Welcome, everyone, to the final episode of the ‘Nepal: Coexisting with Giants’ series. I’m your host, Brooke Mitchell-Norman, conservation biologist and world traveler.
If you’ve listened to the preceding four shows of this series, you’ve probably noticed that a very important voice has been missing. I felt the same way while I was in Nepal and was stoked when we had the chance to sit down with today’s guest.
Beeju Poudyal is a young Nepalese conservationist studying human-elephant conflict in non-protected areas. Elephants regularly visit her childhood village and cause havoc, and unlike other parts of the country, this village doesn’t receive any tourism benefits from living with wildlife. So, understandably, she grew to hate them. She had a revelation one day when her mother explained that elephants are mothers, too, and are doing their best to survive. Beeju felt inspired and went into forestry to study how to minimize human-elephant conflict in her home village. Now, she’s working as the Nepal Programs Manager for SeedTree and a researcher director for the Himalayan Conservation and Research Institute(HCRI).
We do a deep dive into human-elephant conflict in Nepal and what it’s like as a young woman navigating her way in a male-dominated field and culture.
Alright everyone. Here is my conversation with Beeju: