd, a Nepali hydropower company. The Chyamtang activist and adviser to the Chyamtang-Kathmandu Welfare Society was exasperated.

“They [the company] put price tags on our rivers, our sacred forests and biodiversity and did not even ask what we wanted,” Karma said. “If not for the community’s resistance, we would have lost everything at the hands of government.”

Nepal is experiencing a hydropower construction boom to meet its increasing energy demands, and the Himalayan Sankhuwasabha district in Lungbasamba where Bhutia lives is no exception. With this infrastructure boom also comes a trail of conflicts with nearby Indigenous communities, many of which rely directly on the land for survival, and a steady mix of reportedly illegal activities and rights violations. Often, the projects still go through, and communities say they feel swept under the rug. This particular conflict, however, briefly made global headlines after celebrity Leonardo DiCaprio amplified...

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