- In 2024, Indigenous Bhote-Singsa people filed a writ petition against a hydropower project expressing concerns over what they say is a flawed EIA, forged signatures and community rights violations in Lungbasamba landscape, a biocultural heritage home to endangered flora and fauna.
- More than a year since the petition, leaders say the construction work has progressed in the absence of an interim order from the court to halt the construction, which has impacted their livelihoods, supported by farming, yak herding and trade in medicinal herbs.
- Demanding the project’s cancellation with an interim order to halt the ongoing construction activities, and to declare the EIA void, leaders filed another petition in November.
- Given the criticisms over the project and impacts outlined by the EIA report, the company says it still looks forward to the project, which is set to be completed in 2028.
Amid rounds of court hearings and the decision pending on a 2024 writ petition, Indigenous Singsa-Bhote community leaders of the Lungbasamba region in northeastern Nepal have filed another writ petition at the country’s Supreme Court.
Community members from Ridak, one of the affected villages, say they filed the petition demanding the cancellation of the Chhujung River Hydropower Project (63 MW), declaring the environmental impact assessment (EIA) void and issuing an interim order to halt construction activities until the court’s final decision.
“The second writ petition was timely, given the increasing impacts from construction work on the community people, their lands and livelihoods,” says Dhenduk Dhoma Bhote, one of the writ petitioners and a community leader from Ridak village.
“We demand the project’s cancellation and halt construction activities that have operated under a flawed EIA,” Bhote says. “Villagers are worried and fear being displaced from their ancestral lands and forests, which they have long depended on for their livelihoods,” he says.
Sources say that not only about 81 households in Ridak, but also about 22 households in Thudam and 125 in Chyamtang are among the most affected by the project. While people in Chyamtang completely depend on agriculture, and those in Thudam on yak (Bos grunniens) herding, Bhote says people in Ridak rely on both herding and trading medicinal herbs for their livelihoods.
“Our ancestors have not known any other occupation than yak herding,” Lhakpa Tsering, a 22-year-old nomadic herder, tells Mongabay. “If the company asks us to leave these pasturelands, I don’t know where our community will end up without the ancestral work.”
The nomadic herders’ community in Thudam, Tsering says, depends on yaks’ milk and chhurpi (Himalayan cheese) as a source of food and trade, as well as furs to fight the harsh winters. The village, located near the Tibetan Plateau, is surrounded by many glacial lakes where the herders graze their yaks in the summertime, between May and October, and bring them to the pasturelands the rest of the freezing months.
According to the EIA that Mongabay reviewed, the company plans to use about 192,000 tons of explosives and 188,000 detonators for construction, which locals say would directly impact the 26 glacial lakes located around 2-5 kilometers (1.2-3.1 miles) away. In addition to the EIA, it also excludes the mention of threatened wildlife species like red panda (Ailurus fulgens), blue sheep (Pseudois nayaur), Asiatic black bear (Ursus thibetanus), Himalayan goral (Naemorhedus goral), snow leopard (Panthera uncia), musk deer (Moschus leucogaster) and Himalayan monal (Lophophorus impejanus), which locals say are found in the Lungbasamba landscape, an ecosystem protected as a biocultural heritage site and surrounded by the Makalu Barun National Park and Kanchenjunga Conservation Area.
Chairperson of Sangrila Urja Pvt. Ltd., Kishor Subedi anticipates no such harm to the ecosystem and says the communities have consented to the project. “There is no turning back after almost 20% of the work is completed, with 400 ropanis [20.3 hectares or 50 acres] of land required for the project purchased from the government and millions spent on the construction,” he says. When asked about the false information included in the EIA report, he says those were human errors and that the project, when completed, would do more good than harm to the community.
Bhote says more trees, including protected species like loth salla (Taxus wallichiana), have been felled in the name of construction since the project started in 2021, while the EIA mentions that 952 trees will be cut down. He says the communities depend on different medicinal herbs like padamchal (Rheum australe), kutki (Neopicrorhiza scrophulariiflora), pakhanbed (Bergenia ciliata and B. ligulata), jatamansi (Nardostachys jatamansi) and panchaunle (Dactylorhiza hatagirea) to earn their living.
“The rich forests where we collect the herbs from are under threat from construction. Once the project progresses, Ridak and Thudam are at risk of being displaced without any compensation,” he tells Mongabay.
Subedi says the company has paid about $4800 per ropani i.e., 0.05 hectare (0.12 acre) of compensation to a few households in Chyamtang but denies the need to pay compensation to the rest of the two villages, as the project doesn’t impact their lands. However, the EIA mentions the direct impacts on Ridak and Thudam.
“Despite the impacts, neither the company organized a public hearing in these villages nor did any member from Thudam and Ridak participate in the 2022 public hearing in Chyamtang,” Bhote says.
The EIA mentions 20 hectares of land proposed for the project. However, in a 2024 news report, Mongabay found that the project area is 90 times bigger, at about 1,800 hectares (more than 4,400 acres), than what is mentioned in the EIA report.
Although the company obtained survey permission from the Department of Electricity Development for electricity generation from the Chhujung River, Lakpa Angjuk Bhote, secretary of Chyamtang-Kathmandu Welfare Society, says the company has been illegally using the Chhunjam River for electricity generation without a separate EIA for the river.
The Chhujung and Chhunjam rivers are tributaries of the Arun River, which originates in the Tibetan Plateau.
“Our water resources and rivers nourish our lives and are sacred to us,” says Angjuk Bhote, a previous writ petitioner. “We annually worship the deities in the Chhujung River and Changbu,” a local name for the Arun River.
While the previous writ petition raises concerns over the absence of the community people’s free, prior and informed consent and participation in the project, senior lawyer Padam Bahadur Shrestha says the new petition focuses on the project’s flawed EIA and impacts not only on people’s livelihoods but also on the entire ecosystem and biodiversity. “The project’s cancellation and issuing an interim order to halt the ongoing construction activities are the major demands,” Shrestha, who is pleading the lawsuit, tells Mongabay.
“The next hearing on the case is on December 14 and we hope the court will deliver its judgment by then.”
Banner image: Herders cross the Lungasamba pass with their yaks. Image by Chyamtang-Kathmandu Welfare Society.
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