This study assessed the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on production, trade and income of smallholder vegetables growers in the Kathmandu valley, Nepal. We made a scenario-based situation analysis of pre-COVID (January to March 2020) and COVID-19 pandemic induced lockdown (April to June 2020) situations. The study used a descriptive research design and employed multistage sampling techniques. One hundred forty-five vegetable growers were surveyed and six focus group discussions were carried out between May to July 2020 in the three municipalities- Chandragiri, Mahalaxmi and Changunarayan of Kathmandu, Lalitpur and Bhaktapur districts respectively. The study showed that the income of smallholders' vegetable growers was decreased by 66.1 percent due to an increase in input price (16.9 percent), a decrease in output price (62.67 percent), and low farm productivity (9.3 percent) in comparison with the pre-COVID period. This paper has figured out the impact pathways that caused the income decline of vegetable growers. The primary constraints to smallholder producers were the absence of local aggregators followed by transportation barriers, limited market opening hours, and mobility obstruction and changed consumers' behavior due to lockdown. Majority of the farmers adjusted to the situations by selling their products at lower prices, free distribution to the local inhabitants, and composting and dumping the surpluses. The study concluded that this kind of analysis is necessary to develop resilient supply chains and extend appropriate support to the smallholder farmers who are critical actor to the supply chains.

Climate change (CC) has become one of the intervening issues in the last few decades. Climate change can severely affect the way community is living, prominently the developing countries. Climate change brings out wide ranging effects on water resources, agriculture, human health and biodiversity. The study was conducted in ward number 3, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 13 of Kamalamai municipality Sindhuli, Nepal. The methods adopted for the data were key informant interviews, group discussions and observations. In order to support the primary data and secondary data were also used. The secondary sources of Data were obtained from the public documents of the different ministries, departments, Central Bureau of Statistics and journal articles. Group discussions, Key informant interviews and observation were carried out to identify the impact of climate change on vegetation and agriculture. The findings of the study show that majority of the household perceived the impact of climate change on vegetation and agriculture while very few people were unknown about the impact. Climate change expected to cause many other climatic hazards, which directly affect the economy and livelihoods of the people.

This study aimed to understand the tourist attractions, major tourism products and their assessment in Manaslu Conservation Area of Nepal MCA). MCA is a place well known both, nationally and internationally, for its scenic beauty, unique ecology, and rich cultural heritage, given by its geographic position and unique topography. The number of tourists visiting this area has been increasing every year. In 2001 the tourist flow was only 798 whereas in 2019 it was 7655. Such tourism growth has several socio-economic and cultural consequences. Along with the increased number of tourists, tourism focused facilities and infrastructures like hotels and tea shops are also increasing in the area. There are 127 hotels with 1328 rooms and 2827 beds (as of 2019) providing food and accommodation services for the visitors. However, even though there are many potential areas for tourism development in the Manaslu Conservation Area, because of less promotional practices, there is very little tourism activity in the region. With the area's diverse physiography, unique landscape, biodiversity and the social-cultural dimension of the villages, the area could provide plenty of attractions for tourism.

Nepal has been strongly influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic and struggling to contain it with multiple interventions. We assessed the spatiotemporal dynamics of COVID-19 in the context of various restrictions imposed to contain the disease transmission by employing prospective spatiotemporal analysis with SaTScan statistics. We explored active and emerging disease clusters using the prospective space-time scanning with the Discrete Poisson model for two time periods using COVID-19 cases reported to the Ministry of Health and Population (MoHP), Government of Nepal during 23 January – 21 July, and 23 January – 29 November 2020 taking the cutoff date of 21 July (end date of nationwide lockdown). The results revealed that COVID-19 dynamics in the early transmission stage were slower and confined to a few districts. However, since the third week of April, transmission spread rapidly across the districts of Madhesh and Sudurpaschim Provinces. Despite nationwide lockdown, nine statistically significant active and emerging clusters were detected between 23 January and 21 July 2020, whereas seven emerging clusters were observed for an extended period to 29 November. After lifting the nationwide lockdown, COVID-19 clusters developed had a many-fold higher relative risk than during the lockdown period. The most likely cluster was located in the capital city, the Kathmandu valley, making it the highest-risk active cluster since August. Movement restriction appears to be the most effective non-pharmaceutical intervention against the COVID-19 in countries with limited health care facilities. Our findings could be valuable to the health authorities within Nepal and beyond to better allocate resources and improve interventions on the pandemic for containing it efficiently.

Lamjung is highly rich in its vast and valuable Non-Timber Forest Products (NTFP) including different kinds of valuable medicinal and aromatic plants. Nepal is a mountainous country, where most of the people are depend on forest resources for their livelihood. Non-Timber Forest Product (NTFPs) plays a crucial role in the rural livelihood. NTFPs serve as a source for their primary health, nutrition, income generation, energy (fuel wood) and material for a social-cultural and religious ceremony. The research was carried out the specific objectives of identification availability NTFPs, Role of NTFP in local livelihood, prospects, and problems to develop NTFP in the study area. The study was carried out in Chiti, Jita and Taksar Village Development Committee (VDC) of Lamjung District. Primary data were collected through Focus Group Discussion, House Hold Survey, Key Informant Interview, use inventory sheet and direct field observation. Secondary data were collected from different DFO office, library, journals, published articles, reports, online reports etc. The quantitative data were analyzed by using appropriate statistical tools. The qualitative data were analyzed by descriptive measure and presented in forms of charts, figure and tables. There were 52 major NTFPs identified in the study area and all respondents have knowledge about NTFPs, but they are not involved to collect NTFP for commercial purpose. They use only household purposes such as firewood for energy, leaf litter for religious purpose, and wild food and fruits are used for domestic use. The main problems of the development of NTFPs people are gradually leaving use traditional knowledge about medicinal plants. Slowly they became dependent at modern product and most of the people are depending on remittance. NTFPs play a safety net role to assist communities in adverse situation such as crop failure under the current change in climate and variability. Most of the people have knowledge about value of NTFPs and traditional knowledge about medicinal herbs, but such a valuable knowledge regarding use value of NTFPs seems to be disappearing into the younger generations.