Ramesh Praja, 41, squatted in his one-storey house beside a dirt road in the remote village of Sillinge. The walls were dark with soot from a gas stove, which he lit with a match and set a heavy iron pan upon the burner. He poured a thin stream of cooking oil into the pan, which bubbled as it heated. 

Only a few years ago, this scenario would have been unthinkable for Ramesh. He is a member of Nepal’s traditionally nomadic Chepang community, who relied upon making and selling fragrant chiuri ghee  - a butter-like solid derived from the oil of chiuri fruit - for their living. Using packaged cooking oil was crude and almost unthinkable.

When Ramesh was born, his community traveled in nomadic groups through the forests of Nepal’s lower hills, surviving by harvesting seeds from the abundant chiuri trees, hunting bats, keeping bees, and fishing. The Chepangs are considered one of Nepal’s most marginalized groups, as they lack formal land ownership. Despite years of Government aid programs and economic reform, they are still struggling to integrate into a lifestyle and country that is changing before their eyes.

The key to understanding this change, and Ramesh’s aversion to cooking oil, is to look at the incredible yet fragile symbiosis between the Chepang community and the chiuri trees.

Ramesh grew up in the remote village of Sillinge, in Nepal’s Makawanpur district.  As a child he tagged along behind his father as he carried loads of handmade chiuri ghee to the local markets. Once the ghee was sold, his father would purchase a handful of essentials for the family, mainly clothing and salt. This was an exciting time for Ramesh, and he would wait in anticipation for the rare gift of something new to wear. 

Many men in the village made their living like Ramesh’s father. Their rough homes were deep in the middle of the jungle, surrounded by towering chiuri trees. It made sense that this would be the mainstay of their livelihoods: in addition to the nutritious ghee, the seed oil is a strong medicine that heals painful cracks in overworked hands and feet, the cake remaining after the oil is pressed works as both a fertilizer and a pesticide. The cake was particularly useful when thrown in the river, as it quickly summons scores of dead fish to be plucked off of the surface and fried in the delicate chiuri ghee.  

But, as Ramesh says, those days are over.

The once grand chirui forests have vanished at a pace that is hard to conceive.  Over the past decade, hastily built rural roads  have cut through the forests, destroying trees and eroding the soil. Many members of the Chepang community have turned to raising cattle, which now wander the forest, eating whatever young saplings manage to get a start in the disturbed soil.

“We only have old chiuri trees left in our village. New saplings aren’t protected from the goats and cattle,” said Ramesh, “We know that if chiuri trees aren’t protected, our Chepang community will be in real crisis. But we are still helpless when it comes to protecting the chiuri.” 

Fewer trees means fewer oil-rich chiuri seeds. Fewer seeds means less ghee, which in turn leads to less earning and fewer options for survival. The industry is dying out, and even traditional Chepang families like Ramesh have turned to buying cooking oil for their own use. 

The loss of chiuri trees has had a profound impact on the local ecosystem. Fewer trees also means less home for other animal species that the Chepang community depends upon - including bats.

Bats are considered a delicacy in Chepang culture, and are an essential offering for rituals and when important guests come to visit. The year-round blossoms of the chiuri trees would draw the bats into the thick canopy, where they are easy to catch. 

Another tradition that has disappeared is gifting chiuri saplings as a dowry for young brides - the younger generation simply isn’t interested in raising the trees. 

“For us, no chiuri trees means no life,” says Ram’s neighbor Motiram Chepang, 58. He adds, “the most worrying thing is that the old chiuri trees are disappearing much faster than we expected.”
For generations, Nepal’s government recognized the importance of the chiuri trees for the Chepang community by distributing certificates to community members that granted family ownership of trees that grew on government land. As Nepal transitioned from a monarchy to a nascent republic, this practice remained strong in principle and practice. Currently, the Chepang community still retains ‘ownership’ of the trees through participation in local community forest user groups. 

These groups have banded together to plant more than 10,000 new saplings over the past decade in the village of Sillinge alone. However, this strategy has limited effect due to extensive cattle grazing. This pattern has played out in villages across the region.

Dipan Lal Praja, 31, states “Despite having tradition and ownership in our favor, we’re worried that the chiuri trees are disappearing on their own. We are working to save them, but it seems to be futile.” 

In Sillinge, the community has invested in constructing 2-meter tall metal fencing around each sapling as a means of preserving their efforts. 

With few other options, Ramesh and most of his neighbors have invested in commercial beekeeping, hoping they can stay connected to the forest ecosystem while generating a decent income. But this too is dependent upon the health of the chiuri forest. The fragrant blossoms  are the main food source for the bees, which produce a delicious and highly valuable honey. 

Due to a lack of healthy, mature trees in the region many beekeepers are forced to move their hives away from the forest and into larger tracts of land along the Indian border in the summer, which brings excessive transportation expenses and other significant costs including the ‘rental’ of pastureland from local landowners.  

In so many ways, the close relationship between the Chepang community and the chiuri forest is an apt metaphor for Nepal’s relationship to the natural environment as a whole. Centuries-old traditions are disappearing across our nation as we wrestle with rapid political, economic and demographic shifts. Our future as a nation is inextricably tied to the health of our natural resources, including the chiuri trees. Protecting these resources for the future is made doubly challenging given the increased volatility and destruction resulting from climate change. The future of Ramesh and his community is, truly, a snapshot of our own.

Last summer Ramesh brought his beehives to a pasture in Chitwan, hoping for a lucrative harvest there. During the COVID-19 lockdown, he was unable to travel to check on his hives. When he was finally able to, he found that 85 of his hives, valued at nearly a million rupees, had been washed away in a flood. 

When he told me of this last defeat, Ramesh just looked at the ground, dejected, and said: “Those bees were like my children.”