Heads of NTNC's main conservation partners were invited for a brief consultation meeting today at the NTNC Khumaltar Office to consult and make exchanges with the newly appointed NTNC Member Secretary Mr. Yajna Nath Dahal. Conservation partners in attendance included WWF Country Representative Dr Ghana Shyam Gurung, IUCN Nepal Country Representative Dr Prahlad Thapa, and ZSL Nepal Country Manager Dr Hem Sagar Baral.
The meeting started with a short presentation session by Dr Siddhartha Bajra Bajracharya, NTNC Executive Director, who oriented the visitors about NTNC's latest conservation initiatives and upcoming projects, including changes in its own institutional priorities and guiding principles with its newly revised thematic areas. Following this, heads of each of the conservation partners put forward their views about some of the concurrent strengths and challenges in the national conservation priorities and practices—from national-level planning to international policy to community-level interventions—focusing predominantly in the areas of ecosystem restoration, wildlife and biodiversity, to economy, development and tourism, protected area management modalities among others.
Throughout the consultations all of the participants maintained a common consensus about NTNC's opportunity to make a greater difference in conservation, with its new Member Secretary having over thirty years of experience working with the Ministry of Forests and Environment (MOFE), presently as a Joint Secretary at MOFE. Member Secretary Mr. Dahal communicated his commitment to strengthen the collective partnership of all those working to make a difference for conservation. He reiterated that it was "incumbent on organizations such as NTNC and its partners to ensure that nature continue to remain in better hands from one generation to another."
A similar meeting was held earlier during the day, where members from NTNC's Governing Board of Trustees were invited for deliberations with the new Member Secretary.
